As a romance, this book fails totally. The hero is absent from most scenes and his relationship with the heroine is almost an afterthought. The publishers have labeled Shaker Run a Romantic Suspense, but the suspense was in wondering when I might accidentally run across some romance. It’s not that I’ve got to have a lot of lusty sex in my romance novels, but three brief kisses that go absolutely nowhere, followed by a long separation of the hero and heroine, left me wondering just what the ultimate point of having a love story in this book was.

Kate Marburn is a 37 year-old woman whose ex-husband bilked most the inhabitants of Toledo, Ohio out of millions of dollars. When the police were about to close in, he took the money and ran, leaving innocent Kate and his teenage daughter, Erin, to face the law and the wrath of public opinion. Mike Marburn left a suicide note when he fled, but no body was ever found. Anybody who has ever read a romance novel where the body was never found knows exactly what’s coming next.

After her life was ruined by Mike, Kate went to work as a rosarian for wealthy Sarah Denbigh. Sarah had two loves, her roses, and her Shaker furniture. As the story opens, Sarah is murdered, Kate finds the body, the police assume Kate is involved, so Kate must find a way to prove she’s innocent. It doesn’t help that, in her will, Sarah left her best roses and all her Shaker furniture to Kate and not to the Denbigh heirs. Authentic Shaker furniture is worth a small fortune, apparently, enough to make someone kill to get it.

About a quarter into the book, Kate has a scene with Jack Kilcourse, a 44 year-old furniture maker and expertiser. He’s been called in to authenticate Sarah’s Shaker collection, and, as it happens, keeps Kate from being killed by an electric saw being wielded by Varina Denbigh, Sarah’s self-centered daughter. Kate and Jack are attracted to each other, but neither does much about it. Of greater concern to Kate is step-daughter Erin’s behavior. Erin seems to have chilled toward Kate lately, and Kate doesn’t know why or what to do about it.

There is so much going on in this book, I hardly know what to say next. There’s a vintage car with tinted windows that keeps trying to run Kate down, fake Shaker furniture, an herbalist whose great-aunt was very old, but who died of food poisoning, a boyfriend who may not be a boyfriend, an odd attraction to a detective named Zink, a Packard that might be an Oldsmobile, and a large group of people who are trying to make Shaker Run as authentic a Shaker village as they can (think Colonial Williamsburg without the sex).

After Sarah’s death, Kate goes to work at Shaker Run village. Subsequently, folks start dying. For a small community, the body count is pretty high, so I expected Jessica Fletcher to show up any minute. The reader learns a few things about the Shaker community, but not enough to explain why they got started nor how they ended. We are told over and over, however, how valuable their furniture is in today’s market. There are sections of the book that are engrossing and others I could have done without. The book is long, yet some loose ends are not tied off and some questions remained about secondary characters.

Today, there are only about a dozen Believers remaining in the world. Since celibacy, separation of men and women in all things and therefore no childbirth to increase their population are hallmarks of the sect, the group has dwindled steadily since the mid-19th century. Mentioning this would have added a bit more dimension to the historical aspect of the book. Part of the story centers around a well that is being excavated by a group from the university. However, only a few paragraphs are devoted to it and then that storyline disappears completely. As for Jack, we know he’s divorced, his son is dead, he feels guilty over it, and he makes furniture. Now you know as much about our hero as I do. Oh, he’s tall, dark, broad of shoulder, and apparently has the sex drive of a dead Shaker.

Okay, to sum it all up, if you’re looking for romance, forget it. If you’re looking for suspense, there is some. If you’re looking for a plot that makes sense, well, it didn’t work well for me, but you might see things differently. If you want to learn about the Shakers, there is some information here, but not really a whole lot (the author even admittedly made up some facts regarding Shaker herbs that bothered me as a plot point, because it was contrived and not historically accurate).

I didn’t really like this book. I never connected with the characters on any level. They are all underdeveloped and rather bland. There is no humor anywhere in this book. No sparkling dialogue, no oompf. Even if there had been more of a romance, I don’t think I would have liked it any better. Eh.