From New York Times bestselling author Jana DeLeon, long-lost sisters return home to Mystere Parish to claim their inheritance…and need the help of three brave heroes to keep the bayou from also claiming their lives…
The Accused After working as a cop in New Orleans, Carter Trahan is back in Mystere Parish, where his latest assignment is to make sure Alaina LeBeau lives in her childhood home for two weeks to comply with her mother’s will. But someone—or some thing —is stalking the beautiful defense lawyer, and soon their red hot attraction will threaten whatever is lurking in the bayou.
The Betrayed One day on the job and contractor Zach Sargent is ready to believe the dilapidated old LeBeau mansion is haunted. Some intruder—earthly or not—is threatening the youngest LeBeau sister, back to claim her inheritance. Both have returned home in need of answers to troubling questions about the LeBeau family past. But Zach can’t let his attraction to her stop his search…or else a decades-old evil will claim a new victim.
The Reunion Bodyguard Tyler Duhan has heard—and dismissed—the gossip about the haunted old LeBeau mansion and its "cursed" heiresses. Now the middle sibling—headstrong Joelle—has arrived to comply with her mother's will and reunite with her long-lost sisters. As her protector, it’s his job to keep her safe. But he can't deny his feelings for the southern beauty. Even though falling for Joelle could be a fatal mistake—for them both.
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Jana DeLeon was raised in southwest Louisiana among the bayous and gators. Her hometown is Carlyss, but you probably won't find it on a map. Her family owned a camp located on a bayou just off the Gulf of Mexico that you could only get there by boat. The most important feature was the rope hammock hanging in the shade on a huge deck that stretched out over the water where Jana spent many hours reading books.
Jana and her brother spent thousands of hours combing the bayous in a flat-bottom aluminum boat, studying the natural habitat of many birds, nutria and alligators. She would like you to know that no animals were injured during these "studies," but they kept makers of peroxide in business.
Jana has never stumbled across a mystery or a ghost like her heroines, but she's still hopeful.
She now resides in Dallas, Texas, with the most spoiled Sheltie in the world.
I read about 40 of Jana's books and thoroughly enjoy the characters she creates. While the Fortune series is formulaic and redundant in many ways, Jana's high quality writing style, sense of humor, and love of the bayou make the reader forget that many pages are simply copied from previous books to describe the town, the neighborhood, Ranger, etc., Gotta set the stage, right?
The Mystere Parish trilogy. If I had to use one word to describe the series, it would be "Scoobydooish." Maybe Jana wanted to parody Scoobydoo with phrases like, "If it weren't for those meddling women..." and I missed it?
The plot is loose, the editing is poor, the characters and their actions are not believable nor well-developed. The use of the haunted house and almost the same plot from a previous book had me wondering if I accidentally ordered a book I'd already read before starting the trilogy. To reuse material like this is unfair to the reader (the books aren't free, after all). It feels lazy on the part of the author. I actually found myself doing eye rolls at various places in the book as the scenes were so predictable, contrived, or simply cheesy and unbelievable (these are Harlequin publications, after all). I had to locate the publication date as I couldn't believe these were written recently. Maybe these were her first publications? I was shocked to find 2013.
I am a solid Jana Deleon fan and will continue to read her books, but this trilogy was a major disappointment.
Three sisters with a heartbreaking past. When there mother died, they were separated as young children, never to see each other until their stepfather died. The estate lawyer tracks each woman down. Each book is about one of the sisters, starting in order of the estate lawyer finding them. This was a great mystery. There were several sub-plots around one over-arching plotline. There are definitely bad guys, murder, suspense, and romance. And I loved the ending of the trilogy.
Love this. The ending was so perfect and the entire tale had the perfect mix of intrigue, suspense, and romance. A couple of minor continuity mistakes but not enough to detract from the overall experience. Definitely one of my favorites.
Secret passages, hidden treasures and unexplained phenomenon gives you the feeling that you are in a Nancy Drew story. Luckily, I really liked Nancy Drew and really enjoyed this trilogy.
The books grab you from the very first page and keeps you on the edge of your seat until the very end of the third book So many twists and turns! And an unexpected but great end to the trilogy. Outstanding job!