BEHIND THE SHADOWS

Author: Patricia Potter ISBN: 9780425224908 12/2008 SUSPENSE Publisher: BERKLEY

A woman risks everything to plunge in the secrets of her past, shadowed by a danger she didn't know existed... In a race against time to save her mother's life, Kira Douglas is stunned to discover something that turns her world upside down. The woman who raised her is not her biological mother. Kira was switched at birth by someone with a mysterious motive... Desperately searching for answers—and the woman who can save her mother—Kira uncovers a tangle of clues that lead her to a beautiful heiress who refuses to see the truth, along with a handsome, ruthless man who is either Kira's darkest nightmare—or her greatest destiny...

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

Patricia Potter sets her romantic suspense novel, BEHIND THE SHADOWS, in Atlanta where Kira Douglas works as a city beat reporter for the newspaper and has just found that not only is she incompatible to donate a kidney to her dying mother, she's not her mother's daughter. In her quest to save her mom, Kira theorizes that she was switched at birth, and the most likely candidate is the heir to a local fortune. To complicate matters, Kira has a mutual attraction to heiress Leigh Howard's attorney, Max Payton. Will he be able to serve both Leigh's best interests and fall in love with the most interesting woman he's ever met? To top things off, somebody has decided they don't want Kira to become the new heir and her life is suddenly in peril.

Potter is definitely a master of plot twists! There are numerous parties who could be out to get Kira—Leigh would like to keep her fortune, Max actually holds the purse strings on her trust; her second cousin Seth is running for the US Senate and would love some of the money since Leigh's grandfather left him just a smidgen; the CEO of her grandfather's company would relish breaking the trust and ousting Max since Max holds 51 percent of the stock; and then there could be some unknown person just out to get her. Perhaps the person who switched the babies?

Leigh has been shy and low of self esteem all her life, and it stems from a fight her parents had when she was six. Somehow, her father discovered that she wasn't his and decided his wife must have cheated on him. In his rage, he crashed their car, killing himself and his wife and leaving Leigh scarred physically and emotionally for life. Finding out she might not be mistress of her domain is distressing, even though Kira has assured her she only wants a kidney, not the fortune. Because of all the doctors, operations and hospital stays after the car accident, Leigh is loathe to do anything remotely medical and to give a kidney is out of the question. Kira has been tight with her mom all of her life and is shaken to her core to find out they aren't related. Over the years, Leigh has crushed on Max, but it doesn't seem to bother her that he's taken with Kira. Leigh's found her own love interest—Kira's private investigator.

I couldn't put BEHIND THE SHADOWS down! The suspense is plentiful and though the intense love scenes are less frequent, it still works wonderfully. Readers who like to keep their adrenaline pumping will definitely enjoy this.

Susan Barton