A Review of Peril by Jordyn Redwood

By Carol McClain –

Life couldn’t get worse for Morgan Adams, a pediatric nurse in a Denver Hospital. Her infant daughter died several months earlier—shaken by a trusted friend and babysitter. Morgan’s kidneys are failing, and with her rare blood type, a hope for a donor is remote.

The events of her life erode her faith, strain her marriage, threaten her job and exacerbate her thoughts of suicide.

Then her traumatized world is turned upside down when a fourteen-year-old girl is brought to her unit, comatose, raped and brain dead. Her heart is donated, and the recipient has visions of the attack. Morgan discovers these events will entangle her own beleaguered life.

The threads of the attack stem back to her husband. Medical researcher Dr. Tyler Adams works for a renowned neuroscientist, Dr. Thomas Reeves, who has gained significant ground treating PSTD.

A past Morgan does not yet know will threaten her and the lives of those she cares for.

This is the third in the Bloodline Trilogy by Jordyn Redwood, and is as gripping as the first two in the series. Redwood, a pediatric nurse herself, uses her vast knowledge of medicine to weave twists in the story the reader never suspects, so the reader remains enthralled through the last words.

All elements of the first two books—Proof and Poison—tie together in the conclusion. Redwood’s ability to weave such a cohesive web amazes me.

If you like Richard Mabry, Robin Cook or Brandilyn Collins, you’ll love Jordyn Redwood who writes with the skill of the most popular authors.

A Lasting Impression by Tamera Alexander

Reviewed by Tammy Doherty –

A LASTING IMPRESSION immerses the reader into the gilded world of the super-rich in late 19th century America. From the start, the characters are captivating. Claire’s inability to go against her father as well her blind obedience to his command and that of Uncle Antoine is hard to grasp in this modern world. Ms. Alexander seems to have realized this—she frequently, yet gently, reminds readers of the difference between our world and that of the South 150 years ago.
This difference is seen as strongly, though more subtly, in Sutton Monroe. His adherence to honor and honesty make him stand out from modern society’s standards. That he is not swayed merely by money shows the strength of his character and personality.

Claire and Sutton find each other physically attractive; however, this is not what draws them together. Both like the good qualities in the other. The romance develops slowly and believably. The obstacles to their relationship are mostly due to the setting—time and place—and somewhat self-imposed. Again, this works well, especially towards the end when the rules of society seem too big an obstacle to overcome.

In addition to being a wonderful romance story, A LASTING IMPRESSION is fine historical novel. Ms. Alexander paints a beautiful picture of Nashville and particularly Belmont Mansion, providing a rich tapestry which sets the stage for the action and conflicts. It’s easy to sink into the atmosphere of post-Civil War Tennessee, with all the difficulties of the Reconstruction Era.

Despite the novel’s length (426 pages), the story does not drag. The pages turn quickly and there’s a sense of being pulled through a time warp to view actual events. The Belmont Mansion really exists in Nashville. Likewise, Adelicia Aklin really lived there and though her characterization is fictional, Ms. Alexander used historical records to bring Adelicia to life. Even more, this story reads as if Claire and Sutton, and all the secondary characters, were real and that the events depicted actually happened.

This novel will truly leave A LASTING IMPRESSION.

Review of Walks Alone by Sandi Rog

By Nike Chillemi –

WALKS ALONE captivated and mesmerized me at times. No wonder it won in the Grace Award 2012 Action-Adventure/Western/Epic Fiction category.

This is a well-written epic novel beginning in Holland and ending in the old west. I loved the way it opened with the tenderness of Anna’s widowed father aboard ship. It was hard not to get involved in the father’s dream of traveling to Denver City with seven-year-old Anna to start a new life. Unfortunately, Anna’s father falls ill in New York City and passes away. She is left in the care her father’s brother for six terrible years.

The scenes with Anna’s abusive uncle were brutal and fully engaging. After Anna escapes from her uncle, she travels westward by train, and finally joins a wagon train where she’s not well treated. There is a fascinating, though not explicit, bathing scene in a river, where an exhausted Anna allows herself to relax and find relief from the intense and life-threatening heat of the prairie. When half-breed Jean-Marc comes upon her with a small band of angry-braves, the reader is hooked between instant knowledge of the hero’s strong attraction to her and the extreme danger she’s in. Anna is taken by this brave’s strange blue-green eyes and can’t help wondering how it is that he speaks English better than she does.

Ms. Rog understands Native American life in that era quite well. I appreciated her attention to the details of Cheyenne tribal life. She did an excellent job of showing the anger and murderous rage of the braves as well as the prejudice of the settlers and their inability to see Native Americans as people, which led to Indian massacres.

Both Anna/Walks Alone and Jean Marc/White Eagle are flawed and well written. White Eagle’s poetic declaration of how his love is so large and encompassing that he sees and hears Walks Alone everywhere, even in the wind, was superb. He tells her of his pain at having caught her engaging in conversation with his sworn enemy, the man who led the deadly raid against his tribe. Through this, the author conveys how painful it is for Father God to witness His children engaging with idols. Beautifully done. Touches the reader at a deep spiritual level.

My only problem was with Anna’s continued insistence on finding herself and her pulling away from White Eagle after their Native American marriage is consummated and then again after his poetic declaration of love. I’m not sure such personal enlightenment was high on the list in those days. However, the author did manage to sweep me back into the story. Then the story would move on and carry me through thrilling bandit attacks, chilling raids on White Eagle’s tribe by a rogue Cheyenne warrior and his band of braves. A fantastic read, which I highly recommend.