Reviewer: Lori Graham
Title: Home Before Midnight
Author: Virginia Kantra
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0-425-21108-8
Release Date: August 2006
Genre/Sub-genre: Romantic Suspense
Year/Setting: Current/Stokesville, NC
Overall Rating: 4.75
Sexual Content Rating: Sensual
Language (Profanity) Rating: Moderate
Violent Content Rating: Minimal/Moderate
Virginia's Website: hometown.aol.com/virginiakantra/myhomepage/business.html
The story actually started in the small town of Stokesville in 1987. The residents were thrown for a loop when Billy Ray Dawler brutally killed his mother and sister. Well, to be fair, they were poor, white trash so it wasn’t a complete shock but the viciousness was. Billy Ray was quickly dispensed to prison and the city moved on. Life could get back to normal and some of the riff raff was now cleaned out. No great loss.
However, today, a real life, investigative reporter has come to Stokesville to look into the crime because Paul Ellis believes there is more to the story. He has heard the story through his wife, Helen, who comes from one of the more well to do families from Stokesville. He became intrigues and then met in prison on several occasions with Billy Ray. His interest grew to the point that he knew this was his next book. To make matters even more right, Paul feels he will have the inside track because not only does his wife hail from Stokesville but so does his assistant, Bailey Wells.
Now the story pretty much revolves around Bailey and how her life has come back to the town she swore never to return to (well at least not for any length of time). Her parents and sister still live in the town so she will see them but the town never was exactly kind of to her. She was the unattractive, brainy younger sister. The attention all went to her sister and Bailey was a misfit. She left to move to New York and make a name for herself. Paul has promised that if she helps him to write this book, he will help her work on her own young adult manuscript.
Shortly after they arrive in town, however, things start to go drastically wrong. Bailey discovers Helen floating in the pool, dead, of course. This leads to a criminal investigation and Steve Burke (another hometown boy who left and came back) is the officer working the investigation. Bailey is a prime suspect in his book but his gut tells him there is more to this story than meets the eye.
I am going to leave off at this point because I don’t want to give away more of the plot. Suffice it to say, there are many twists and turns in the path Bailey and Steve will travel. Virginia does an incredible job of keeping you guessing because things aren’t as cut and dried as they usually are in most mysteries. There are little off shots that spring up all over the place to keep you guessing.
As far as the characters, there is the main mystery they are working on but there is also the solving of their own personal pasts that they are struggling with at the same time. They cling to each other to start because there isn’t any where else for them to lean in quite the same way. Sometimes though that makes for the best drama! 
Lori
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