Vow of Silence by Melynda Price – a Review

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Description:
A killer is hiding in plain sight…

The last thing Homicide Detective Josiah Troyer wants is to return to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and his Amish roots. But a madman is killing young girls and Josiah’s expertise with the tight-knit community is very much needed by the FBI. Unfortunately, going home means dealing with his past and the woman he left behind.

Hannah is desperately trying to rebuild her life after the death of her Amish husband, and now, the murder of her sister. Protecting her young son from the violence is her only goal––and then she runs into the last man she expected to see, her ex Josiah. He left her eight years ago to work with the Englishers and forgiving him hasn’t been easy.

But the killer has Hannah in his crosshairs, and she and Josiah will have to work together if she’s going to survive.

Review:

The last place homicide Detective Joe (Josiah) Troyer wants to go is back home to Lancaster, PA. He casted aside his Amish roots eight years previously and is now a detective in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Joe left behind his Amish roots for a new life, leaving behind his one and only true love Hannah Beiler, with no intention of ever looking back.  But there is a serial killer preying on young Amish girls and the FBI has decided that Joe is the only person that can go there and get the answers they are so desperately looking for. He thought of ways of getting out of going, but when he saw one of the victims, things became personal.

Cassie Beiler, Hannah’s sister was recently killed. And the last thing he wanted to do was return and have to face the woman who’s heart he broke.  But he also knows that no one else will be able to infiltrate the stoic silence that is the Amish way.  And seeing as how he was once part of their community he knows more of the ways of the Amish than anyone else in the FBI currently. But Joe has been excommunicated and shunned. Getting back into the community to get answers isn’t going to be as easy as anyone thinks.

The moment he returns to Lancaster and sees Hannah for the first time, he is brought back to everything that made him fall in love with her. And he begins to realize that he may have made a mistake in leaving. This is a second chance romance story and the author did an amazing job laying out the groundwork of Josiah and

Hannah’s previous relationship.  You could feel the love between them previously and how quickly it returned when they were reunited. Hannah Beiler has lost her husband eight months ago, and now her sister has been killed.  Someone is preying on young Amish girls. Hannah vows that she would even make a deal with the devil to find out who killed her sister. So when Josiah returns, that is exactly what she does.

Casting aside her anger and hurtful pride, she decides to help Josiah find out who could be doing this. But the moment they are alone together she realizes that even with all the hurt he brought her, she is still very much in love with him. She realizes that even talking to Josiah can cause problems for her within her community, problems that she just doesn’t need right now.

Can she cast her heartache aside and forgive Josiah, and help him find the killer of her sister and the other young Amish girls?  What will Josiah have to do to get back into the community that has sworn to shun him?  And where in the midst of everything can Josiah and Hannah find a peace with each other, and explore the renewed feelings that seeing each other again has brought about?

One of the best parts of this book is the POV of the serial killer.  In between the new found love and trust that Hannah and Josiah are building are chapters that completely bring you to the edge.  The mind of the serial killer, the way he thinks and the actions he lays out are disturbing and just plain creepy.  But you devour the book so quickly, because you want to know what he is going to do next. 

This author (Melynda Price) brought me right back to my roots of Pennsylvania and everything was absolutely spot on. From the Amish ways, to their dialect, to their shunning of members that do not return after their rumspringa.Even to how when one leaves the Amish ways, their families are lost to them and how some struggle to find a semblance of themselves while having no family around to help you.

 A wonderfully chilling, second chance romance that I recommend for a cold weather cloudy day.

Reviewed by Erin

Copy provided by Publisher