Julie Barenson's young husband left her two unexpected gifts before he died: a Great Dane puppy named Singer and the promise that he would always be watching over her. Now, four years have passed. Still living in the small town of Swansboro, North Carolina, 29-year-old Julie is emotionally ready to make a commitment to someone again. But who? Should it be Richard Franklin, the handsome, sophisticated engineer who treats her like a queen? Or Mike Harris, the down-to-earth nice guy who was her husband's best friend? Choosing one of them should bring her more happiness than she's had in years. Instead, Julie is soon fighting for her life in a nightmare spawned by a chilling deception and jealousy so poisonous that it has become a murderous desire
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Some characters felt really fleshed out (like Julie, I liked her instincts most of the time) but others seemed quite one-dimensional (almost everybody, especially Andrea. Mike seemed overly stupid to me--came across as significantly younger than he was supposed to be).
Richard was effectively creepy, though I would have liked more about what he was considering as his motives. I felt Sparks really just pointed to a shitty/abusive childhood as the cause and then never explored this; I got the willies reading some of the things he did throughout the plot, but would have enjoyed his twisted reasoning more.
Book was very predictable, much more a thriller (IMO) than any sort of romance. I thought Julie's feelings toward Richard were okay: she likes him but doesn't feel much else and also thinks his dates are unrealistic/too fancy/not to her lifestyle. But then she decides that she really liked Mike and wanted to date him very quickly, without a "trigger" or something that changed her thinking (almost insta-love).
There were a few times this book came across to me more as a Mary Higgins Clark than a Nicolas Sparks.
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