Teresa Farr has returned to her hometown of Point Pleasant but she is nervous being there. Eight years ago her father and stepmother were brutally murdered, her eight year old step-sister almost died and Teri was stabbed in the arm. Many people in Teri’s home town thought Teri was the murderer because she was very vocal about hating her father and step-mother and her injury was minor. Teri was not the murderer and she loved her little step-sister Celeste and never would have harmed her. Celeste was so traumatized by the attack that she hasn’t spoken for eight years, but recently Celeste has begun to talk but talks in riddles. The police thought they had captured the murderer when a serial killer confessed to the crime but now the serial killer is recanting his story. And now, Teri is receiving threats. Is the murderer still living in Point Pleasant? Does the murderer want to finish the job and kill Celeste and Teri or does the murderer just want to finish framing Teri. And why is Mac Mackenzie, her former fiancé, picking now to come back into her life? Teri has never gotten over him but he betrayed her once and she can never trust him again, or can she?

Carlene Thompson’s If You Ever Tell is a wonderfully suspenseful romance with twist and turns throughout the story. Ms. Thompson held my imagination captive from the beginning of the story all the way to the last page. Every time I thought I figured out who the murderer might be, Ms. Thompson threw out another clue or twist to make me guess again. And poor Teri, I loved her spirited, independent nature but she has a rough go of it. As the suspense in the story builds so does Teri’s isolation, she doesn’t know who she can trust and who believes in her. I can’t imagine living in a town where people are so certain that I have escaped justice and am a murderer, especially when I was attacked too! This is the first book I have read by Carlene Thompson but it will not be my last. I thoroughly enjoyed her ability to draw me so completely into the story that I hated to put it down. She made her characters so real and that I wanted to jump in the pages and help.

Reviewed by: Stephanie B.