Overall, a three star read. One that I would recommend for anyone who’s like me and just loves those strong, take charge men. In the spirit of full disclosure, this is not my favorite Howard book, and I would probably have given this a lower rating (maybe), but I just LOVED the Hero here. I have a serious crush on Eric ❤️😂. He’s my new book boyfriend; I just love everything about him! He’s strong, sexy, has a great sense of humor, and I loved the way he falls in love with our heroine, Jacqlyn. He shoved his arms into his shirtsleeves, but disdained to button the garment, leaving it hanging open. "I'm ready." He kissed her, and patted her butt. "Don't get your feathers ruffled, chérie. All you have to do is change clothes. The rest of you looks beautiful just as you are."

Clarinda Ross was OK with the narration. Her male voices were below average and the love scenes were narrated in a sort of blah tone that made you wonder if they were enjoying themselves but she wasn't terrible. She did a good job with the Southern accents though. It goes without saying that Linda Howard is an incredible writer, my personal favorite in the romantic suspense genre. I would read anything written by her. That includes her grocery list. I'm sure it would be interesting. The main characters are completely unreal. The alpha male must be tough, jealous, insensitive and in love, so he is, who cares about the context. She must love him, whatever he does. She must be a good girl, proud, strong, independent, but her qualities suddenly disappear when she sees him. For a little while, he had been happy. That first Christmas after **** left had made him delirious with joy. He had sat for hours, too tired to play but content to stare at the twinkling lights on the Christmas tree.’ She shook her head. “I wasn’t here. I’d been grocery shopping. I came home, put up the groceries, then went out to get the mail.”New upgraded rating because I just can’t stop thinking about this book! I think I loved it enough to add this to my “all time faves” shelf. I just read it for the first time about a month ago, and I’ve already reread it about twice now lol. I was in a kind of dreamy 'book-love' in this romance already after a feew chapter... or minutes really. The night that so mercilessly changed both their lives. One horrible night no one can ever forget! The hate, anger, and roughness of the gritty degradation is impossible to wash off. Yep, you can imagine how that turns out, and that is what causes the endless hate between the Rouillards and the Devlins.

It turns out the Jaclyn saw the probable murderer as she was leaving the meeting with Carrie. She was so upset and angry that she didn't really notice him other than that he was a grey-haired man driving some kind of silver car. Eric investigates Carrie's murder by interviewing her family and friends and discovers that quite a number of people want her dead. His fears that the murder will come after Jaclyn for fear that she recognized him are realized when Jaclyn becomes a near victim of a drive-by shooting. Very disappointing. I think I only finished because I usually like this author. The mystery/suspense was almost painful¸one of those in which the culprit would never get caught except that they start trying to kill the person who might have seen them do it. (Come on, if they had actually seen you do it, someone would have had a warrant out by now!) Not to mnetion that those attempts on her life were so feeble as to be almost laughable. I couldn't work up the slightest sense of apprehension. Sure.” She led Faith to a table on which a large globe stood. “Here are all the maps and atlases. They’re updated yearly, so if it’s an older map you need, you’ll have to go to the archives.” The best smell in the world, Faith thought as she meandered through the woods, staring up at the captured sunlight and holding her secret happiness cradled deep in her chest, was Gray Rouillard. Faith lived for the glimpses of him she got in town, and if she was close enough to hear the deep, dark rumble of his voice, she trembled with joy. Today she'd gotten close enough to smell him, and he had actually touched her! She was still giddy from the experience.

Table of Contents

There is a little tragey, an unrequinted love and betrayal. Gray's mother is a top notch bitch, to me she is worse than Faith's mother. In a way Gray, Faith and Gray's father suffered because of her. The crimes are also done in her favour, when she didn't even participate in any human business.

The problem is, most everyone—from the cake maker and the florist to the wedding-gown retailer and the bridesmaids’ dressmaker—had his or her own reason for wanting the bride dead, including Jaclyn. And while those who felt Carrie’s wrath are now smiling at her demise, Jaclyn refuses to celebrate tragedy, especially since she finds herself in the shadow of suspicion. It makes no sense and does no difference that I write a thousand positive adjectives about this amazing 20 years old Howard romance. Most of you have probably already read it anyway. But a few short words...After the Night is also the story about the truth about that (by then 12 years old) devastating scandal surrounding Faith's mother and Gray's father elopement and shameless sex-affair. For all that, he'd never been unkind to Faith, the way some of the people in town had. His sister, Monica, had once spat in their direction when Faith and Jodie had met her on the sidewalk. Faith was glad that Monica was in New Orleans at some fancy private girls' school, and wasn't home very often even during the summer, because she was visiting with friends. On the other hand, Faith's heart had bled for months when Gray had gone off to LSU; Baton Rouge wasn't that far away, but during football season he didn't get much time off, and came home only on the holidays. Whenever she knew he was home, Faith tried to hang around town where she might catch a glimpse of him, strolling with the indolent grace of a big cat, so tall and strong and dangerously exciting. Finding a quality man like this who considers women "pieces of ass" is tough, but we have one here. He sees a woman at a bar and figures she MUST be either meeting a date or looking to get laid, because a woman having a drink at a bar has to be looking for a man. Unlike men. They can go to bars to watch the game, sit alone, maybe chat with other guys without anyone thinking anything about it. But women. Well, we all know how women are.... She had been on her way to town for yet another factfinding mission, this time to try having a word with Yolanda Foster, so there was a certain irony to the timing of the note’s appearance. After a moment’s consideration, she decided that she was still going to try. If the writer wanted her to take the threat seriously, he or she would have to be more specific.

If Gray's father, Guy, was as beautiful doing it as Gray was, Faith thought fiercely, she didn't blame Renee for choosing him over Pa. Holy hell, they have an intense, sexy coupling...*whew* Maybe this has the potential for a relationship? But then Jaclyn's client Carrie is murdered, Eric is the lead detective on the case, and it looks like Jaclyn is initially the prime suspect. There goes any future Eric and Jaclyn might have. Eric's only doing his job, he doesn't really think that Jacyln's the murderer, but Jaclyn is miffed that he would even suspect her! Plenty of people have had dust-ups with obnoxious bride-to-be Carrie, but who wanted to see her dead? That's what Eric has to figure out, and Jaclyn may be able to help him. But will what she knows make her a target for the killer? Will Jaclyn ever forgive Eric and give him another chance?She was shaking her head before he’d finished speaking, the movement making the sleek bell of her hair swing about her face. “You wouldn’t do something like that,” she said with absolute conviction. “Any more than you would have left me the first note.” Prescott being the size it was, finding Meadowlark Drive took less than five minutes. The subdivision included acreage, rather than just lots, so the houses were fewer and farther apart than normal. There probably weren’t many people in Prescott who could afford to build there, either, as the houses looked to be in the two-hundred-thousand range. In the Northeast and along the West Coast, they would have been worth a cool million, easy. Jaclyn Wilde is a wedding planner who loves her job—usually. But helping Carrie Edwards with her Big Day has been an unrelenting nightmare. Carrie is a bridezilla of mythic nastiness, a diva whose tantrums are just about as crazy as her demands. But the unpleasant task at hand turns seriously criminal when Carrie is brutally murdered and everyone involved with the ceremony is accusing one another of doing the deed.