Nicholas Hawkinson returns to his home town of Ashton, N.Y. He was the town bad boy and, accused of a murder he didn’t commit, Nicholas left town for over five years. Now he is back to fix his family home, and find the true killer. He has the background now to do so. Meghan Edwards is also in town for the same reason; the murdered woman was her sister. Her cover in town was doing a photo shoot for a magazine. She is trying to get people to talk to her about what happened five years ago, but nobody is talking about it, except two men, and one isn’t Nicholas. She is determined to clear her sister’s name from the suicide label stamped on her, but it seems neither her society family nor the quiet town of Ashton wants it. Will her investigation take her too far into the world her sister was part of? Will Nicholas be able to save her? And win her heart? These two characters struck sparks from their first meeting. Both were trying to convince themselves that the secrets they were keeping were for the good of the investigation and for the other person. The high school rivalry between three of the characters adds an edge of urgency to closing this case. The slow opening of the hero and heroine to each other is delightful and captivating. Each conversation between them adds another layer to their personalities, making them real, living, breathing people with enough emotion to jump off the page at you. I thoroughly enjoyed Ms. Laverentz’s romantic suspense, Ashton’s Secret. I couldn’t put down this story, lost sleep to finish it and find out how they were going to get the bad guy and if the hero and heroine were going to get their happily ever after. Definitely 5 wings, and I will be reading more of her.