When The Devil Wants In by Cate Ashwood and J.H. Knight | Cat's Release day Review, Excerpt & #giveaway @Dreamspinners @cateashwood ~ '

John Turner has been living a lie most of his life. Growing up in the rural Georgia town of Magnolia Ridge, he’s only ever let one person truly know him: his best friend, Chloe. To the rest of the world, they’re the perfect couple, but just between them, she’s helping John hide in plain sight.

Matt Kinsley, a cop from San Francisco, moves to town looking for a slower pace and to reconnect with his Southern roots. Starting over in Magnolia Ridge means taking a step into the closet, but Matt finds that with John for company, he doesn’t mind so much.

As the two start to explore a possible relationship, a horrific murder rips the town apart but brings John and Matt together in ways neither could’ve imagined. Matt must decide where his loyalties lie while John resists the urge to run again. Together, they have to discover who the real devil is before another life is destroyed.

Buy links: Dreamspinner | Amazon US

Cat gives this one 5 Meows...

When the Devil Wants in is a very intriguing mystery/suspense. The story starts out a little slow as the first half sets up all the characters personalities and relationships. It is still very good but Then about halfway through it picks up and gets page-turning and knuckle gripping. I was expecting a death but was really shocked when at who it was. I love a mystery when I think I figured it out bt was far from right.

There are so many characters; John, Chloe, his sister Melonie, his little niece Birdy that is adorable, lots of officers on the force, Johns parents...Then we have Matt new on the force and even his ex-partner though we get him from afar (and I want more). I love characters and each one of these is so well developed and intriguing.

The story does end with a complete and happy ending but also with a few loose ends I think are on purpose. At least I hope it's on purpose and there is going to be more books about the police force or people in town.

Excerpt..

“Y’ALL WANT some biscuits to go with that chicken?” Ilene—well, Momma to John—asked as she finished putting together the picnic basket. “They’re fresh from the oven….”

“Have I ever turned down your food?” John asked as he stepped around her to the ice machine on the counter. He grabbed two mason jars and then loaded them up with sweet tea and lemon slices before putting the lids on them.

“Guess that was a stupid question,” she said as she wrapped four warm biscuits in a napkin and set them in the bottom of the basket. She glanced at Chloe and asked, “What about you, hon? I’ve got some blackberry pie left over from last night.”

His mother was a nice plump old thing, and she loved to cook and feed people. She always said it was her way of doing God’s work, that you couldn’t hear the spirit if your stomach was growling.

“I’m fine, Mrs. Turner, but thank you for the offer.” Chloe smiled with her whole face, from her bright green eyes to her apple cheeks and her full red lips. She made everyone’s name sound like a compliment.

“You better start calling me Momma, or shoot, even Ilene. You and Johnny have been together for too long to call me Missus anything, for heaven sake.”

Chloe blushed, but her expression was playful. “I’m sorry, Miss Ilene.”

Ilene huffed a laugh and rolled her eyes. “That’s close enough. For now.” She turned to John with the picnic basket and said, “Here ya go, son. Now gimme some sugar before y’all leave.”

John didn’t need to be asked to give his mother a hug and a kiss, but Ilene always told him to anyway. “I’ll see y’all in the mornin’. Tell Daddy I said g’night.”

“I will. He’s in town fetchin’ some paint for that back porch of yours, but he should be along soon.”

“Shoot, I told him I’d do that tomorrow.”

Ilene started cleaning the countertop, getting ready to cook dinner. She was always cooking something. “Well, you know him. He doesn’t believe in putting things off.”

Given the fact that they hadn’t planned on painting the porch for another three days, John didn’t think of it as putting anything off, but he knew better than to argue. “Well, tell him thank you for me and I’ll pay him back when I see him.”

Ilene waved her hand, shooing a fly or her son, he couldn’t tell. “You two go on now. Have fun and be safe, all right?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Nearly twenty-seven years old, but he sometimes still felt like a child when he was at home. It would probably help if he’d stop shopping in his mother’s fridge, but that was beside the point.

As John stepped off the front porch, he had to pull at his T-shirt, feeling it cling in the hot, heavy air. March in South Georgia was always a strange month with plenty of rain and plenty of heat, but this year felt even more oppressive than usual. He put their picnic into the back of the truck before getting the passenger door for Chloe. She didn’t really like it when he did things like that, felt like he was—what was it she said? Infantilizing her? Denying her equality? He couldn’t remember, but he did it anyway, at least when his mother might be watching out the back window.

“You are such a momma’s boy, John Turner,” Chloe said as she climbed into the truck. She glanced over his shoulder and probably caught his mother watching. “If you were my son, I’d tell you to make your own damn lunch.”

John leaned in and pecked her on the cheek, mostly for show, and they both knew it. “If I were your son, this would be awkward.”

He closed the door and went around to his side. As he got behind the wheel, Chloe said, “If you were my son, this wouldn’t be necessary.”

“True.” John loved his family dearly, and they loved him; he really believed that with all his heart. At the same time, though, he had no desire to be one more thing for his mother to weep and pray over. It was bad enough when his sister, Melonie, had come home knocked up, not wanting to tell them who the father was. They’d nearly disowned her. But a gay son? He’d be kicked out of the family for sure. Or at least be on every prayer list in the county, whispered about behind his back. Hell, half of those good ol’ boys who sat beside his mother at church would just as soon beat the shit out of him as look at him if they knew. And he called a few of them his friends, worked with them on the road crew. Just, no. Not happening.

“How’s your sister doing?” Chloe asked from beside him, changing the subject.

The road narrowed down to one lane as he drove farther from home. “Still married to the shitbag.” John wasn’t a fan of his brother-in-law. Not only was the guy a total alcoholic, he was a total asshole. John was fairly sure he’d started beating his sister, but he had no way of proving it. “I was thinking I might tie him to my tailgate and take him for a jog next time Mel tells me she tripped and hit her face on a door.”

Chloe made an annoyed sound and reached into her purse for a smoke. “I’m still not clear on why she married him to begin with. Or, hell, why she ever even looked at him, for that matter.”

John wasn’t so sure himself. Yeah, she’d been pregnant, and yes, their parents were pretty insistent about not wanting her to be a single mother. Still, though. There were worse things than raising a kid on your own. Much worse. “I think maybe she was just hoping to find someone to love her, make her think she could be something… more than whatever she thought she was before.” That was his best guess, anyway.

“Someone should’ve told her she’d find the more inside herself. Probably sometime after high school.”

“We should all be told that,” John said as he turned onto the dirt road out of town. He steered around the potholes as best he could, but it was damn near impossible in a few spots. “At least she graduated.” She’d been eight months pregnant and married to a pile of shit, but she’d done it. That alone said something about her. “And I did get the prettiest niece in the world out of the deal, so there’s that.”

Chloe laughed and gave him a nudge, passing him her cigarette. “You’re such a sucker for that kid. You’re never gonna save up enough to move to… wherever the hell you plan to move, if you keep spoiling her.”

John took a long drag. He didn’t smoke very often, but he thoroughly enjoyed it when he did. “Someone’s got to. Mel can’t afford it since Shitbag drinks his paycheck away.”

“Maybe your parents should since—” Chloe seemed to rethink whatever she was about to say. “Since they’re the grandparents and all.”

“Did you draw blood when you bit your tongue just now?”

“Only a little.” She shifted in the seat, took her seat belt off, and started to wiggle out of her jeans.

John wasn’t too surprised, but she usually waited until they got where they were going before she changed her clothes. “I’m sorry, did you want to share the same space as my windshield this afternoon?”

“Don’t be such a baby,” she said, grunting as she tried to get her skinny jeans down off her ankles. “It’s too damn hot for these pants, but your mother would start holy rollin’ or somethin’ if I showed up in these.” She held up a tiny pair of shorts that looked more like a belt than anything else.

With a laugh, John said, “She’s not a holy roller.” As Chloe shimmied into her shorts, he added, “She probably would be less keen on us getting married if you dressed like that around her, though.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

She was joking, he was fairly sure. Though, he never could tell with Chloe. They’d been best friends since she was barely sixteen years old, nearly a decade now, but she still found ways to surprise him. Or terrify him, depending on her mood. The three years she’d left the state for college were the hardest of his life. In a town so small everyone knew his name, he’d felt impossibly alone without her. When she told him she’d met someone and was dating for the first time in her life—well, dating a straight boy for the first time in her life—he’d thought it might kill him.

He still felt guilty for how relieved he was when she came back home. Her brother had just been killed in Afghanistan, her family devastated. Chloe herself seemed like a carved-out shell, like there was nothing left of her but tears, grief. But even still, some small part of John had been grateful. Not that Billy had died, but that Chloe had come back to him. He’d never felt more like a selfish son of a bitch in his life, and he probably never would again.

But he was still grateful.

I'm Cate! I live on the ocean in British Columbia, Canada with my husband, Christopher, my brand new little boy, Hudson, and my two kitties, Parker and Gracie. I'm happiest when spending time with my family, reading, or writing. Cate Ashwood wrote her very first story in a hot-pink binder when she was in the second grade and found her passion for writing. Her first successful foray into romance writing came five years later when she wrote her best friend, who was experiencing a case of unrequited love, her own happily ever after. Cate’s life has taken a number of different and adventurous roads. She now lives a stone’s throw from the ocean, just outside of Vancouver, British Columbia with her husband, her brand new little boy, and her two cats. Her life is filled with family and friends, travel, and, of course, books.

Cate's Website: http://www.cateashwood.com

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Coffee addict, fledgling author, and unpaid chauffeur. J.H. Knight has been writing love stories since the second grade. When she’s not catering to the whims of her imaginary friends (whom she sometimes refers to as “characters”), she’s usually found driving her four children all over the planet, working on a school project, or saying things like “Not until your homework is done!” A Pacific Northwest native, she loves the outdoors in every season whether she’s in the city, in the mountains, or building sloppy sandcastles with her kids on the beach. On her best days, she’s cuddled up with a good book, and on her worst days she’s tearing her hair out as she tries to decide if her sentence needs a comma or a semi-colon. She gratefully bows down in awe of editors, since she usually gets it wrong.