Regrets Only 
By Nancy Geary

    Nancy Geary gets it right for the upper crust, in Regret’s Only. She takes a savvy street cop that grew up in a police family who all were deeply imbedded into the Irish ways of life and throws her into a sort of Pretty Woman scenario, only Det. O’Malley was not a classy call girl, rather a beautiful young detective who was looking for more in her life. Geary added a bar owner who just happened to be from one of the wealthiest of families, and who was still unsettled and rebelling about his own heritage. There is a murder to be solved and Det.O’Malley landed right smack in the middle of it. It will affect her relationship with the rebellious Archer, and endear her to more of her own heritage while finding out who the actual culprit is.

    Ms. Geary put in a few twists in this story that are just beginning to be found out today, and one that I really appreciated. She talked about and introduced a few characters who had been the products of the Adoption Triad, and took the reader through some of the pitfalls of that problem and how it forever affects the lives it touches. As a person who has been involved in that process myself, I feel she really tapped into the problems that are still under the sheet and need to be further understood by the powers that be.

     Regret’s Only takes the reader on a murder solving journey and throws in some well given bits of information about adoption and learning to live with and appreciate one’s heritage and learning and growing to appreciate those very same things in another. Everybody grows in this book, even the curmudgeon of a father, the wealthy Haverill. It all comes together in a very nice way, with a neat ending. However, the murderer is not who you will want to think it is.

     Ms. Geary does her job well in this book, and it reflects well because she knows what she is writing. Her first hand experience shows in the perfection of all the right stats for this story. If I were to delve into conjecture, I would say that she probably had a case that had some of the backbone to this story in real life. Well done, Ms. Geary.