Up Close by Henriette Gyland

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Choc Lit (7 Dec 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 190693178X
• ISBN-13: 978-1906931780
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  How close is too close? Dr Lia Thompson has swapped her native Norfolk for a life in America, but returns to sort out legal matters after her grandmother's death. Unprepared for the viciousness of village gossip, she's vulnerable to insinuations that her grandmother knew something about the recent bomb threats against a nearby army base. Even so the longer she stays, the more she realises this is where she belongs.
  
  Wounded ex-navy man and artist Aidan Morrell has accepted his physical scars, but is still bitter over the army's treatment of his older brother, which had a devastating effect. He expresses himself in his sometimes disturbing paintings and through scuba-diving, and sees Lia with her fear of water as a challenge. The attraction between them is undeniable. Should they dare to let the other get close?
• Cover: I like that the cover is fairly simple, but reflects the atmosphere very much present in the book.
• I have mixed feelings on this one, but it's definitely different.  Over all I enjoyed this book, my main issue was with the pacing.  I felt it never really got going.  The last 50 pages were a little better, with more action, but I felt just as something would happen- it would cut away and need to build up again, and it was the build up that really slowed this book down.
• The mystery was definitely interesting- was Ivy's death really suspicious? Why is Lia's friend acting so strangely and just what is Aidan hiding?, and the setting was amazing.  Lia's grandmother's house was perfectly cold and creepy.
• The romance was also kind of lacking for me.  I didn't find it exciting or compelling enough. I didn't believe Lia and Aidan fell in love.
• 3/5 stars.
• I recommend this for thriller/chick lit fans that are maybe looking for something a little different.
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