Title: What Lies Beneath

Series: Lancaster Falls 01

Author: R.J. Scott

Genre: Contemporary

Length: Novel (248 pages)

ASIN: B07VGMFHHD

Publisher: Love Lane Books (19 June 2019)

Heat Level: Moderate

Heart Rating: 💖💖💖💖 4 Hearts

Reviewer: Prime

Blurb: In the hottest summer on record, Iron Lake reservoir is emptying, revealing secrets that were intended to stay hidden beneath the water. The tragic story of a missing man is a media sensation, and abruptly the writer and the cop falling in love is just a postscript to horrors neither could have imagined.

Best Selling Horror writer Chris Lassiter struggles for inspiration and he’s close to never writing again. His life has become an endless loop of nothing but empty pages, personal appearances, and a marketing machine that is systematically destroying his muse. In a desperate attempt to force Chris to complete unfinished manuscripts his agent buys a remote cabin. All Chris has to do is hide away and write, but he’s lost his muse, and not even he can make stories appear from thin air.

Sawyer Wiseman left town for Chicago, chasing the excitement and potential of being a big city cop, rising the ranks, and making his mark. A case gone horribly wrong draws him back to Lan-caster Falls. Working for the tiny police department in the town he’d been running from, digging into cold cases and police corruption, he spends his day’s healing, and his nights hoping the nightmares of his last case leave him alone.

Purchase Link: Amazon US | Amazon UK

Review: What Lies beneath is a mystery, thriller written by RJ Scott. It is the first book in a trilogy and I highly recommend it to people that love a good mystery/thriller. There’s a horror writer, a cop, a years old murder mystery and a town’s whose upper echelons have been shady for too many years. And of course, there is romance. It is really a lot of fun and the mystery element is really well drawn out.

RJ Scott is an author that I’m familiar with. Years ago, I got into her Ellery Mountains series and I remember really enjoying it, but unfortunately she dropped off my radar until recently when I got into Scott’s collaborations with VL Locey (Harrisburg Railers, etc.). And so here I am, I find myself intrigued and happy to get back into RJ Scott’s writing away from Hockey.

What Lies Beneath starts out with Sawyer Wiseman, who is now back in his small hometown working for the equally small police department. He had dreams of excitement and had followed them to Chicago. There had been a lot of baggage left behind, with a friend that went missing and the fall out that had gone through the small community. However, when things had gone wrong in Chicago Sawyer sees no choice but to return home and take up the life of a small town cop. Even if he has to work for a most unlikable sheriff who has a hold on the town along with the mayor. The sheriff and mayor are the two most powerful men, at the very least the two men coverup a situation of domestic abuse, which no one likes but are powerless to stop for the time being. Sawyer is biding his time but at the same time will take the chance to do whatever he needs to make life peaceful for the people of Lancaster Falls.

Chris Lassiter is a best selling horror author and has come to Lancaster Falls to get away from things somehow get his mojo back and shake the writer’s block that was threatening his career. With Chris, think of someone a little like the horror version of TV’s Richard Castle (because I can’t go past a Nathan Fillion reference!). But being in a small town, a stranger does spark curiosity, especially when he resides in an old isolated cabin (so very horror!).

The discovery of bones at the bottom of Iron Lake Reservoir throws Chris and Sawyer together. There is one major disappearance that has the whole town talking about the identity of the bones. Sure, it brings back Chris’s writing mojo, but for Sawyer it brings a whole world of trouble, both personally and professionally. There is every chance that the bones belong to one of his childhood friends, who had disappeared. With the sheriff and mayor causing him grief on a completely separate issue, Sawyer needs support, even from the closed off writer who is seeking inspiration for his next novel.

The men have great chemistry which has them inexplicably drawn to each other. The mystery across multiple lines of investigation had me engrossed. Sawyer and Chris are a dynamic duo and I loved every second of their story. The mystery storylines of the book are tied up at the end of this story and Sawyer and Chris get a very satisfying HEA for their romance. However, digging up the past brings more people to Lancaster Falls and I can’t wait to meet them properly in the next book!