Obsession is the second book in Patricia Bradley’s Natchez Trace Park Rangers series, and I did not get a chance to read her first book in this series, Standoff. However, this book pulled me right in from the start and continued to the end, wow! Emma is not very happy that she has to work with her ex-fiancé Sam Ryker until someone shoots at her. The characters and plotline are solid, I enjoyed how it kept me guessing until the end, and for me, that is a page-turner. I highly recommend this book.

I would like to thank Revell for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. ( )

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Title: Obsession (Natchez Trace Park Rangers #2)
Author: Patricia Bradley
Pages: 368
Year: 2021
Publisher: Revell
My rating: 5 out of 5 stars
In the story, audiences follow the action of Emma Winters who is a Natchez Trace Ranger and historian. While she is working one night after dark, she hears heavy machinery starting. When Emma goes to investigate, shots are fired! As soon as the shooter hears sirens coming, they hightail it out of the area. Emma then comes to face-to-face with her former fiancée, Sam Ryker. Together they begin chasing down leads to identify the shooter and the reason for the person being in the park digging after dark. Emma longs to complete a renovation project in the park but runs into an unknown person seeking to stop her project through legal means. Are the shooting and the renovation connected?
Emma is also a surviving twin who longs to locate her brother Ryan, whom she hasn’t seen in 10 years. As Emma and Sam start digging into all the attempts made on Emma’s life, the past comes to the forefront of her life and that may be the hardest thing Emma has ever faced.
Patricia Bradley crafted a well-designed, multilayered who done it. Readers will get to see if Sam, who feels he has failed Emma in the past, can now redeem himself as they find that their romance is still very much alive. Emma can be stubborn and ruthless when she sets her sights on figuring out what happened to her twin brother years ago, who is stopping her project, is there a future for her and Sam and on top of all that, figure out who is stalking her mercilessly!
I highly recommend reading the first book in the series titled Standoff before reading book two although it isn’t necessary. The next book in the series is titled Crosshairs where readers meet another ranger named Ainsley Beaumont. The final book in the series is titled Deception where Madison Thorn comes to the area investigating white collar crime.
Note: The opinions shared in this review are solely my responsibility. ( )

Obsession by Patricia Bradley takes the reader back to the Natchez Trace and the rangers who preserve its history as well as protect the people that travel the famous pathway. The second book in the series features Emma Winters, a park service historian and Sam Ryker, her old flame, who is back in Natchez as the district’s chief law enforcement officer. Their romance ended a decade before after Emma’s twin brother went missing. While there’s no bad blood between the two, each one is reticent to renew the acquaintance. But when Emma is shot at during a night time visit to a historic site, the two are thrown together to uncover just what is going on. This novel was very suspenseful, especially since the reader is given repeated glimpses into the deranged mind of the bad guy. His identity isn’t revealed until the end, so I was kept guessing along with Emma and Sam. There were 3 very plausible suspects, and I had a hard time figuring out just whodunit! I really liked that — it kept me engaged in the mystery and turning the pages furiously. There’s great chemistry between Emma and Sam, although it took them some time to admit it. They have a lot of hurt feelings, grief, and guilt to get through. Forgiveness is a major theme, and not just for the two main characters. I lived in Mississippi during college, grad school, and my first job upon graduation, and traveled the Trace a lot (my then boyfriend/now husband lived 2 hours away). It was great revisiting old haunts.

While Obsession can be read as a standalone, I would recommend starting at the beginning of the series with Standoff. With the third and final book, Crosshairs, coming out in a few days, you will have a lot of great reading ahead!

Recommended.

Audience: adults.

(Thanks to LibraryThing and the publisher for a complimentary copy. All opinions expressed are mine alone.) ( )

Readers return to Natchez, Mississippi in Patricia Bradley’s Obsession with a cold case and a current one.

Emma and Sam both made mistakes in their previous relationship. Now Sam wants to protect Emma but she’s intent on independence and guarding her heart.

Bradley drops plenty of breadcrumbs but some of them lead down the wrong path. With three suspects, my opinion on who was the culprit continued to shift—even with the villain’s point of view woven throughout the story. ( )