You Know Me As Lad

Dane. Marlie. Oh, Dane and Marlie.

Marlie is an empath. A really strong empath but for six years her powers have been gone baby gone. And you know what? Marlie's damn happy about that. She had a traumatic experience and after that her empathic abilities blanked out. She moved, started a new life, she's "normal" now. Well, she was until one night on the way home from the movies Marlie is hit by a doozie of a vision. She's inside a serial killer's head while he's murdering a woman and Marlie can see and feel it all. Hell of a way to get back into the game.

I liked Marlie a lot. She goes to the police with what she knows even though she's pretty sure no one will believe her and it will ruin the peace she's found in the last six years. So, Marlie goes to the cops and that's where she meets him. Him who? Oh, Detective Dane Hollister, that's who.

Dane is something else. I loved that dude.He's alpha male all the way. At first meeting he thinks Marlie's a kook and a charlatan at best. At worst he thinks she's the killer. Actually, he's pretty sure she's the killer. He still thinks she's pretty hot and tempting but...yeah...a killer. It was SO MUCH FUN watching Dane pull his head out of his ass. The thing is that it made sense for him to think what he thought at the beginning because he was just being a good cop.

Just like in Cry No More you find out who the killer is early on but it didn't kill the suspense for me at all.

But but but the awesomeness of this book really had nothing to do with the mystery. I loved the characters. I really, really adored Dane and his partner Trammell's friendship. Trammell was amazing. Independently wealthy, a clothes horse who was so done with Dane's lack of fashion sense, an exotically pretty man was witty, a little self contained and who gets tipsy (and so cute) on two beers. The recollection of Dane and Trammell getting in a shoot out showed a lot about how much these two guys cared about each other. They're closer than brothers.

Dane and Marlie together were sweet, sexy and oh so good. I liked how even though Dane was a super alpha he never really pushed Marlie. He made it clear that he was there for her no matter what but he didn't bully her into a relationship. He took care of her but never smothered her. Ane Marlie? She's awesome at standing up for herself. A couple of times I wouldn't have been surprised if she'd turned around and flipped Dane off. She wasn't a super bitch though. I hate when an author mistakes bitchy for strong. Luckily, Linda Howard didn't make that mistake.

This book, I loved it. It was an awesome follow up to Cry No More. It will definitely get re-read one day, especially since I have both the ebook and the paperback. Ha!