THE PERFECT DISTANCE

A woman yearns for a quiet life in North Carolina, but both love and her dangerous past find her in this thriller.

Months after her husband’s death, Finley Thompson and her kids move to the small town of Davidson. She’s hiding from her ex-boyfriend—due for release after 20 years in a mental institution for her parents’ murders. But keeping a low profile isn’t so easy. Simply helping her new neighbor, who’s fallen off his horse, involves hiding the gun and drugs in his house before anyone shows up. That’s just the kind of attention she doesn’t need. But the neighbor, CJ Sinclair, is a green-eyed, handsomely chiseled man, and the attraction is mutual. While Finley is understandably reluctant to reveal anything about her past, CJ has copious secrets of his own. He knew her husband from their military days and suspects that his fatal car crash wasn’t very accidental. Finley and CJ’s relationship gets off to a rocky start since they are both concealing something. They’ll nevertheless need to help each other when a menace slowly creeps into town. Though romance takes the spotlight in this novel, May builds a suspenseful tale. For example, a surprise phone call from Finley’s ex means he may know exactly where she is, and CJ later spies someone following her. Davidson is rife with obstacles for the burgeoning couple, from the local cop who blatantly hates CJ to the veteran’s cheating ex-wife. But Finley’s and CJ’s self-made barriers generate the most melodrama, as they struggle with their thorny histories. At the same time, their romantic musings are sometimes repetitive, endlessly admiring each other’s eyes, smiles, and kissable lips. Still, this absorbing relationship does evolve as the enjoyable story moves along, dishing out such tense plot turns as an encrypted flash drive and a freezing November thunderstorm.

An edgy, engaging tale brimming with perils and a romance worth rooting for.