You’d think the author of Deadly Identity had never heard of Google. First, she gives her heroine the same name as a famous environmentalist, one whom I vividly recall learning about in elementary school. Then she continues a major factual error by saying that the Witness Protection program is run by the FBI. Actually, the U. S. Marshal Service runs it– as she’d know if she bothered to read the first two sentences of its Wikipedia page.

Rachel Carson (not of Silent Spring fame) is in the Witness Protection program after her abusive husband beats her and kills their unborn baby. Besides being a wife-beater, he’s also a major drug dealer and involved in Mexican drug cartels, so he’s locked away for a long time with the help of Rachel’s (then called Susan’s) testimony. But five years later, he’s escaped prison, and out to get her. Rachel’s handler relocates her to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. On her way to the cabin she’s renting, though, she witnesses a terrible car crash.

When Deputy Cade Garner arrives on scene, he’s devastated to learn that the dead driver of the car is the wife of his best friend, who had been killed just months prior. Unharmed, though, is their infant Jenny. On the spot he hires Rachel to be a nanny for Jenny, as he knows he is her legal guardian and Rachel had been a nanny before being forced to relocate. As the months pass, they slowly begin to fall in love with each other. Cade, though, still mourns the loss of his own wife and baby several years prior, and Rachel is terrified of her ex-husband’s potential for violence against those she loves.

I don’t think I’ve ever read such a boring romantic suspense novel. The biggest page-turner was wondering when something was going to happen. For most of the book, all that happens is Jenny gets bigger, Rachel starts quilting, and she and Cade both circle around each other afraid to make a move. All of this is done in a Paint-By-Numbers style of writing that has formulaic paragraphs of Dialogue, Emotions, Action. In that order. The paragraphs were even the same size, all the time. No variation.

One of the things I felt most uncomfortable with was how Rachel seemed to slide into Cade’s late wife’s place so easily. She needs to feed the baby with glass bottles and goat’s milk? Luckily, Abby had done the same. Rachel is interested in quilting? Well, what do you know, Abby was a wonderful quilter — go ahead and use her sewing machine and quilting room.

Also, I’m okay with quilting — if that’s your thing, good for you; God knows I’m not good with a sewing machine, and throwing it in as a hobby and a way to bond with Cade’s mother is fine. But I don’t really care as much as the author clearly does. More time is spent describing fabric weaves and quilt patterns than is spent in the climax of the novel.

Everything about this book just seemed generally unsophisticated, from the writing to the plotting to the dialogue. Lindsay McKenna is certainly no novice –so one would think she’d have a better command of storytelling, but then sometimes the “bestselling” authors are among the most disappointing.