Book excerpt: A fast-paced, chilling page-turner, with a romance to melt the coldest heart! The Second Book in the Love and Murder in the Adirondacks Series Emma Pearson believes she has the perfect life in Hopewell, Ohio, until she doesn’t. Her husband’s murder while working undercover has revealed a secret life, a betrayal too deep to forgive, and his actions have placed her and her children in danger. Declining an offer to enter witness protection, she changes her name and goes on the run to join her best friend Riley in the Adirondacks, a park so vast she can start a new life and hide from her pursuers. After recovering from severe burns and a gunshot wound acquired in a drug bust, Anton ‘Tony’ Storms struggles with demons of his own. When Emma and her children arrive in Wanakena, he finds his world turned upside down. Then the assassins trailing her show up, and Tony must decide whether to remain apart from all entanglements or risk everything to protect the woman who has stolen his heart. J.E. Irvin is a career educator and an award-winning author. Her stories, essays, and poems have appeared in a variety of print and online publications. Happiest when canoeing in the Northwoods or hiking forest paths, Irvin and her husband reside in Springboro, Ohio, where they share their life with two crazy cats, a resident beaver in the pond behind their home, and a variety of wildlife in the prairie to the west.