Reviewed by Becca
TITLE: Sun, Sea and Small-Town Secrets
AUTHOR: S.J. Coles
PUBLISHER: Pride Publishing
LENGTH: 193 pages
RELEASE DATE: July 6, 2021
BLURB:
Small towns are full of secrets, some harder to keep than most.
Sebastian Conway is a professional psychologist and accomplished criminal profiler, but when one of his patients is sentenced to life in prison for a crime she didn’t commit, he simply cannot let it go. His borderline obsessive behaviour has embarrassed his boss and lover, Gerrard Wilson, and the relationship has come to a bitter end.
Seb has now grudgingly taken Gerrard’s advice and come to the small coastal town of Ruéier in the South of France to get some distance and clear his head—but he cannot sit by and do nothing.
He has started writing a book he believes will address the failings in the case, but when he gets swept up in a local investigation into suspected drug trafficking, which is led by the enigmatic and strangely enticing Antoine Damboise, the book—and Seb’s intentions to avoid active criminal cases—take a back seat.
He knows it’s a bad idea to get involved, but he can’t seem to help himself. And when it seems Damboise is tempted to make their relationship more than professional, Seb finds it easier than ever to ignore his better judgment. But when a local drug dealer is murdered and Seb is implicated, everything gets a whole lot more complicated.
Can the two men set aside their personal feelings long enough to figure out what’s really going on before Seb ends up in prison? Or worse…
Reader advisory: This book contains scenes of murder and drug use.
REVIEW:
If any of you pay attention to anything I write, most of you will know I very, very rarely read blurbs. I’ve often found so many practically give you the story, that I feel like I don’t need to read the book. So I avoid them. I want to be surprised, hopefully in a good way, about it. And this was a good one. A VERY good surprise. I strongly recommend you pick this one up and read it. Especially if you love a good whodunit, murder mystery kind of story.
When I read the title of the book, I will be honest. I thought it was going to be one of those affair type stories, or something like that, and that’s why the Secret part was in the title. BOY, was I dead wrong and I couldn’t have been more happy about it. This is my first time reading this author and I’m hoping that they have more like this. It was so good.
I watch cop shows, or used to, on TV. I don’t know if you remember a show from the 90s called, The Profiler, but it was one of my favorites. And the CSI & CSI: Miami came along and I was hooked again. Of course, we all know that in real life it takes more than an hour to get evidence and catch the bad guy. If they can catch them at all. To think of all those cold cases. But anyway. I’ve always been fascinated by the profiler parts. Trying to figure out why people do what they do. And it’s sad to say that most of the time it’s usually for money, power or greed. And this book was another one of those cases.
When the book started out about Seb writing, I was curious as to what he was writing about. And that is one thing I have to add about this author as well. They have a way of kind of dragging things out a bit, but not in a bad way, but in a way that keeps you so hooked you want to skip ahead and see what happens. Of course, I didn’t, but still. But eventually we get to the heart of why Seb is in France. (He’s from the UK). We also find out he’s just caught himself up into something he didn’t want to be, to a point, because he can’t stop his brain from profiling people and seeing to the heart of them. Good or bad. But then we meet Antoine as well, and I really start to feel for these two. With Antoine being a French cop, Seb a profiler for the police back home, their worlds collide when Seb sees something he shouldn’t. And because he can’t keep his nose out of it, things are starting to point in directions he don’t want them to, and before you know it, he’s up to his eyeballs in murder and so much more. And Antoine as well.
But even with all that has happened in Seb’s past, he still knows what he’s doing. And even with Antoine, Antoine gets Seb. He gets his drive on why he is the way he is. Why he does certain things he does. And he listens. He may not agree, but he listens. And often finds that Seb is actually right. And they work well together. In spite of what’s going on around them, they have those kinds of brains that just mess the right way and it’s magic. The chemistry doesn’t hurt as well. But it’s those brains that end up helping them, when they think they have no one or no where else to turn. Because in something this big and bad, the players are many and you don’t know who you can trust. Not even your own partner. And it just caught me. I loved reading how Seb’s mind worked. Yeah, he’s impulsive. Sometimes that’s good, others not so much. But he figures things out so quickly. And I love how the author wrote him. He and Antoine both. Even the other cast of characters, bad or good, just add to everything that makes this book so good. Everything and everyone intertwines in a way that is shocking at some points, down right unbelievable at others, and leave you biting your nails at what’s coming next.
I know I probably rambled on too much in this, but this book just made me think of so many things and it was such a great surprise and a joy to read. I strongly recommend getting it.
RATING: 
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