The Beast Within (Mended Souls #2)

Reporter Julie Crenshaw is trying to put the rest of her family’s life back together after her husband and unborn baby were killed in a tragic car accident. Connor O’Rourke is a detective who notices Julie at the scene of a homicide.  As both follow the leads in the case, they are wrapped up in a serial killer's sights as they try to not get entangled with each other.  The two are followed around by two angels - Lucas and Mike, who are trying to figure out how to help and save them.  Each time they uncover a small piece of the puzzle, the killer’s focus sharpens until it’s not clear who is in more danger - the killer’s next victim, or Julie and Connor if they get too close?

Julie’s character is written to show how one moves on after tremendous loss. The author tackles this in several ways through her descriptive writing style. That same style could be hard to handle, however, during scenes with the killer and his prey and flashback sequences from his youth. The angels Mike and Lucas,  are secondary characters that are present until midway through the book.  After that they are hardly mentioned and it leaves a hanging element to the story.  Connor is a great mix of protective and passionate man as his past is revealed slowly through the story. The steam level here is passionate kissing and the door is closed for all other activity.  The grammatical tense errors and typos in the book occur enough to disrupt the flow of the story.  When the serial killer is revealed, it will have the reader rethinking parts of the story to see it in a different way.

Laura Dinsdale