This is a "Christian mystery/thriller romance" or "romantic suspense," the first I've read by this author, who comes highly recommended.

In the opening scenes, a girl called Button gives birth on her 15th birthday on the commune of the cult that she has begun to lose faith in but that she and her parents still belong to. The commune comes under attack that same night. In the melee, her father informs her that her baby died, her mother refuses to leave, and they have to escape immediately. With no real relationship with Moose, the baby's father (who she's never even seen clearly), and with no hope for her baby or her obstinately indoctrinated mother, Button leaves with her father.

Fifteen years later, a series of vigilante crimes and a gruesome murder take place in Pelican Harbor, Alabama, a small, nascent tourist town on the gulf. Jane Hardy has just been appointed chief of police after her father's retirement. At the mayor's insistence, successful documentary filmmaker Reid Dixon and his son will be shadowing Jane as she works to solve the crimes, prove her worth, clear her father's name, and deal with her own emotional issues and an intersecting web of the secrets and lies of others.

A note about genre — I'd consider this a police procedural mystery/thriller, where the mystery and thrills are adequate but the procedural part seems a little loose. It's very light on romance. I suspect there will be more in the rest of the series, but that doesn't quite fulfill the happily-ever-after requirements for this first book.

Spoiler

[SPOILERS: Given the delicate situation of the burgeoning relationship and the characters' backstories, I would've been super uncomfortable if it *had* wrapped up into an easy HEA resolution, so I'm not knocking it for being romance-lite. What was there was already borderline disturbing.]

It's relatively moderate on Christianity — a couple of Bible verses, invitations to church, a couple of C.S. Lewis quotes, a main character and two minor characters explicitly guided by Christian perspectives.

So why only 2 stars? It's a decent story, but not a great book — too many characters introduced in the first few chapters and referred to by too many different names, too many unnecessary subplots, a couple of plot holes and fact-checking issues, and one character's intro to the narrative is jumbled. And I wasn't comfortable with some of the content — unnecessary identical stereotyping of the only two explicitly Black or brown women in the book (both 50-something described as looking like 30-somethings because of their dark skin or their dark eyes and hair), the psychological issues surrounding the cult participation weren't very well examined (though perhaps that, too, will come in future installments), the prepper lifestyle and stockpiling of a private arsenal was justified if not completely normalized, and

Spoiler

[SPOILERS: yes, I liked Reid well enough and I understood his dilemma of trying to get to know Jane to find out if it was safe to introduce her into Will's life, but the subterfuge was a big ol' NOPE for me. Controlling, disrespectful, counterproductive to building trust in an already messed up situation nope. Also, and probably most importantly, I understand the urge to "redeem" what happened to Jane (and Reid) in the cult, but it was basically statutory rape — she was FOURTEEN and he was eighteen — and I'm zero percent comfortable with romanticizing that into a sweet "feels like coming home" kiss between them 15 years later and without her informed consent about who he was and how their paths had crossed earlier. Nope. Nope. Nope.]

Content warnings: cult, underage sex and pregnancy, vigilante justice, tar and feathering, corrupt police, child abduction, death and dismemberment

My thanks to #NetGalley and #ThomasNelson for an advanced copy of #OneLittleLie in exchange for my honest feedback.