Robert and Julie Smith's daughter, Neveah, has gone missing. Neveah has been known to be a little wild, and Sheriff Zach Owens, upon listening to the parents, suspects that maybe Neveah doesn't want to be found. Not long after, Zach gets a call that someone found the dead body of a naked girl. But it is not Neveah's. In Clear Springs, Montana, is located the Elysia commune, which is more a cult than the "back to nature" community they profess to be. Martha Collins is the leader of the cult, and she never could accept that her daughter Eden would leave, but leave Eden did, with the idea of never going back. Eden became an FBI agent, not surprisingly working the cult division. When Eden receives an untraceable email with enclosed pictures of the murdered girl in Clear Springs, she reluctantly returns to the place Eden never called home. Eden saw the tattoos on the body, she knows the Elysians are involved, because Eden has the same tattoos...

THE DEVIL'S DAUGHTER kicks off the new Hidden Sins series, which is a departure in style for Katee Robert, as the author tries her hand as romantic suspense. I'm very difficult to please when it comes to this genre, and I must admit that THE DEVIL'S DAUGHTER is a bit of a miss for me. While the premise is interesting, the sudden attraction between Zach and Eden seemed to come out of nowhere, as if they bonded after talking about their respective nightmares, but then again, I wouldn't know. I do love my thrillers, and I enjoy a good romantic suspense, but in this case I felt the few romantic interludes intruded on the story, which is a bit odd because Ms. Robert excels at writing romance, which I enjoy tremendously.

Eden never wanted to go back where she grew up, and never wanted to be even near her mother again, and boy was she right about that. Eden, a consummate FBI agent, seemed to unravel when in her dreadful mother's presence. As for "who did it", it was quite unexpected and not entirely convincing, in my opinion. THE DEVIL'S DAUGHTER is well written and evenly paced; it makes for a nice, quick read for a lazy afternoon.

Book Summary

Growing up in a small town isn’t easy, especially when you’re the daughter of a local cult leader. Ten years ago, Eden Collins left Clear Springs, Montana, and never once looked back. But when the bodies of murdered young women surface, their corpses violated and marked with tattoos worn by her mother’s followers, Eden, now an FBI agent, can’t turn a blind eye. To catch the killer, she’s going to have to return to the fold.

Sheriff Zach Owens isn’t comfortable putting Eden in danger, even if she is an elite agent. And he certainly wasn’t expecting to be so attracted to her. As calm and cool as she appears, he knows this can’t be a happy homecoming. Zach wants to protect her—from her mother, the cult, and the evil that lurks behind its locked gates. But Eden is his only key to the tight-lipped group, and she may just be closer to the killer than either one of them suspects…