Review: The Edge of Night

Making the Grade: B+

For My Thoughts

Reading The Edge of Night by Jill Sorenson for me was like getting two great stories in one. In my opinion there was very little to differentiate between the impact of the main and secondary characters. Both were strong couples whose storylines were interwoven and equally compelling.

April Ortiz is a hard working single mother trying to make the best of the cards she’s been dealt. She’s working as a waitress, taking college courses, lives in a rough neighborhood over run with gang violence and is forced to resort to drastic measures to cut ties with her mom when she lets April down big time. I’m not gonna lie - April’s actions towards her mom shocked me but after thinking about it, I guess she really had no choice and couldn‘t allow her five year old daughter‘s life to be endangered. Add in April’s close ties to the gang life - little Jenny’s father Raul is himself a gang-banger, albeit incarcerated and I had to give April full marks for trying to lead as normal a life as possible and give her daughter the very best she could given her circumstances.

Noah Young is a regular, normal guy...and when I say that - it’s as a compliment. It was refreshing that Sorenson wrote his character as a hard working, dedicated beat cop, not the boss, not a know-it-all experienced investigator - just a great guy. He was relatively new to the Chula Vista police force but had a real passion and interest in working for the gang division and he wanted to make a difference. To him being a police officer meant something - it wasn‘t just a job. He didn’t met April under the best of circumstances when he and his partner were send to Club Sauve where she worked to investigate the death of a fellow waitress who was murdered.

April and Noah are drawn to one another instantly, but if two people should stay away from each other - it’s these two. Cops and women with deep connections to the local gang are a disaster waiting to happen.

Now we get to my favorite character in The Edge of Night...Eric Hernandez - Uncle Eric. He was the glue that held all the players together. For me, he was the most interesting and emotion evoking character in this story. Eric was a great “brother-in-law” to April, a terrific Uncle to Jenny, a caring grandson to an invalid grandmother he was caring for and his story took an unexpected turn when we discovered he was a sweet and caring boyfriend to Meghan who ironically enough was Noah Young’s sister.

Oye!

Eric was someone you couldn’t help but root for. Sure he ran with the wrong crowd, walked on the wrong side of the law, but we got to see that he was forced into a life he simply didn’t know how to escape. People relied on him to provide for them and so he found himself doing distasteful things because he couldn’t see another way out and he didn’t want to let the people in his life down. Ms. Sorenson did show us just a glimpse of how the future could have been different for Eric - if he hadn’t been born into a long time gang family. Eric’s hidden talents could have changed his life if he’d been allowed to develop them.

In addition to all the human drama unfolding, there’s still a killer on the loose targeting young Latina women. It’s up to Officer Young to discover the truth, juggle his responsibilities as a police officer and try not to blur the lines between right and wrong too often for the women in his life who mean the most to him.

I really enjoy Ms. Sorenson’s writing and I hope she revisits Eric’s story - because he truly does deserve his own HEA.

From The Author's Website
Bantam Dell
April 2011
ISBN 978-0-553-59263-4

Read an Excerpt here

In a sultry California city on the Mexican border, a brutal crime pushes a struggling young mother and an idealistic cop to the edge of passion—and beyond.

To support her small daughter, April Ortiz does what she has to do—which means waiting tables in a skimpy outfit at a popular nightclub in a gang-infested area of Chula Vista. When one of her co-workers is raped and murdered, April does what she knows she shouldn’t—she defies the neighborhood code by giving the police a hardcore gang member’s name.

Clean-cut cop Noah Young wants a shot at breaking this case more than anything in the world—that is, until he meets the unforgettable April Ortiz. When April gives Noah the tip, a spark ignites. As the fire between them threatens to blaze out of control, the two are dragged down further into the dark mysteries of the graffiti-lined streets, taunted by a crazed killer who could strike again at any time.