The First Cut
Doctors of Darkness, Book #3
By Ellery Kane
Author’s Website: https://ellerykane.com/
Brought to you by OBS reviewer Heidi
To most people Ian and Kate Culpepper looked like the perfect couple. Beautiful. Rich. Successful. They were both psychiatrists who co-hosted the show, Love Doctored, to catch cheating spouses with their infamous Fidelity Five test.
However, Ava Lawson has a different view of the couple. She’s the ex-wife that Ian doesn’t even admit publicly to having. He thoroughly replaced her with the new model, Kate. In fact, Love Doctored and the Fidelity Five were her ideas and she was originally supposed to co-host the show with him, until their marriage went horribly wrong. Ava thought she was getting away from Ian when she moved back to her hometown, to only have him follow, with the perfect family in tow.
Kate and Ian were found brutally murdered on Valentine’s Day and the murder weapon shows up in Ava’s desk at work! Ava has been sleeping with Luke, a sweet and hunky police officer in town. He, his brother Cooper, and their father are investigating the grisly murders. Could Ava’s secrets, half-truths, and lies finally catch up to her and end her relationship with Luke once and for all? Will an obsession with a man that threw her away be her undoing?
I absolutely love Ellery Kane’s writing! I have thoroughly enjoyed every book in this series! And, this novel was no exception!
I felt this story had a different vibe than the other two before it. The others seemed to be more focused on serial killers. This one focused more on a torrid love triangle … or love web may be more of a fitting description. The book flips back and forth from the present to Valentine’s Days (or anti-valentines) past with Ava and Ian. As we’re trying to figure out who killed Ian and Kate, we get more snippets of their past and the very real obsession that Ava has had with Ian all these years. Could she have killed them after all?
I can see how Ian roped all these women into relationships with him because I was drawn to him as well, while reading this book. Not that I wanted a relationship with him, mind you. However, I did enjoy getting to know him and seeing the evil that lurked behind a pretty face.
And, I absolutely adored Luke! He was too sweet and caring. I loved the way he played and flirted with Ava.
“Ava rolled onto her side to get a better view of Luke. He stood at the dresser, his back to her, his lower half wrapped in a towel. The only light came from the cracked bathroom door, a thin spotlight splitting his shoulder blades.
“I’m watching you,” she teased.
She couldn’t see his face, but she could picture it breaking into a lazy grin. Luke smiled a lot. And she like making him smile. could it really be that easy–that simple and straightforward, just as he’d promised her?
“In that case, let me give you something to look at.” The towel dropped to his feet, pooling without a sound.”
I felt he truly understood her. And, even when things looked their bleakest he still had faith in her, even if she didn’t deserve it. I figured he was going to get his heart crushed though!
The ending of this book left me smiling like an idiot!
This was another great read in this series. A perfect balance of love, obsession, and mystery. The characters were complex and intriguing and it was fun trying to figure out what makes them tic! I can’t wait to read more and see what psychological mayhem awaits me next!
And this song seems fitting with how obsessed Ava seemed throughout most of this book so I decided to include it …. Want you Back by Cher Lloyd.
*OBS would like to thank the author for supplying a free copy of this title in exchange for an honest review*
