After ten years, Emily Wallace is coming home. She wasn’t able to keep her best friend’s killer in prison, but now that he’s out she’s going to do whatever she has to, to see that he goes back in. Clint Austin has spent ten year behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit. He thought he was prepared to return to the town where the crime was committed, but he wasn’t prepared to come face to face with Emily. Ironically, it was thinking of Emily that kept him sane while in prison. As Emily learns how wrong she’s been about Clint, she can’t help falling for the bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks, just as she did as a teen. Clint and Emily work side by side to find out who really murdered her friend, but in a town where everyone has something to hide, does Clint stand a chance and can he and Emily clear his name before the killer comes looking for them?

Traceless has a familiar plot. Hero goes to jail for a crime he didn’t commit, it’s the heroines testimony that sent him to prison, and years later he’s released; with a chip on his shoulder and hell-bent on clearing his name. Only Traceless is anything but familiar. Usually in a romance suspense novel, readers are trying to figure whodunit. However, in this book, readers are trying to figure out who didn’t have a hand in the injustice of what happened to Clint. Instead of taking the easy path and glossing over the years Clint spent in prison, Debra Webb went into detail of what happened and tried to show you how much Clint had to change in order to survive. Not only that, but she took the hero with a chip on his shoulder and made you love him and feel for him while he dealt with the people who tried to put him down and make him less than what he was even though he was intent on clearing his name and figuring out who really committed the murder. Emily has struggled since the night of the murder; it’s as if her life also ended when her friend was killed. The book begins with her thinking one thing and as the story progresses readers see how much Emily was disillusioned and the consequences of that. It was these subtle differences that took Traceless to the next level and made it a phenomenal book. Debra Webb has done an extraordinary job.

Reviewed by: Jaymi