Deeper Than Need by Shiloh Walker

 Trinity Ewing—she's new in Madison, and her one goal is to put her old life behind her. She's made mistakes. A lot of them. She's done everything short of selling herself to stay alive and provide for her son. Now she's just looking for a place to put down roots and call home. The old ramshackle house on the banks of the Ohio River seem to be the perfect place. It needs work—a lot of it.

A former minister, Noah Benningfield now works as a carpenter. He hasn't entirely lost his faith, but he has lost himself. Which is exactly how he likes it. He doesn't want to find himself, because then he'd have to look at the many ways he failed. Working with his hands is easier. Or so he thinks. He hasn't ever had a job where he uncovers a skeleton, though. Not until now.

He can't help but wonder…are these the remains of Lana, the girl he'd loved in high school? Losing her had all but destroyed his life back then, a life he has only now pieced together. Even as he deals with the turmoil of that, there's a new turmoil, one caused by Trinity—she's everything he won't let himself have, and everything he realizes he wants.

Life becomes even more complicated when a ghost from the past blows back into town… Bethany Sutter—one of the last people to see Lana alive all those years ago.

Having read two of the novellas that precede this book in the Secrets & Shadows series, I was familiar with Ms. Walker’s writing style and was looking forward to reading a full-length novel to see what she could do with it. She did not disappoint me at all. Deeper Than Need is a romantic suspense that sucked me so far into the story that I devoured it in one sitting and found myself at the end, not ready for it to be over. Fans of the series will be pleased to see Jensen, Dean and Ali make an appearance in this book. However, you don’t need to read the novellas first to enjoy this book as its storyline is separate from that of the novellas.

In this installment in the Secrets & Shadows series we meet Noah and Trinity. Noah is a Madison native who experienced a tragedy as a teenager that left him numb and merely existing for most of his adult life. That is, until Trinity moved to town and bought the broken down house that served as a constant reminder of all that he lost. As the contractor who agreed to help her fix the place up, he can’t escape the pain the house invokes nor can he escape the desire that Trinity ignites – a feeling he hasn’t had in over a decade. One of the things I enjoyed about the sexual interactions between Noah and Trinity is that most of them occur in dreams they have about one another, which left me anticipating what it would be like when they finally acted upon their attraction. While this did not occur until around the 80% mark in the book, it was SOOOOO worth the wait. Preach is HOT and he knows exactly what to do to unleash the fire that rages between them. That he loves Trinity’s son Micah just makes him that much hotter.

As this is a romantic suspense, readers will realize rather quickly that there is far more going on in the story than the obvious, and as hints were dropped and the clues were revealed I really didn’t want to believe what they seemed to be indicating. And once the news it out, the little town of Madison is shocked to its core. Because this is a series, the next book Sweeter Than Sin seems to be set up to continue with this underlying storyline while giving us Adam’s story – something I am really looking forward to. I enjoyed Adam’s character and the role he played in this book, so I am looking forward to learning more about him. But what I really want to know is whether or not Caine is who I think he is. Well done Ms. Walker, you have me hooked.