Colleen Coble’s “Secrets at Cedar Cabin” picks up shortly after her previous “Lavender Tides” novel, with Shauna Bannister and Grayson Bradshaw still searching for their baby sister who had been kidnapped at birth 24 years ago.
Bailey Fleming is “super aide to the geriatric.” She’s had an unconventional childhood, moving from home to home with her mother Olivia, but overall she’s had a good life. But life comes crashing down when she learns her rock star husband committed bigamy, compensating her with the deed to a cabin in Washington, and her mother is murdered.
Fearing for her life, Bailey flees to the rustic cabin while seeking answers to the truth behind her mother’s death and her own life.
FBI Agent Lance Phoenix is on the hunt for a trafficking ring — one whose path leads him right to Bailey’s front door. While he seeks out the connection between Bailey’s cabin and the trafficking ring, he is also deeply hoping to find his sister, Ava, who has been missing for five years, possibly lost herself within the trafficking world.
As Bailey and Lance get pulled closer and closer together while searching for answers — her about her mysterious past (might it be connected to Shauna and Grayson?) and mother’s death, and him about his sister’s whereabouts and if she’s even still alive — they find themselves falling into love. But can Bailey truly trust him, as every man in her life has used her, lied to her, or left her.
“Secrets at Cedar Cabin” brings back so many of our favorite characters from the “Lavender Tides” series — Shauna and husband Zach, and her little boy Alex; Grayson and girlfriend Ellie; and Ellie’s sister Mac and her ex-husband Jason, still struggling from blindness from the horrific incident at the end of “The House at Saltwater Point”; as well as introducing us to a few new characters like Lily Norman, a woman suffering from Alzheimer’s who just may have a connection to Bailey’s past; and Daniel Atkinson, Lance’s FBI partner.
Coble always provides an incredible romantic suspense thriller. Once again, with this novel, she does a fantastic job of withholding just enough information to keep the reader guessing until the very end.
But she also does a great job of offering many great themes beyond romance and suspense. This book reminds us that God loves to give us good things; what to do when everything seems like a lie; overcoming helplessness; twisted love versus true love; everyone wears masks; where there is life, there is hope; and we can always find strength in God.
This book could be read as a standalone, but I highly recommend reading the first novels to get the continuity in the Shauna-Grayson-Bailey storyline.
Five stars out of five.
Thomas Nelson provided this complimentary copy for my honest, unbiased review.
“Secrets at Cedar Cabin” (a Lavender Tides novel) by Colleen Coble