Imperfect Justice by Cara Putman (#2)

Legal drama about domestic violence featuring one of the main characters from the previous book in this "Hidden Justice" series.

Emilie Wesley, an attorney and reporter, is the roommate of Hayden McCarthy and cousin of Hayden's boyfriend, Andrew. This book is Emilie's story. She's working at the Haven, a non-profit that serves women who want to escape difficult or abusive domestic situations. When one of her clients, Kaylene Adams, doesn't show up for a protective order hearing, Emilie is suprised. Kaylene seemed so determine to get out with her two daughters. As she is leaving court, a news alert reports mutliple shootings -- apparently Kaylene has shot one daughter dead, injured the other and killed herself. But that can't be right, can it?

The bulk of the rest of the story is about Kaylene's brother, Reid Billings, asking Emilie to help him get custody of the surviving daughter away from Kaylene's husband, Robert. The whole case moves very slowly -- probably because the main narrative is taken up with Emilie having a bit of a breakdown and a career crisis all while fearing she has a stalker. And if that's not enough to take away from the whole legal issues that are mentioned here and there, the rest of of the plot focuses on the romance between Emilie and Reid. So, to sum it up, the book is mostly angst with heavy dose of romance and a touch of legal proceedings. In addition, there is an extreme Christian theme -- which in an of itself is OK -- but every single character is always talking about it?? Hard to imagine that world and everyone on the same religious theme page all the time. Got to be too much, really. A little goes a long way. It seemed that this book was less about legal and more about romance and religion so it really wasn't much of a thriller nor was it suspenseful.

And the mystery of what happened in the Adams's house? Predictable and drug on forever with a rushed ending. I selected these two books in the series because I wanted to read legal thrillers, but I don't think I will read more for the reasons above. I was disappointed by this sequel.

I did, however, want to mention that I live in KC and have also spent hours in the Nelson-Atkins Museum staring at the original Monet painting the author describes. The wall-sized water lilies painting is amazing.

Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas & Nelson, Inc. for the e-book ARC to read and review.