The first book in a series has a hard task to accomplish. It must tell a satisfying, self-contained story while also offering an intriguing enough setup to keep the reader interested in following the rest of the series. A Cry in the Dark is the first in the Family Secrets: The Next Generation, a six-book miniseries spun off from the Family Secrets continuity series. It’s a decent read, but also bears some of the problems of being a first book.

As the story opens, three of the characters from the original Family Secrets series hear a child’s cry. But they’re all in different locations at the time and no one near any of them made the sound. Meanwhile, in Chicago, single mother Danielle Caldwell learns that her son Alex has been kidnapped. She rushes home to await the kidnapper’s demand, only to discover a man on her doorstep.

The man is FBI agent Liam Brooks. A U.S. senator was recently discovered dead, and the only clue in the case led Liam to Danielle’s door. What he finds is a desperate woman struggling to keep it together in order to get her son back. She initially pretends nothing is the matter and resists his help at every turn. Liam refuses to let her push him away, and forces her to let him help her. Soon, he is the only person she can rely on in the search for Alex.

This book is very much a mixed bag. It is exceptionally well-written, but the plot is muddled and the storyline is often confusing. It’s emotionally intense, but also moves very slowly.

In terms of the writing, this may be the author’s strongest book yet. Miniseries books often subsume a writer’s voice and make it indistinguishable from the other books in the series. But the author’s voice comes through strongly, and her writing here is even sharper and more polished than her earlier books. This is a story with some deep emotions, and they really do come across as Mills captures the raw, gutwrenching feelings the characters experience. Readers who are more interested in getting an emotional experience out of book than a clear plot may appreciate the book more than I ultimately did. I’m always somewhat skeptical about romances built around kidnappings (and ordered this one before I knew what it was about), because it always seems as though the parent involved should have more important things to think about than romance. That wasn’t a problem here, where the heightened emotions the characters experience made the love story a little more persuasive and believable.

There are also some intriguing paranormal elements at work here. Danielle has some extrasensory abilities, which she shares with her two siblings who no doubt have stories of their own coming up. The paranormal elements are well done and nicely integrated into the plot. Danielle is an intriguing heroine, and Liam is a pretty good tortured hero.

At the same time, the story does move very slowly. Very, very slowly. Much of the emotion is accomplished through a lot of introspection and internalization, which makes for a slow read at times. The plot involving the characters’ attempts to find Alex also unfolds very gradually. There are large sections of the story where they’re not getting anywhere in the search, as the story deals more with their emotions while Alex and the kidnappers remain very much in the background. This is also a very complicated story with many plot threads, and occasionally becomes confusing and hard to follow. There’s so much involved that it’s easy to get lost and lose track of the narrative.

Still, I debated whether to give this book a moderate recommendation right up until the end, when the scales firmly tipped over to “No.” It winds up being an unsatisfying story because in the end, nothing is explained. While there is a resolution to the main characters’ story (I’ll give you one guess whether or not our heroine gets her child back), that’s all there is. Neither the characters nor the reader finds out why any of this happened. The senator’s murder, the reasons for the kidnapping, and the connection between Danielle and the criminal Liam has been pursuing for years are all left wide open. There are some hints at a connection between Danielle and the siblings from the original Family Secrets series, but they are so vague they barely qualify as hints. Presumably this will all be answered in the following books, but instead of generating anticipation for those stories, it leaves this one with a lack of closure and an incomplete feel. This story is not self-contained and the book does not stand on its own. To make matters worse, it didn’t make me want to read the next books, partly out of a sense of manipulation; I don’t want to have to read another book or books in order to gain a sense of satisfaction for the book I’m reading now.

Readers who are already planning to follow this miniseries may find it a tantalizing start, but I definitely wouldn’t recommend it for those who are merely interested in giving it a try to see if they want to read all six. The way this book ends will either leave you so unfulfilled you will have no choice to continue, or so put off that you won’t want to. A Cry in the Dark may be a well-written book, but it’s not a particularly satisfying one.