Hallowed Ground — Hope Anika

2022 Winner, Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense

After Ellie Broussard saves Sean McDougal's son from drowning, she walks away, unwilling to involve herself with the rakish Irishman and his charming boy. Ellie has suffered a devastating loss, and her world is one of chosen isolation and calculated vengeance. She has only one focus: to find the monster that stole her child and turn his world to ash.

Sean can relate to Ellie's suffering. Having lost his wife to cancer, his sole focus has become raising his boy, and love…well, love can take a long walk. He's in Louisiana to locate a cache of stolen art, and even if he's taken aback -- and reluctantly intrigued -- by the mysterious and chilly Ellie Broussard, he knows better than to tumble down that rabbit hole.

But when they're thrown together on assignment to recover the cache, Sean and Ellie have no choice but to put aside their mutual misgivings and work side by side. To share; to trust; to discover they are not as separate as they appear. And as Ellie's deadly hunt approaches its culmination, they must risk everything they hold dear to stop a murderer who is readying his next strike, and to save an orphaned girl whose only hope lies in their willingness to defy the darkness and step into the light.