Review--Don't Close Your Eyes by Christie Craig

What would you do if everything you thought was true about your family turned out to be a lie?

Annie Lakes has had the same recurring nightmare for years. Her heart pounding in her chest. A panicked voice, begging her to run faster. Her own bloodcurdling scream. But now Annie is starting to realize it's more than just a bad dream. She's starting to remember things about the night her cousin Jenny disappeared all those years ago. Things that make her believe her family was involved--and what they're hiding is much worse than she ever imagined. But she can't unravel this alone. She needs someone she can trust, someone like sexy Detective Mark Sutton ....

Mark has seen enough--too much--to assume that Annie's story is a dead end. It turns out that her family is hiding some killer secrets. A long time ago, Annie was just an innocent little girl who saw something she shouldn't. Now she's a target, and Mark's running out of time to protect the woman he's starting to fall for. But how does Mark face off against a murderer who just may be someone Annie loves?

I’ve been a fan of Christie Craig’s YA series she writes under another name for ages and when I heard she was writing a Romantic Suspense novel for adults, I became intrigued! Don’t Close Your Eyes is the first book of the Texas Justice series, in what might be a trilogy, but don’t quote me on that! It was definitely an interesting read and not all what I was expecting! I think it’s been awhile since I read anything labeled “Romantic Suspense”, for there was a great deal more romance in it than I thought there would be, but it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing!

Annie is our heroine who has always had a reoccurring nightmare of her running as a child in the dark woods, her cousin is calling for her to run. She saw her other cousin being buried in the dirt and just as she might see the face of the one burying her, she wakes up. She’s not sure what it means, she’s tried to think back to the moment in her childhood when it would’ve happened but can never remember much about it. She was never allowed to be around her mother’s family, by her father’s wishes, for the longest time. It’s not until after he passed away that her mother wants her to come with her to her uncle’s funeral and it’s at that point a lot of her repressed memories start to wake up.

Then we have Mark who is a detective that had been degraded to the cold case unit for “bad behavior.” He and his team, Connor and Juan are working to solve a case from a few years back about a missing little girl who recently turned up dead. Then in walks Annie who thinks she might have witnessed a murder over 20 years ago. Mark isn’t sure what to make of her, she sounds slightly crazy since there’s no evidence to back up her story and she admits that she has dreams more than memories about it, but there’s just something about her that calls to him.

Before you know it, a romance is starting between the two. All the while, Mark is trying to see if there’s something to Annie’s story and as it turns out, there is. Annie’s family has some dark secrets they’ve been hiding for years. Reasons why Annie was never allowed to see them after her cousin went missing.

Then another cousin of Annie’s disappears and things begin to escalate.

This book was amazing in terms of mystery! While it did sometimes get confusing with all the different names being dropped and trying to remember what case was being discussed, as Mark went back and forth on his cold case and the one Annie brought to him, things get a little intense with an overload of details and names, but for the most part it wasn’t too hard to follow along.

I guess the romance part nagged at me a little bit. Things happened so quickly between Mark and Annie that it reminded me of why I don’t read straight up romances. I guess it helped that shortly after the romance started, other things began to tear them apart. It was hard to decide if you should root for them or not since their relationship was so new and young. But since they are the heroes of the tale, it’s also hard not to root for them! It’s a conundrum to say the least! Lol.

I enjoyed the multiple points of view too! I almost said dual, as we mostly get Annie and Mark’s point of view, but then after a certain point, another character has a few sections worth of story. Though everything is told in third person point of view. For whatever reason, I find it easy going back and forth with all the different first/third person point of view ways of things. Sometimes I have to actually focus to see what point of view it is just because I dove into it and kept reading that I wasn’t really noticing how the story was being told! I guess I’m weird like that! Lol!

The mysteries were both wrapped up in surprising ways! While not as much detail was put on the first cold case, I will say that was surprised by how Annie’s was resolved! I sooo wasn’t expecting the answers we got, add in the fact that there were a lot of other secrets to be learned as well. I was excited to learn that this is going to be a series of some undetermined length. My bet is on trilogy, for the next book is going to feature Mark’s coworker, Juan and some yet to be known characters. My next bet is that a third book would be about his other partner, Connor! Time will only tell I guess!

Don’t Close Your Eyes was an on the edge of your seat kind of mystery! There were so many different puzzles and suspects that it was a whirlwind of a read! The romance was sweet in some ways, but maybe a tad unnecessary. Though I say this as a mystery reader and this is in fact a Romantic Suspense novel, so it did fit with its genre, I just need to alter my expectations a bit! I am definitely sticking with this series though because it was mighty enjoyable!


Overall Rating  4.5/5 stars