Category Archives: Reviews

Review: Intervention, by Terri Blackstock

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Intervention, by Terri Blackstock (Zondervan, 2009)

Single mother Barbara Covington has tried everything to get her teen daughter Emily off drugs. Now she’s sunk a fortune into a last-chance effort with a professional interventionist. But when the interventionist is murdered, Emily disappears—and becomes the prime suspect.

Barbara and her 14-year-old son Lance believe Emily is innocent. Not trusting detective Kent Harlan to have Emily’s best interests at heart, Barbara chases down half-seen clues, putting her own life in danger and potentially compromising the investigation.

Now Kent has to divide his attention between finding the missing girl and keeping her mother safe.

Bestselling author Terri Blackstock always delivers a page-turning read. Intervention begins as a straightforward missing-person mystery. When readers finally meet the antagonist, he’s a different kind of villain: real and dangerous, but not a creepy psycho. The suspense is strong, and the story satisfies. It also gives readers a better understanding and compassion for addicts and their families.

Published in 2009, Intervention is the first in a series of addiction-related suspense novels. The sequel, Vicious Cycle, is available now.

There’s an interesting interview with Terri Blackstock that opens with the video trailer for Intervention and shares the personal story that prompted the novel. It’s about ten minutes long. If you don’t have time for that right now, here’s the video trailer to Intervention. Or click here to read a sample of Intervention.

Review: The Personifid Project, by R.E. Bartlett

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The Personifid Project, by R.E. Bartlett (Realms, 2005)

Some time in the future, Earth is a baked planet under a yellow sky, oceans rapidly receding. Most people live in domed cities with advanced technology. Not only are robots and androids readily available, many humans have transferred their souls from mortal bodies into “personifids” in the quest of eternal life in more attractive forms.

Aphra is a 23-year-old human whose friends are androids. She always gets her own way, and doesn’t know how to relate to other humans on a personal level. She’s never seen a live dog, either, only the artificial ones.

R.E. Bartlett does a great job of conveying Aphra’s spoiled, self-centred attitude while building reader sympathy. After all, the poor fem’s security is abruptly shattered when the most powerful man in the city sends his cohorts to hunt her down after she hears—and witnesses—his secrets.

The language often feels passive or a touch restrained, but that’s how Aphra views the world. As the novel progresses, she meets other humans and learns to really live. She also learns about the Triune Soul, as humans now call the Trinity.

The Personifid Project is disturbingly similar to our own time’s fascination with personal entertainment devices and virtual friendships. It’s a scary look at where these things could lead us if we’re not wise.

The technology isn’t fully explained—and that would only slow the story. They have flying cars, something called luminires that are like teleporters, and voice-activated computers that can manufacture food and change their owners’ appearance.

This last one confused me, and a bit of explanation would have helped. The best I can figure is, the computer can project over great distances, whether an appearance mask or a personal force-field. I’m not sure that’s the reason, but I enjoyed the story regardless.

The Personifid Project is one of those novels that kept coming back to me when I wasn’t reading, and I finished it more quickly than I expected. Now I’m eager to read the sequel, The Personifid Invasion, published by Marcher Lord Press. Must work through that looming to-read pile first!

R.E. Bartlett is a New Zealand author. The Personifid series are her first published novels. You can read an interview with R.E. Bartlett here.

[Review copy from my personal library]

Review: Critical Impact, by Linda Hall

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Critical Impact, by Linda Hall (Steeple Hill, 2010)

Critical Impact is romantic suspense that opens with a bang—literally. Makeup artist Anna Barker narrowly escapes death when an explosion rips through city hall. Two of her students are killed, and the mayor is seriously injured.

Anna herself may lose the use of her hand—the hand she relies on in her work. Ironically, she and her team were preparing to do the injury simulation makeup for a mock disaster exercise.

Deputy Stu McCabe is first on the scene to rescue Anna. Despite incriminating evidence that links her to the blast, his instincts say she’s innocent. And his heart needs her to be.

She claims she saw her abusive ex-boyfriend at the scene. Or was the attack aimed at the mayor? Or at one of Anna’s students?

Anna’s aunt is involved with the mayor’s wife in a cult-like church that celebrates the explosion as an act of God’s wrath. Living with her mother and aunt, will Anna get the support she needs? Especially when “accidents” start happening?

Critical Impact is the third the Whisper Lake series, set in small-town Maine. Readers will recognize characters from the first two novels. As always, Linda Hall delivers well-thought-out characters and a complex plot, and she finds a way to get us thinking about our faith. Steeple Hill novels aren’t in stores long, but they’re always available through the online stores.

Check out Linda Hall’s website to learn more about the author and her books. There’s also a “Fans of Linda Hall” book club on Facebook.

[Review copy from my personal library]
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Review: Come Find Me, by Ruth Waring

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Come Find Me, by Ruth Waring (Word Alive Press, 2010)

In 1939, rejected because of their conversion to Christianity, thirteen-year-old Evlyna Cohen’s family left a thriving orthodox Jewish community in Toronto, Canada, to start over where no-one knew them. The Cohens became the Crawfords and hid their ethnic background so they’d be welcome among the Gentiles.

Come Find Me opens in 1964 with Evelyn Sherwood, now a widow with a teenage daughter. Evelyn’s Jewish heritage is only one of the secrets she keeps buried. She has never forgiven her parents for their choice, nor will she forgive their God.

Her late husband and their daughter, Lucy, shared a strong faith that helped them love and support Evelyn despite her difficult personality. Now Lucy and Evelyn grieve separately.

It’s tricky to write an engaging novel with an antagonistic lead character, but Ruth Waring pulls it off well. We meet Evelyn on the brink of becoming willing to step out from behind the wall she’s built—or at least to admit she needs to do so. We also meet Lucy, whose hopeful spirit and insights into her mother’s behaviour influence how we view her.

The novel is a heart-warming story of a repressed, embittered woman’s emergence into light and love and into the beginning of a relationship with the God who’s been whispering “Come find Me” for so many years.

It’s a tale of family, faith, community, with a thread of romance, set in small-town Alberta, and its short chapters invite you to read “just one more”.

Ruth Waring is a Canadian author and speaker living in Ontario. You can read an interview with Ruth at the Interviews and Reviews blog, and learn more about Come Find Me on Facebook. The novel is available online and through your local Christian bookstore.

[Review copy from my personal library]

Review: Eternity Falls, by Kirk Outerbridge

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Eternity Falls, by Kirk Outerbridge (Marcher Lord Press, 2009)

Rick Macey is one of the best at tracking down—and shutting down—terrorists and other high-profile criminals. No longer working for the US government, he takes on projects that catch his personal interest. The novel opens with him in pursuit of a serial sniper, and the pace doesn’t slow as he jumps into a new case.

The year is 2081 and the future is a grim place where I wouldn’t want to live despite the technological advances. Cars have an auto-pilot feature. People have “neural nets” that sound like internet-enabled brains, only better. Science’s quest to extend human life has gone beyond cloning and cyborgs to the “Miracle Treatment” that lets people live forever.

The problem: one of the Treatment’s early takers has been found dead of natural causes. Macey’s assignment is to prove it’s the result of terrorist activity. He takes the job because the sole clue points to a memory from his own past.

Macey knows all the tricks, and he’s an excellent noir-type detective. He’s paired with the self-centred but attractive Sheila Dunn from the Miracle Treatment company’s head office, and as danger throws them closer together he tries to keep his distance. Macey has too many secrets for romance.

Eternity Falls has a satisfying number of twists, turns and revelations. The stakes start out high and get higher, masterfully woven by the author. This does not feel like a debut novel; it has complexity and depth and a detailed back-story that surfaces in bits and pieces as needed, to keep readers guessing.

I wasn’t sure if I liked the novel at first. The world is so dark. And the first characters to claim allegiance to God are either terrorists or seem like cult members. Knowing Marcher Lord Press, I reasoned there had to be more to the faith element than this. And I decided I trusted Macey even if he was surrounded by unlikely individuals.

Eternity Falls is billed as a cyber-thriller, dark PI fiction and cyberpunk. It’s high-tech, darker and more violent than I usually read, and Macey finds some interesting spiritual insights while he’s trying to keep himself and Sheila alive. He’s a fine story hero.

If you like thrillers and science fiction, and you’re not afraid of characters who mention God, check it out. I enjoyed it and I’ll be looking for more from Kirk Outerbridge. You can read a sample of Eternity Falls here.

You can read an interview with Bermudian author Kirk Outerbridge here. Eternity Falls is his first novel, and winner of the 2010 Carol Award for speculative fiction. A second Rick Macey novel is now out as well: The Tenth Crusader.

[Review copy from my personal library]

Review: The Tender Heart of a Beast, by Michael “Bull” Roberts

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The Tender Heart of a Beast, by Michael Bull Roberts (Trimatrix Management Consulting Inc., 2009)

Michael “Bull” Roberts experienced overwhelming trauma and abuse as a child and a teen. As an adult, he dealt a lot of pain to those who crossed him. His purpose in this autobiography is neither to portray himself as a victim nor to glorify his successes as a crime lord. It’s to show how a loving God finally brought him to faith.

Michael tells his story in a conversational tone as if over coffee or in an interview. He avoids graphic detail and leaves much unsaid.

The Tender Heart of a Beast is a slim book, under 200 pages. The first half tells Michael’s story. The second is a collection of his unedited articles from Beyond the Walls prison newsletter, offering a window into his heart and to the challenges of a new Christian. There are also a handful of photographs, and it’s easy to see the difference in Michael’s eyes now that he belongs to Jesus.

What’s troubling about the book is that it’s non-fiction. It really happened, and this once-sensitive and fragile young boy endured so much from people who should have valued and nurtured him.

Reading how God drew Michael long before his conversion can encourage us to persevere with the hurting and angry people in our own lives.

The book is also a cry for Christians and churches to reach out to the outcasts—and to welcome a man who still looks dangerous but who is now uniquely equipped to share the Gospel with people who’d never listen to a preacher in a suit:

“How does a smelly, greasy biker or homeless person become a well-dressed, well-groomed example of the love of God? Well that’s easy. It’s up to you to love him, clothe him, mentor him and help him to the cross every time he falls until he becomes the man God has planned for him to become.” (p. 168)

I think I hear Jesus saying the same.

The Tender Heart of a Beast won a 2010 Canadian Christian Writing Award in the Books: General Readership category and an honourable mention in Books: Culture. A dangerous man. A chance at redemption. Heaven's Prey.

Copies are available from the author. For those who just want to hear Michael’s story, DVD copies of his testimony are also available. To order books or DVDs, please use this link to email the author.

Here’s a brief interview with Michael Bull Roberts

[Review copy from my personal library]

Review: Paradise Valley, by Dale Cramer

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Paradise Valley, by Dale Cramer (Bethany House, 2011)

In 1921, Caleb Bender uproots his family from their farm and their beloved Amish community. To stay in Ohio would be to see his younger children forced into the public school system and the world’s way of thinking, thanks to a new law made by people who don’t understand his people.

Caleb’s not a hasty man, and after much prayer he realizes moving to another state won’t be enough to avoid this spreading law. When he discovers good farmland for sale in the mountain region of Mexico, he knows where they need to go.

The Benders are scouts for a larger group of families who will join them the following year… if they survive the bandits. Leaving one married daughter behind with her family, Caleb takes the rest of his extended clan (eldest child 27, youngest, 11). Unless I miscounted, there are 15 in the party.

The main female character, Rachel, 16, has to part from the young man she hoped to marry. Miriam, slightly older, fears moving to a place with no prospective husbands. And Aaron, 21, leaves the grave of his twin.

The novel actually begins some time before the Benders board the train. Dale Cramer takes time to let us get to know the family and their community, and to let us understand their faith and the seriousness of this state law that makes them flee. By the time they go, we’re definitely rooting for them.

I’ve only read a couple of other Amish novels, and they didn’t engage me. Paradise Valley brought the culture of this Old Order community to life in a way that caught my imagination. These aren’t rigid, legalistic people, although I’m sure some in the community are. Caleb and his family are sincerely devoted to God, and they want to please Him more than anything else.

They stick to their convictions. Even if it means moving to a new country. The young Mexican man they befriend, Domingo, observes Caleb’s behaviour and tells him, “You are either the most honourable man I have ever met or the most foolish. I have not decided which.” (p. 219)

Caleb isn’t sure either.

Paradise Valley is a heart-warming Amish historical with richly-textured characters and setting and a plot that kept me turning pages. I don’t know how fast Mr. Cramer can write, but I wanted to go out and get a copy of the next book in the Daughters of Caleb Bender series right away.

I’ve been a fan of Dale Cramer since reading Bad Ground, and along with his characters and stories I enjoy finding the gems he hides in the narrative. Here are my two favourites from Paradise Valley:

When Caleb has been praying for direction about the situation in Ohio:

“It was an answer, a sign—he recognized that still small voice, the incendiary subtlety. A little shiver ran through him.” (p. 70)

I got a little shiver at that “incendiary subtlety.”

And as Caleb is saying goodbye to his farm:

“He knew in his bones that he did not really own the land, nor did the land own him. They were just old friends.” (p. 95)

I’ve talked a lot about Caleb’s role in the story, but he’s not the only point of view character and this is definitely not a male-first book. Rachel has the main female role, and the women and girls far outnumber the men in the Bender clan. For Rachel and Miriam, the journey leads them to discover their own strengths, and although they despair of love and marriage, all may not be lost.

Male or female, if you like family sagas, adventure, romance, American/Mexican stories from the 1920’s, pioneer tales, strong characters and relationships, you’ll like Paradise Valley. I haven’t read widely in this genre, but I suspect Mr. Cramer has just raised the bar for Amish fiction.

You can read a sample chapter of Paradise Valley, and check out an interview with Dale Cramer about Paradise Valley. There’s also an online readers’ discussion guide for Paradise Valley.

Dale Cramer is a Christy award winner. Visit his website to learn more about him and his books, or to hear more from him, check out his blog.

[Book has been provided courtesy of Baker Publishing Group and Graf-Martin Communications, Inc. Available at your favourite bookseller from Bethany House, a division of Baker Publishing Group.]

Review: Fatal Judgment, by Irene Hannon

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Fatal Judgment, by Irene Hannon (Revell, 2011)

US Marshal Jake Taylor thrives on high-risk assignments, but when he pulls protection detail for Judge Elizabeth Michaels his first instinct is to flee. Liz is the widow of his best friend, and the little Jake knows about her doesn’t impress him.

As Jake works to keep her safe from her sister’s killer, he discovers a woman far different from the cold-hearted workaholic he’d expected. Jake and Liz each carry the pain of regret and of losing a spouse, and an attraction grows between them that makes it hard for Jake to keep his professional distance.

Fatal Judgment delivers both the wait-and-see kind of suspense (as we watch a disturbingly realistic enemy plan his attack) and the catch-him-before-he-kills-again suspense with danger and a ticking clock.

There’s plenty of action (including a helicopter, which is always a plus for me). There are also genuinely likeable and believable characters, including Jake’s brother and sister, who I hope will have their own turns to star in later books in the “Guardians of Justice” series.

Irene Hannon’s careful research makes the details sound right and the action flow. As a bonus, in a time where copy-editing glitches are showing up in even the most-respected publishers’ work, it’s a treat to see that this author/editing team knows how to correctly use the phrase “homing in.”

I really enjoyed the novel. You can read an excerpt of Fatal Judgment, or if you’ve already read the novel, check out the discussion guide for Fatal Judgment.

Irene Hannon is a RITA® award winner (and four-time finalist) with over 35 books to her credit. After a successful career writing contemporary romance, she moved to romantic suspense titles with the “Heroes of Quantico” series: Against All Odds, An Eye for an Eye, and In Harm’s Way. I’ll be on the lookout for those in the near future.

C.J. Darlington has posted an interesting interview with Irene Hannon at Titletrakk.com. To learn more about the author and her other books, visit the official Irene Hannon website.

[Book has been provided courtesy of Baker Publishing Group and Graf-Martin Communications, Inc. Available at your favourite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.]

Review: Come to Me, by Laura J. Davis

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Come to Me, by Laura J. Davis (Word Alive Press, 2010)

Come to Me is the story of Jesus as told by His mother, Mary, near the end of her life. Author Laura J. Davis has compiled the events from the four Gospels and filled in some of the blanks with her imagination. As she writes in the introduction, “If you are familiar with the Bible at all, you will recognize my ‘what-if’ scenarios throughout the book.” She’s invested considerable time in this project, and it makes an interesting and well-thought-out story.

Come to Me is told from a Protestant understanding,  including mention of Jesus’ half-brothers and half-sisters. Roman Catholics and others whose teaching holds that Mary remained a virgin can still read and enjoy the book—just be prepared that you won’t agree with everything. The life of Christ as presented in Scripture has not been changed.

In reading between the lines of Bible text, the author attempts to make sense of how Judas Iscariot, and to a lesser extent Pontius Pilate, came to make the choices they did. The book makes no claim of historical accuracy in these extrapolations, but they’re plausible. Again, if you think differently, remember this is a novel and not a statement of fact.

The story is framed by Mary narrating to Luke and to others. The omniscient point of view keeps the tone somewhat emotionally distant, as we’re told what multiple characters in a scene are thinking. Technically, some of what’s told Mary couldn’t know (Jesus might have later shared His thoughts and feelings with her, but Judas and Pilate wouldn’t).

Aside from that, it’s a good novel to read, and telling “the old, old story” from a different angle lets readers gain new insight into the life of the One whose heart’s cry is “Come to Me”.

It’s especially poignant to read at Christmas or Easter, but it’s a good book for any time of the year. Readers familiar with the Scriptures will recognize many quotes from the Gospel accounts as the novel tells the life story of Jesus.

Come to Me is Canadian author Laura J. Davis’ first novel. You can learn more about Laura J. Davis at her website. Laura also writes two helpful blogs: The Writer’s Keep and Interviews and Reviews.

If you’re planning to buy a copy of Come to Me between now and February 14, 2011, visit Laura J. Davis’ online store. Laura will donate $1.00 from each book sold there to Compassion Canada.

[Review copy provided by the author for the purpose of a fair review.]

Review: Black Sea Affair, by Don Brown

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Black Sea Affair, by Don Brown (Zondervan, 2008)

Pete Miranda is one of the US Navy’s best submarine commanders. Along with a hand-picked crew of volunteers, his mission is to sneak a nuclear sub through the Bosporus Strait into the Black Sea.

Conventional wisdom says it can’t be done. If the navy’s radical plan succeeds, Pete’s crew must find and sink a terrorist freighter operating under a Russian flag—without creating an international incident.

The freighter is carrying enough stolen plutonium to make a powerful nuclear explosive. What the Americans don’t know is that it’s also carrying a group of orphan children.

Don Brown has plotted a complex thriller that escalates international tension to the brink of nuclear war. Fans of his Navy Justice series will be glad to see JAG Officer Zack Brewer join the story in the later stages. And the ending is definitely not one you can put down unfinished.

Geography is not my strong point, and I appreciated the little maps and diagrams that were included where necessary.

Oddly enough, I had no trouble believing the series of events in this high-stakes plot. It was the faith that made me hesitate. Pete is a Christian, and so is Masha Katovich, the children’s chaperone on the freighter. I related better to her experience of faith than to his, but maybe it’s because I’m female.

While it’s probably true that crisis gets most people praying, whether to God or to the universe at large, it seemed to me that most of the key players other than the Russians had a personal faith. Even in high political circles. Call me a cynic, but it felt weird.

Black Sea Affair is the best international thriller I’ve read in a long time. It contains a few spoilers for the author’s earlier Navy Justice novels (Treason, Hostage and Defiance), but leaves enough unsaid that I’m still interested in reading them. His newest novel, The Malacca Conspiracy, features Zack Brewer.

[Review copy from my personal library]