I liked the story, and it moved along pretty well, but after the climax it seemed to drone on for no reason. Not bad but not really all that great either.

I have recently gotten into the romantic suspense genre and this book was a good foray. I am currently in France in the mountains so I figured I'd read this while surrounded by the scenery the book is set in. I loved the book and it kept me on the edge of my seat trying to see why Junie's husband was taregetted. My only complaint is Junie's attitude - we get it you have nothing to lose and will do whatever it takes to uncover the truth.

I read this book within a couple of days. The beginning was a little bit slow for me, but once Leo was found it just seemed to speed along. There was more action and I didn't want to pause reading. There were a few sad moments, but the plot kept progressing well and I enjoyed reading it.

An excellent novel in which the author shows an uncanny ability to develop characters, construct a well-designed plot, and put all into a setting that is just perfect.

Thank you NetGalley and Severn House for the eARC.
This was a thriller with romance, grief, climate change, wonderful descriptions of the French mountains and best of all: Leo the German Sheppard!
It's a rollercoaster of a novel, one I enjoyed immensely. The female protagonist, Junie, is newly widowed and heartbroken and looking for Leo, her beloved dog. If she doesn't find him, she will not want to live anymore.
It's an excellent read and I highly recommend it!

This book has quite a lot packed into a single storyline - there is love, adventure, travel, grief, loss, natural disasters, corporate greed, romance, suspense and eco terrorism, just to name a few of the key themes. And that's without even getting into the issue of the bonds that human beings - heroes and villains alike - can have with animals!

But the truth is, Lynn Hightower does a very good job of weaving these diverse themes into a coherent narrative. Apart from a slight tendency towards repetitiveness that surfaces a couple of times, she has produced a gripping novel that addresses some hot button contemporary issues (such as the blue state-red state divisions in the US) as well as a number of timely concerns e.g. Climate change, fossil fuels, corruption and corporate power.

The result is a compelling novel that delivers a gripping story along with some important insights into grief, love and the human condition. This book is an easy read that I finished within a day.

American Junie Lagarde is devastated after a small plane goes down in a suspicious incident near Mont Blanc, killing her brilliant French husband, engineering consultant Olivier. It also costs her the loss of her service dog Leo, who runs away from the crash site, and has now been missing for nine months.

When Junie is contacted by the French police, informing her that some strange drone footage has emerged, showing a man resembling her husband holding her dog on a rope leash, she doesn't know what to make of it. She is certain
Olivier is dead, so who is this? And why would they have Leo?

As it turns out the truth is far stranger than she could have imagined, including a possible paranormal element involving "walk-ins", whereby a dead person's soul is reported to enter the physical body of a living person who willingly gives up their existence to vacate the aforementioned corporeal vessel.

One of the major highlights of the story is Junie's relationship with her German Shepherd Leo, and the lengths that she will go to in order to find Leo again. In fact, Leo is one of the most important characters in this story, and rightly so!

Feeling that she has nothing left to lose, June is hell-bent on discovering the truth of what happened to Olivier, however painful it may be. And what she finds out, with the help of the French police officer, Captain Brevard, lifts the veil on a complicated set of individuals and the underlying structural factors that come together to create a perfect storm - one with enormous destructive potential to impact any number of lives, unless Junie can identify friend from foe in a race against time...

A little bit suspense and a little bit romance. This book was set in France and I enjoyed the descriptions of the people and the area. There was a lot of technical information that I didn’t understand. But overall I enjoyed the book and would recommend it. I especially loved Leo. He was an amazing dog.

This sucked me in really quickly and kept me invested the whole time. There was a little bit of repetition, mainly of the dogs injury and the fact that the main character was the most dangerous person in the room because she didn't care if she lived or died. We get it. That's literally my only complaint though.

The book is set in France and did a good job of describing the environment and the locals. I could easily picture the journeys from Metz to Luxembourg and such and it wasn't filled with stereotypes which I liked.

The characters were all well written and complex. They had human emotions and struggles and it was all very relatable and easy to really care what happened to these people

I read this as a thriller but there's also a lot of romance in it which I didn't expect. It did add an extra to the story but I'm not convinced that was terribly realistic, even for the French. Marriage after 4 wks still seems a tad dramatic and for every male character to fall in love with this woman was....... unusual lol. But hey, maybe she was just that amazing.

The thriller, mystery side of the story was really well done though. I loved the twists and turns. The really original plot and the "walk in" element etc was something I'd never come across and love the depth that added. I also loved that the characters often werent just bad, they had motives and reasons to do what they did and it wasn't quite as simple as just being evil. Well, not for everyone.

It has really good writing that's easy to get lost it. The characters struggles and pain are so easy to really get the reader invested and just get caught up in the story and need to know what happens next.

Naturally Leo was an amazing character and made the book 10 times better