Deep Tide, the fourth installment of The Texas Murder Files, follows Owen and Joel’s sister Leyla Breda. When Leyla meets undercover FBI agent, Sean Moran, at her brother Joel’s wedding she is completely smitten but she refuses to even think about dating non-locals. When on of Leyla’s employees is murdered behind her coffee shop, she’s shaken by the attack. Unbeknownst to her, Sean Moran is already on the case, and while the local Lost Beach PD is focused on the single murder, Moran has a much bigger investigation in play.

I expected to be completely in love with this story, as I enjoyed Leyla in the previous books. But I didn’t particular like Leyla’s character here. On one hand, she’s this no nonsense, tough women and on the other she completely emotionally immature and insecure. The contrast between the two sides of her personality made it hard to get to know her, and this took away from the story for me.   

I loved the murder/mystery story in this installment. It felt much higher stakes with the FBI being brought in then some of the previous books in this story. Which made this story more heart-pounding and had me on the edge of my seat multiple times.

While this has been my favorite police mystery of the series, this was my least favorite romance from Griffin. The relationship between Sean and Leyla felt forced with none of the chemistry the previous couples (Joel/Miranda, Macey/Owen, Bailey/Jacob) had. This could have easily been a 5 star for me, but with romance being half the point of Griffin’s books, the lack of chemistry took this down a star for me.

We meet quite a few new characters in this book, and I’m still excited to see who we’ll see leading in the next installment. Personally, I’m hoping we see Emmett and Nicole soon!

Hidden Review | Flight REview | Midnight Dunes Review

AMAZON | GOODREADS |★★★★

Deep Tide comes out April 25, 2023. Huge thank you to Berkley Books for my advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion.  If you liked this review please let me know either by commenting below or by visiting my instagram @speakingof.books.