Friday Memes: Innocent as Sin by Elizabeth Lowell

 Happy Friday!

Book Beginnings is hosted by Gillion at Rose City Reader. She asks that the first sentence is posted along with the author and title of the book and the reader's initial thoughts on the sentence, the book, or anything else it inspires. 

Carrie at Reading Is My Superpower.org also provides a linky for sharing first lines and connecting with others. This meme asks that the chosen books be PG or marked as Mature if they are not. 

The Friday 56 was hosted by Freda at Freda's Voice. This meme is currently on hiatus but many of us are still including a sentence from page 56 or from 56% of the ebook. Anne @ Head Full of Books is picking up the slack until Freda is ready to return. I think this link will get you to the correct place. 

Beginning:

Wearing dirty camouflage gear, boots, and insect repellent, Rand McCree crouched behind the tattered grass blind.

Friday 56:

For the space of a long, savoring draw on the cigar, Bertone was silent. Then he said, "Wouldn't such a mistake get the young entrepreneur fired?"

"It might," Kayla agreed, "or she might get a raise for bagging millions in new deposits. Banks love big new deposits, so long as they come with plausible explanations."

This week I am spotlighting Innocent as Sin by Elizabeth Lowell. This book is the third in the St. Kilda series of Romantic Suspense stories. It was published in 2009, but only recently added to my TBR Pile. Here's the description from Amazon:

The New York Times bestelling queen of of romantic suspense—an author hailed as “a cut above”* returns with an exceptional thriller packed with her trademark combination of passion, danger, and intrigue

Throwing himself into his painting, Rand McCee wishes the swirls of light and color can erase the memory of his beloved brother’s murder. On a scouting assignment for St. Kilda Consulting, a Manhattan-based, global business that concentrates on the shadow world where governments can’t go, Rand’s twin was shot in cold blood before Rand’s eyes.

Finally coming to terms with the fact that he will never be able to find the man responsible—a mysterious figure known as “The Siberian”—Rand just wants to forget. But as he soon learns, the past won’t let him. . . .

Helping a rich socialite finance an art exhibition, Arizona banker Kayla Shawn has unwittingly become entangled in a deadly web of lies and deceit involving money laundering. When her employer tries to buy her silence, Kayla knows she’s in way over her head, with only one way out: Rand.

Though their attraction is instant and intense, it’s not enough to overcome their mutual suspicion. Somehow Kayla and Rand must learn to work together to unmask a terrifying enemy before they land in jail—or the grave.