A Dry Creek Bed by Avery Flynn (Dry Creek #2)

Available: NOW Amazon/B&N

Type: Romantic Suspense

Publisher: Evernight Publishing

My Copy: sent- Bewitching Book Tours

“I do believe I can arrest you for looking at someone like that. You’ve got to be breaking some indecency laws.” 
Taking a deep breath, she recovered her bearings. Mostly. “You’re out of your jurisdiction, sheriff.” 

Dry Creek County Sheriff Hank Layton is the stuff of dreams. Nasty, steamy, delicious fantasies that leave Beth Martinez weak-kneed and desperately wanting the man she can never have. 

Hank can’t stop thinking about Beth to the point where he’s afraid of becoming permanently bowlegged. And even though the sexual tension between them is thick enough to trip over, she runs every time he chases.

But when a mysterious developer forces her neighbors off their land, Beth becomes the one person standing between the scoundrel and millions of dollars. Only Hank can help her uncover the truth. Together they risk their lives exposing decades-old secrets and learn that everything is not as it seems in their rural Nebraska town.

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A Dry Creek Bed was a hit with me! Beth is suffering from a lot of past guilt. When she was eight the car carrying her and her mother and father was struck by a drunk driver. Her father and mother were killed and Beth was left hanging upside down by her seat belt for hours until help arrived. The incident never really far from her mind, as a adult she has issues getting close to people. She does okay with her friends, like Claire (from Up A Dry Creek) but her heart doesn’t want to open to real love. She longs to feel it but her mind kills it every time. What if something happens? What if she lets someone down? What if what she does causes them pain? No matter how much she wants Claire’s big brother Hank, she knows that he wants more then she can give him. Children are out of the question after a surgery that resulted in her not being able to conceive. The baggage and guilt she feels after being the one to make her parents run late, resulting in being on the road with the drunk driver is nearly breaking her. Her last surviving relative, her grandmother, has recently passed and now someone wants to buy her old house to use in a development project. They want it so badly they are willing to threaten and scare to get it. As the lone holdout in the neighborhood, Beth, doesn’t know who to turn to. Even the local cops are dirty.

Beth is extremely independent, as a result of the walls she has erected around herself. She seems to find it hard to accept any kind of help. Hank has to physically take over, and boy does she not like that, to help her. I found Hank to be very endearing and life like. There is something about the way that Avery writes that simply draws you in. The story lines are realistic and not over the top. The action is peppered in between romance that is a slow simmer and not erotically done. I like the fact that the characters don’t end up in bed together after chapter 1. Most times they don’t end up in bed till the last half of the book. I think it gives readers an ideal amount of time to get into the story line  and learn the quirks of the characters without feeling like there is a rush. Don’t get me wrong there is heat even without all the gratuitous sex. Yes, I like gratuitous sex sometimes too LOL.

Hank, being the sheriff in Dry Creek, is very protective for Beth. They’ve known each other since they were small but what he feels for her is most definitely not like a sister. They each have had a thing for the other that they have kept secret since they were teens. I found the irony in that amusing. I really enjoyed the connection I felt to the pair and I loved the chase that Hank had to do in order to finally win Beths heart.

The one things that irks me…and it’s a small irk. I generally like my romantic suspense to have lots of plot twists, turns and surprises. Avery seems to write pretty straightforward. By the middle of the book you know who the villain is. You know their story and you know what they want. I wish there was a bit more surprise with that. I want to be kept guessing until the very end when everything comes to a head. I also tend to lean towards more sadistic killers so that the hero gets to showcase the whole “damsel in distress” scenario. Even f that person in distress turns out to be a dude. Whatever. I like people in grave danger. I like twisted villains. I’m creepy like that

The end of A Dry Creek Bed affords the reader with a small sneak peak at the next book involving another brother and  for one will be eagerly awaiting it!

I give A Dry Creek Bed by Avery Flynn 4 stars! 

Up A Dry Creek by Avery Flynn (Dry Creek #1)

Available: Now Amazon/B&N

Type: Romantic Suspense/Mystery

Publisher: EverNight Publishing

My Copy: Bewitching Book Tours

Dry Creek has been home to the Layton family for generations, a heritage Claire Layton and her brothers Hank, Chris and Sam all appreciate. Claire is a successful, though somewhat debt-ridden, restaurateur who minds her own business—literally. She has enough on her plate between an irascible chef, an abandoned sous-chef, and the pressure of running her highly praised eatery, Harvest Bistro. But when she discovers one of her customers dead in her dumpster, her world begins to unravel.

Even as her County Sheriff brother Hank and his team are still swarming the property looking for evidence, Claire receives a threatening call. It seems there’s a slight problem involving the dead young woman in the dumpster. She doesn’t have her phone and her flash drive with her. The killer makes it clear that Claire better find them by noon the next day or he’ll go after her and her entire family.

With the clock ticking, Claire searches for the missing items to no avail. Complicating matters is the arrival of Jake Warrick, a hotshot security expert hired by the dead woman’s father to find her killer. Claire’s trying her best to get Jake out of her restaurant when her Jeep goes up in flames. The noon deadline has passed.

Determined to find the killer and to keep her family safe, Claire refuses to back down, even as the murderer continues to terrorize her. Jake isn’t backing down either, and the tension between the two—sexual and otherwise—continues to mount. Jake has no intention of leaving Claire in danger—or of leaving at all before he gets to know her much, much better.

Clues, most leading nowhere, pile up, and the threads of the mystery are becoming still more complicated, even as the killer comes closer and closer to claiming his prize—and his prey.

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The last thing Claire needs is a dead body in the dumpster behind her restaurant. Yet, that’s actually what she’s got. Now the killer is looking for the evidence the dead girl had and he’s threatening her family in order to get it. Add to that a suspicious PI with a killer body that keep glowering at her and asking annoying questions, Claire isn’t sure where to turn. She can’t tell anyone about the threats and she certainly can’t trust this man candy that claims to be working for the dead girls distraught family.

Jake knows he shouldn’t antagonize the feisty restaurant owner but somehow he can’t help himself. She stirs all is protective instincts and his annoying ones too. There’s is something about her that keeps him coming back for more. When his own family is threatened he knows he will have to betray her trust in order to protect his own. The fiery redhead that has worked her way into his heart may be the key to his undoing.

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I loved this book! Claire and Jake together were just incredibly entertaining and made this a book that I flew through and got lost in the world of Dry Creek, Nebraska. Claire is a great heroine. She’s very drastic and she doesn’t stop to think of consequences before she does or says something. I saw a lot of myself in her actually because I’m pretty much the same way. Those that know me are shaking their heads in agreement right now. Anyway, so Claire is mouthy and has no problems telling Jake, or anyone for that matter, where they can take their opinions. She does now and thinks later which often leads to snarky diatribes that left me giggling at her boldness. Especially when those comments were lobbed at Jake. These two were worse then an old married couple. There were times I wondered how they were ever going to end up in bed if just the sight of each other was enough to turn a good mood to something sour. But just like my mom used to say, the boy that pulls your braids and annoys you the most generally likes you. Same situation, these two disliked each other but the sex was hot hot hot!

I enjoyed the push and pull but what I really liked was the suspense. It wasn’t a ton or overdone but there was enough threat to keep me from getting bored. I wanted to know more about what was going on and Avery does a excellent job of stringing the reader along with little tid-bits until the climax at the end. I honestly felt like I invested a lot into these characters, the reality of it and I loved this story from beginning to end! I also loved the insight into Claire’s family and am eagerly looking forward to reading the next book with her brother, Hank and her best friend Beth. Actually I’m hoping in addition to the next book, A Dry Creek Bed, Claire’s other two brothers get books as well. Write Faster Avery!!

I give Up A Dry Creek by Avery Flynn 4.5 stars!