Sleep Softly

By Gwen Hunter

Four little girls--each blond, each on the verge of adolescence--stolen from their families. Their bodies discovered months later in shallow graves, surrounded by trinkets they never owned, clutching a scrap of paper bearing a cryptic verse. As a forensic nurse in rural South Carolina, Ashlee Davenport Chadwick acts as both caregiver and cop, gathering evidence from anyone who arrives in the local E.R. as the result of a crime. It's a tough job, both physically and emotionally draining, but deeply satisfying. Then a child's red shoe is discovered on Davenport property. The evidence leads Ashlee to the body of a missing girl and her work suddenly invades every aspect of her life. As an expert and a witness, she must call upon all her resources. And when the killer's eye turns to her, she becomes intimately involved with a crime that tests her mind and her spirit...and the price of failure will be another child's life.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0778324648
• ISBN13: 9780778324645
• Release Date: January 2008
• Publisher: Mira Books
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 0.42 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 4.2" x 6.6"

Customer Reviews

his muse was murder.....

Romantic suspense is not my normal forte', maybe that's why I enjoyed this book so much, as several other reviewers didn't seem to care for it. I enjoyed the story of Ashlee Davenport Chadwick, a forty something widow, who lives on her Rural South Carolina homestead farm with her matriarchal Nana, her biracial other grandmother and her college age daughter. Ashlee's already hectic life as a single mom and forensic nurse is turned upside down when one of her dogs brings her a child's red sneaker-and she's horrified to find a child's toe still in the shoe. What follows is a fast paced suspense-part nursing/hospital drama, part Southern murder mystery, and a small part romance. I found the lead, Ashlee to be competent as well as caring, and I enjoyed reading a story set in the south as well. While the book had flaws-they were minor in my opinion and didn't take away from the storyline. I'd recommend Sleep Softly to fans of Romantic Suspense and Woman Sleuths as well. 3.5 stars.

Great Fun

Just what you've come to expect from Hunter--fun and thrills with a bit of medical stuff thrown in for good measure.

tense exciting police procedural

ER Nurse Ashlee Davenport Chadwick either makes or finds a home on her family farm for retired K-9 dogs. Currently besides her college student daughter Jas, Big Dog, Cheeks, and Cherry live with her. They bring to her a smelly child's red sneaker, which she is about to toss in a game of fetch only she knows the odor reeks of "old death". She looks inside and sees tissue. Although she knows it is dumb, she labels and protects the "evidence" as she has learned in her forensic courses. Hesitant as she does not want her peers at Dawkins County Rescue Squad nicknaming her, she still calls the Sheriff's Department. Afterward Cheeks, an experienced tracker dog, takes her to the sight where she finds a toe. Over the objection of the locals, Ashlee's boyfriend, FBI Violent Crime Squad Coordinator Jim Ramsey of the nearby Columbia office, leads the investigation. He is already looking into a serial killer whose victims are young girls, which probably means Cheeks' find fits his case. Soon they discover several young buried on or just off Chadwick land; making the family including Ashlee the prime suspect. SLEEP SOFTLY is a tense exciting police procedural that readers will devour in one sitting. The story line is fast-paced especially when the culprit targets the heroine. The romance is kept somewhat on the back burner so that subplot does not intrude on an engaging whodunit. Mostly told from Ashlee's perspective, sub-genre readers will enjoy this suspenseful thriller. Harriet Klausner