ARC Review: Dangerous Affairs by Diana Miller

Dangerous Affairs

Author: Diana Miller

Publication: Montlake Romance (October 30, 2012)

Description: When soap opera star Abby Langford leaves Los Angeles for her Minnesota hometown, she’s hoping to give her nine-year-old daughter the peaceful childhood she never knew. But instead of tranquility, Abby finds an old knife hidden behind a wall of her new house. Then the nightmares start: a blood-soaked victim and a killer’s arm slicing through the air, again and again.

Abby wonders if she’s having the nervous breakdown the tabloids claim she already had, especially when sexy, skeptical police chief Josh Kincaid questions her story. When menacing hate mail arrives, Josh’s professional concern for Abby soon evolves into an intense attraction, and the feeling is mutual. But as Abby’s visions grow more graphic and gripping, so does her fear.

Somewhere in the shadows of Abby’s memory lies the key to a very present danger. But she’ll have to stay alive long enough to find it…

My Thoughts: What a great romance and set in my own home state of Minnesota, too! Abby comes home to Minnesota when she divorces her cheating husband after one too many affairs. She wants her daughter Maddie to have the wonderful childhood that she did not. Abby's parents were both drunks and her father threw in some physical abuse too. Enough that Abby learned to block out all the bad memories until therapy after her divorce started unblocking them.

Luckily, Abby was informally adopted by her best friend Laura's parents Bill and Mary. They are all still in her hometown to provide love and support. But Abby also seems to have attracted a stalker with her return home. It seems someone believes that the cheating adulteress she portrayed on a popular soap opera was the real Abby. Such a belief was aided by Abby's not defending herself when the press painted her as the one who had affairs that ended her marriage. Even the local police chief Josh has trouble separating the actress from the reality. Of course, Josh has the slight excuse of being in the process of getting over his own divorce and his own cheating wife.

At first, Josh is certain that Abby is manufacturing the stalker for publicity but it doesn't take long for him to see Abby as she really is. He begins investigating the stalker episodes and investigating the steadily more realistic dreams that Abby is having about a murder. Of course, things are even more complicated by a reappearance of the cheating husband and Josh's former young girlfriend who doesn't want to let him go. 

This was a good mystery too. The identity of the stalker and his motives came as a complete surprise to me.

I really enjoyed this story and will be looking for more by this author.  

Favorite Quote:

After tossing the weeds out of sight behind the bushes by the back steps, Abby went into the kitchen and got a mineral water. She'd downed half the bottle when the phone on the counter rang. A private caller, no number listed. She picked up the phone. "Hello?"


"This is your biggest fan. You deserve to die for what you did to your daughter. And you will."

I received this ARC through the Amazon Vine program in exchange for an honest review. You can buy your copy here.