Heartbreaker

A serial killer has chosen his next victim—and the one man standing between her and death is the last man she'd ever trust with her heart.

FBI Agent Nick Buchanan's long-overdue vacation comes to a screeching halt when his best friend, Father Tom Madden, delivers a chilling confession. A killer calling himself the Heartbreaker has knelt in a church pew and whispered his darkest intentions: he's obsessed with Laurant Madden, Tom's younger sister, and he won't stop until she's his. Permanently.

Nick's mission is straightforward—protect Laurant, catch the killer, get out. What he doesn't count on is Laurant herself. Sharp-tongued, stubbornly independent, and thoroughly unimpressed by his FBI credentials, she isn't about to let some arrogant agent waltz into her small-town life and take over. Nick finds her infuriating. She finds him insufferable. The sparks between them are almost as dangerous as the madman closing in.

Set against the backdrop of contemporary small-town America, *Heartbreaker* marks Julie Garwood's electrifying foray into suspense—and she brings everything that made her a *New York Times* bestselling romance legend with her. The tension is razor-sharp, the danger is visceral, and the slow-burn friction between two people who can barely stand each other crackles on every page.

When the Heartbreaker makes his move, Nick and Laurant will have to decide what they're truly fighting for—and whether surviving means more than just staying alive.