In their blood : a novel

Jeremy Stroeb is a lot like many kids his age who are living a comfortable life. With parents who have more than enough money to support his wanderlust, his world of rebellion and backpacking anywhere his heart took him in defiance of his parents so called “sell out world” hits hard when he receives the news that his parents have been brutally murdered in their bed and that his sister Elise is now his responsibility. His parents had named him and not his Uncle Dwight to be her guardian, angering his uncle beyond belief. 

Jeremy finds for the first time in his life of privileges, that he is now responsible for someone other than himself. In fact, he is the only one who can save his sister from the plight of being thrown into a home with her materialistic Aunt and Uncle. He has to learn the hard way how to be responsible and that way is in a lot of ways hard indeed for Jeremy.

Through many false starts and somewhat naive moves, Jeremy takes it upon himself to find his parents killers. But during this time, he makes many decisons, some good and some bad to find the means to an end and put justice to work. 

He asks for and is given a job with his mothers old firm where he makes friends with Robbie and he learns more than someone is comfortable with at PCM, setting in motion a chain of events that are definitely dicey if not deadly for anyone who pushes the envelope too far.

Jeremy also enrolls at his father’s college where he hopes to learn more than is taught in the classroom. Such as why his father’s office was set afire and why it seems the top dog of the school hated his father with a passion. Intertwined in this, is his meeting and ever growing relationship with his father’s grad assistant, Marina who turns out to be someone who turns his life upside down, revealing secrets about his father he never would have dreamed possible.  Though she means well, Marina is too close to the action, a fact that Jeremy finds out the hard way. 

All through Jeremy’s search, his sister Elise is battling her own demons regarding the night her parents were killed. As the shock wears off, she remembers more of the night and that fact alone is enough to put her life in danger as well.

Add to this, a grandfather who is supportive while grieving for his late wife, a detective who is working as hard as she can to find the killers, while trying to keep Jeremy and his sister safe and a myriad of other characters as well and you have a suspense novel that is impossible to put down and more impossible to turn the last page on.  

This is a book like no other. It has romance, lust, suspense, danger, missed signs, and a cast of sometimes unbelievably real characters who make the reader stop  and realize that he/she has met someone just like this character in his/her life! That knowledge alone is enough to propel the reader deep into the lives of Jeremy. Elise, their grandfather and all the other characters who are so well fleshed out by author Sharon Potts that you’d swear at times they were sitting in your living room with you!

I recommend this book to all who love a mystery/suspense type novel that actually “could” happen given the right circumstances and place. It is a book that rivets the reader and compels them to read until the final page is turned and the book is safely on the self ready for the next read. But I’ll warn you, putting the book away will not take it from your mind, as you will ponder it’s contents for days. And to this reader and writer…that is exactly what makes a good book. The ability for it to stick with you hours and days later. 

This is that sort of book and I highly recommend this read to anyone, for it will change the way you look at life forever as you follow Jeremy and Elise through the most horrific time anyone can imagine, in their quest for the truth of their parents deaths and justice for their killer. 

This book had it ALL.  The thrills, the action, mystery, murder – even love. 

Jeremy Stroeb is the quintessential “rich kid”.  His parents are hard workers who got where they are through determination and love of what they do.  Jeremy doesn’t know what he wants to do.  On the outside he seems to be a slacker living off his parent’s money.  On the inside – he’s still just a confused kid whose last wish is to be his parents.  He wants to be his own person.

Jeremy’s parents are brutally murdered, leaving him and his younger sister behind.  He is forced to grow up when it seems that either his sister and his parent’s legacy ends up in his greedy uncle’s hands or his sister ends up with him.  In conjunction with this, he wants to know what happened to his parents.  To figure this out, he decides to get an internship at his mother’s company and enroll at the college where his father taught.

He thinks he knows his parents, but does he really?  Jeremy has no idea that his grown-up decision to be a man and find out who killed his parents will put his own life in danger.   No one is who they seem to be.  Everyone has a secret.  Someone has a secret that ended in his parent’s death.  Jeremy learns about himself in this book.  Who is he?  What does he want out of life?  Does he even HAVE a life? 

This is finding oneself to the extreme.  I was surprised by this book.  It wasn’t what I thought it would be at all.  There were twists and turns I never saw coming.  There were plots going on that the author sprung on the reader at the last possible moment.  I had to keep reading to see what or who was around that corner.  I enjoyed it, and I think you will, too.