AUTHOR: Lee Tobin McClain
DATE: 2015
STARS: *****
After rescuing a beautiful stranger from a seemingly random rock slide, a snowstorm leaves disabled veteran Adam Calloway no choice but to put her up at his remote mountain getaway. But when he realizes who Karen Smith is and why she’s here, all he knows for sure is that he has to get rid of her… and fast. Because Karen wants to find out what really happened to her younger brother, killed in these mountains nine years ago. And if she solves the cold case, she’ll destroy Adam’s fragile sister whom he’s vowed to protect with his life.
As Adam and Karen wait out the storm together, they care for Adam’s sister and her child and face mysterious threats from the outside world. Why does Karen keep getting warning texts on her phone? Who would toss a brick through Adam’s picture window? And what kind of maniac would try to set fire to a house with four people inside, one of them a vulnerable child?
Working together to keep everyone safe, Adam and Karen come to admire each other’s strengths, and the two loners begin to fall in love. But Karen is getting closer to the truth that could put Adam’s sister behind bars and leave her son without a mother. The threats keep escalating. And Adam starts to wonder if he can fulfill the vow to serve and protect that he made as a teenager at the Covenant School . . . and whether he really understands anything at all about what happened all those years ago…
This is the first book by author Lee Tobin McClain that I have read, but it won’t be the last. A Brother’s Bond is a superb romantic suspense, with flawed and intriguing characters, danger around every curve (literally!), an innocent at risk, and high stakes all around. The mountain setting is critical, and the mystery the heroine is trying to solve—the same one the hero wants to conceal—kept me turning the pages right to the end.
The faith journey of the main characters is an integral part of the story, and I appreciated their struggles to reconcile the pain they’d suffered with the God of love.
A Brother’s Bond earns five stars from me. Highly recommended. This book is part of my personal library.