Review by Elizabeth - Thoughts from an Evil Overlord
Having read and reviewed Storm Rising, the first book in Rachael Richey’sNightHawk Series, I was excited to find out what was going on with Abi and Gideon two years after their reunion in Rhythm of Deceit. They are blissfully happy with each other, their family, and their group of friends, living by the sea in Cornwall. Gideon is going back to recording music, he is going to embark on a solo career because he will never get NighHawk back together after the betrayal of Simon, the drummer and his lifelong friend. Abi is happy being a mother to Natasha, the child taken from them at birth, and working on her child’s integration into a family with feelings of insecurity and anger. I enjoy the relationship she has with her daughter, motherly and honest, which would be difficult to develop having been separated for so many years.
Rhythm of Deceit was more exciting for me than Storm Rising in that it featured a true “bad guy” out to hurt Abi and Gideon’s relationship in a vicious way. Besides a crazy stalker, Rhythm of Deceit has a former spy calling in favors to help the couple, a chase through the woods during a horrible thunderstorm, and people being trapped on Worm’s Head causeway island in Wales to make it even more exciting. For lovers of mystery, we learn more about the motives behind Abi’s mother’s actions twelve years earlier through a series of diaries discovered in an old suitcase, giving readers the element of going back in time to 1950 for part of the story. Rhythm of Deceit also has a lot about the music industry, with Gideon in the recording studio, meeting up with his friend and former bandmate Charles, visiting record company executives and tour managers, which ws a little lacking in Storm Rising.
It’s difficult to write this review without revealing too much about Storm Rising, which I definitely recommend reading first, to really get the feeling for Gideon and Abi’s story. I am looking forward to Cobwebs in the Dark, which has already been set up when Natasha discovers there is more to learn about her grandmother’s past than what was in the suitcase. And, what was first being touted as a trilogy will now have a fourth book, that Rachael has just sent to her publisher. I also love all the cover art for the series, especially the font with those scrolly Rs!