Monday Book Review: The Forgotten Coast Florida Suspense Series: Books 1-4, by Dawn Lee McKenna

The Forgotten Coast Suspense Series, Books 1-4:
Low Tide
Rip Tide
What Washes Up
Landfall

by Dawn Lee McKenna
Published by Sweet Tea Press, 2017

About the Books:

Book 1: Low Tide  In the quaint coastal town of Apalachicola, sinister things are afoot, as sinister things tend to be.

Lt. Maggie Redmond is called to a crime scene on St. George Island, where she is met with the body of Gregory Boudreaux. The medical examiner calls it a suicide, but no one knows that Maggie has a horrible connection to the dead man.

When Gregory’s uncle, Bennett Boudreaux, the richest and scariest man in town, takes a sudden interest in Maggie, people start to wonder, Maggie included. Maggie knows he may suspect her of killing his nephew, but she finds herself slowly drawn to the man.
As Maggie fights to help a young girl escape the clutches of a volatile drug dealer who’d love to see Maggie dead, she also struggles to hide her dark link to a dead man, and her burgeoning relationship with her boss, Sheriff Wyatt Hamilton.

Unfortunately, secrets have a way of revealing themselves at low tide.

Book 2: Riptide   Once again, sinister things are afoot in Apalachicola, FL, and one of them is an actual foot.

When a local fisherman finds a severed limb in his net, it sets off a chain of events that no one can anticipate.

Lt. Maggie Redmond soon discovers that the foot belongs to the friend of another recently dead guy, Gregory Boudreaux, the man she never told anyone about. Gregory’s death was thought to be a suicide. That seems less likely, now that his best friend Sport’s foot has shown up out of the blue, as it were.

When it starts looking like town villain Bennett Boudreaux might be responsible for eliminating Sport, things begin to get a little weird. Especially since Maggie’s started to take a liking to Bennett. She’s also taken a real liking to her boss, Sheriff Wyatt Hamilton, but her growing friendship to Bennett and her secret connection to the dead men threaten her and Wyatt’s relationship.

Is Bennett avenging Maggie for some reason, or does he have something altogether different on his mind?

Book 3: What Washes Up    Karma’s alive and well in Apalachicola, Florida, and there are several people who are about to meet it face to face.

When more than a dozen bodies wash up on the beach of St. George Island, the residents of Apalach are outraged, and none more so than investigator Maggie Redmond and Sheriff Wyatt Hamilton. It’s time for the greedy to answer for the lives of innocents.
Meanwhile, a man is found tied to a burning boat in the middle of the bay, and Maggie’s instincts tell her Bennett Boudreaux is behind it.

If he is, Maggie has to decide whether she really wants him punished, or if justice has already been served.

Book 4: Landfall  Two storms that nobody thought were coming just made landfall.

As a hurricane gathers its power just off Apalachicola’s shore, another storm comes to a head in Lt. Maggie Redmond's home.

Held prisoner by a man bent on avenging the death of a son, Maggie must find a way to save herself and her two children. No one knows where they are. No one is coming to help.

Maggie and her children will have to find a way to survive both the madness inside their home and the madness raging outside.

My Take:

What are you doing while you socially distance? Are you reading? Me too!

I grabbed this box set as a BookBub deal, never having read anything by this author previously. I figured I'd try the first one and see if I liked her writing style.

A few days later, I've finished all four and contemplating buying more of this series.

Well plotted and paced, each story has its own complete arc but also (and obviously) ties in with a bigger series arc. It was a little like eating potato chips in that I finished one and started right in on the next. Told in the third person, most is from Maggie's POV but other characters take over the narrative in different chapters, giving the reader a more complete picture of just how complex life in a small coastal town can be.

Although the main character is a lieutenant in the sherrif's department, the stories are more character driven than procedural. There are definitely crime scenes and bad guys and shootings and worse, but Maggie Redmond is driven by emotions, her love of family and her sense of justice. She is a kickass strong female character and I loved every minute of all four of these fast reads.

While the sale is no longer on, this set is available on Kindle Unlimited if you're a member. It's also only $5.99 for 4 complete books, which isn't a bad price to find a new go-to author.

5 satisfied stars for this shining collection. Grab a copy on AMAZON