Secret Hour

Title: The Secret Hour
Author: Luann Rice

I was feeling a bit bored and decided to go to kak Yun's house to borrow some books for the raya holidays. going through her books, I came across this other book of Luann rice and since I was impressed with the first book I had read that she had written, I thought it would be a good idea to go for this book.

This book centres around this family of three with the mother missing after being killed in an accident along with another woman who was searching for her missing sister. The father in the family, John O'Rouke, works as an attorney, a criminal defense lawyer who at the time was defending a serial killer who took young girls as his victim. He has two children, 14-year-old Teddy and 11-year-old Maggie. his wife was killed in an accident after coming home from having a rendezvous with her married lover who is also John's bestfriend. John's sorrow in losing his wife to his friend clouded the sorrow he felt for losing the only woman he had ever loved, thus he buried himself in his work just to forget it all.

Enter Kate Harris, a woman who was in search of her sister. Her sister, Willa, fled from her home when she was caught sleeping with Kate's ex-husband. But somehow, Kate's love for her sister was stronger, thus prompting her to go search for her sister who had been missing for six months. She had received a postcard from her sister but only got it recently so she knew her sister's whereabouts during that date. However, her sister went missing after that and with the case surrounding John's client, Kate figured that there might be a connection.

When she arrived at the O'Roukes household, she was greeted with a chaotic situation where locals who didn't like John defending for the serial killer had thrown a brick in his house, causing the police and neighbour to flock around the house. Through the confusion of thinking that Kate was the new babysitter for his children, she managed to calm the siblings down, gaining trust from Teddy who didn't trust strangers who got around his sister.

The story went on on how Kate won the hearts of Teddy and Maggie when she showed them how much she also loved her sister. Teddy even invited her to his soccer match as his father has seldom went there himself eversince his wife died.

Eventually, Kate won John's trust when she told him of his sister. However, John didn't want to betray his client eventhough Kate really wanted to know if he had ever encountered her sister. Discreetly, he DID ask and found some interesting facts that made him want to investigate. However, Kate beat him to it and he found her at the spot he wanted to go.

Bla.. bla.. bla.. I guess they fell for each other at this point haha.. but the novel didn't exactly centre around the love story, which is why I liked it :p

In the end, Maggie, while on a quest to find some wildflowers to cheer up her family came across this bracelet charm which Kate instantly recognized as Willa's. Kate went to rescue Willa on her own just as John realized who was behind Willa's missing AND a recent copycat murder that happened while Merril (thats the name of the serial killer) was in prison..

Hahah.. I'm outta practice writing book reviews here but I recommend this book to those who love the Hallmark type of stories. A nice read and I'm looking forward to searching for more books from this author.