When it comes to romantic suspense, I like to be surprised – but not so surprised that I feel stupid for missing something, or thinking that a particular revelation doesn’t make sense with the story. The ending of Susan Crandall’s Seeing Red certainly wasn’t what I was expecting, and I liked that. However, I think she might have sacrificed some logic for the shock value.

Fifteen years ago, Ellis Greene’s cousin was taken from their shared bedroom, raped, and beaten. Though she lived on, in a vegetative state, for four years, a man named Hollis Alexander was arrested, tried, and convicted, based almost entirely off of Ellis’ eyewitness testimony and some circumstantial evidence. The events have left Ellis traumatized, paranoid, and still afraid of being outside after dark. Now, however, Alexander is off on parole and back in the area.

He’s not the only one who’s back, though; Nate Vance, the then-boyfriend of Ellis’ cousin and her childhood crush, disappeared after the conviction and left town, amidst suspicion that he was the true rapist. He’s always cared for Ellis, though, as she was the only one to believe that he was innocent. When Ellis starts getting mysterious gifts, strange phone calls, and seeing someone outside her house at night, Nate steps in to protect her, even as more and more evidence (and new crimes) begin pointing in his direction once again.

I really liked Nate. He was such a sweet, honorable man who cared deeply for Ellis. I thought they had really great emotional chemistry, and I have no doubts about their HEA. Ellis was an interesting character. I liked her as well, though I thought fifteen years was a long time for her to still be so affected by her cousin’s murder. I thought it should have been a bit less time, or that she should have been more recovered by then. I don’t mean to sound insensitive, but it just seemed a bit too much. However, I liked just about everything else about her character, and I found her very consistent. This may sound like strange praise, but all of her actions were in line with her personality, which is not always true in books. I was also happy that she trusted Nate so much; it showed her devotion and acceptance of who he was, even when there was so much evidence mounting against him.

The book was in solid B/B+ for about three quarters of the book, but as I mentioned already, the conclusion knocked it down a bit. I’ll try to avoid any spoilers, but suffice to say, the conclusion was not what I expected. When this happens, I like to be able to look back and everything, and say, “Oh, okay, that makes sense and was very clever.” Unfortunately, I couldn’t completely say this for this book. Some of it made sense, but a number of red herrings and ambiguities failed to tie in properly.

Seeing Red is a good romantic suspense story. The divide between “romantic” and “suspense” is evenly split, with about equal parts sigh-inducing romance and fast-paced suspense. It wasn’t a perfect story, but it worked for me.