The prologue in After Twilight sets up what is supposed to be the defining moment in Kacy Macgrath’s life, the moment that reinforces lessons she learned as a child. She and her husband, Alex, are arguing about their disintegrating marriage and he heads out into a fierce storm. Kacy (or Kirsten as she was known then) watches helplessly as he is swept away by the ocean. The prologue ends with:

“Everything she loved went away. Everything.
And this time, as always, it was her fault.
All her fault.”

Pretty strong words. Unfortunately they don’t really lead to anything. Kacy has secrets in her past and a childhood that wasn’t ideal. But the story of her disillusionment and feelings of inadequacy doesn’t ever get fully developed. The reader is told that she feels a certain way. We’re also told why, but the why isn’t explained or fleshedout. Instead the book devolves into a series of threats to Kacy.

After her husband’s death, Kacy has retreated to her grandmother’s cottage outside the village of Lindoon in Ireland. Two years have passed and suddenly things are changing in her life. She meets a handsome man at the local pub. She’s the victim of a hit and run. Someone has broken into her house. And these changes are just the tip of the iceberg. Kacy doesn’t yet realize that she’s come to the attention of some very determined people.

The man she meets in the pub is one of those people. Braedon Roche is a self-made businessman who values his reputation and career. He’s convinced that Kacy was involved in the substitution of forgeries at his art gallery. The forgeries have almost ruined his reputation and his business, and he wants Kacy to pay. Naturally enough, this being a romance, he finds himself attracted to his quarry. Ms. Davis exceeded my expectations with Braedon in some ways and disappointed in others. Though Braedon is suspicious of Kacy, as soon as he develops strong feelings for her, he trusts those feelings. There’s no “I think you’re guilty, I’m going to make you pay – let’s go to bed!” kind of run around. He examines his feelings and acts on them. The disappointment came from the same source as my dissatisfaction with Kacy. His character is supposed to have demons because of his past, but the way his past is explained didn’t justify those demons.

The sketchy character development is a recurring theme. In addition to Braedon, there are other men, connected to Alex, who are after Kacy. (On a side note, I did think it was stretching credibility a bit that after two years of isolation Kacy suddenly has not one, not two, but three and possibly more people after her, all at the same time. One was in prison, but there’s no reason at least one of the others wouldn’t have come looking before this.) But back to the characterization. One of the men hunting Kacy is Max, Alex’s twin brother. He’s recently out of prison and convinced that not only does Kacy have money that belongs to him, but that she was also responsible for his beloved brother’s death. Max is your standard, misogynistic villain. This seems to be a staple in romantic suspense. The villain can’t just be run-of-the-mill bad – he has to be super evil. In a totally gratuitous scene, Max kills a woman hours after he’s been released from prison. Now never mind the fact that he would be the number one suspect in her death, this scene doesn’t even work from a plot perspective. There’s no reason for the scene other then to supposedly prove what a bad guy Max is. It’s completely unnecessary.

The bright spot here is that the romance does work. Kacy and Braedon are attracted to each other, but they don’t hop into bed at the drop of a hat. Their growing feelings for each other and the scenes in which they explore those feelings are some of the best in the book. Also, once Braedon realizes how he feels, he has to figure out how to explain his original reasons for being in Kacy’s life. Again the author didn’t fall into any cliched traps when Braedon came clean; she handled it well.

But despite the deft handling of the romance elements, I can’t really recommend this book. Unfortunately, too much time is spent on what I began to call “the perils of Kacy,” and the story suffers.