Chanticleer Book Reviews

Author: Sandy McDow

BEHIND the MASK by Dana Ridenour – Terrorism Thrillers, Police Procedurals, Women’s Crime Fiction

Like a high wire performer working without a net, Dana Ridenour’s captivating and provocative yarn, Behind the Mask, carefully treads that fine line between fact and fiction and does it with aplomb.

Between the covers of this contemporary, detective thriller, is a well-crafted plot revealing alarming aspects of animal enterprise practices, and militant animal rights advocacy. Set in Los Angeles, it is peopled with believable, engaging characters, and taps into sights, smells, and flavors unique to that area.

When 29-year-old, FBI Special Agent Alexis Montgomery, or Lexie, as she prefers to be called, reaches LA, she has one goal in mind—to make her bones. A fledgling undercover operator, newly trained and on her first assignment, she must infiltrate a militant ALF cell and ensure its terrorist members are brought to justice.

In her assumed identity as a vegan, animal-rights extremist, who drives a battered Volkswagen bug, and lives in a modest Venice Beach apartment, Lexie ingratiates herself with local activists. Over time, an unanticipated friendship with Savannah Riley, whom she meets at a vociferous demonstration, helps her nail it. Just as her FBI mentor predicted, she fits right in with those crazy vegans.

Savannah, raised in a traditional southern family, declined The Citadel, in South Carolina, in favor of SoCal, with one goal in mind— to exchange the same old, dull routine of Pawley’s Island, South Carolina, for the mystery and exhilaration of California life. In school, studying for a career in the film industry, her roommate introduces her to the world of animal rights activism. Meeting Lexie, a kindred spirit from the south is an unexpected plus.

As members of the local, militant cell, Lexie and Savannah learn hard lessons. After a night watchman dies in a liberate and destroy operation at the UCLA animal lab, their lives are changed forever.

During their ensuing months under the California sun, Savannah loses her love, her trust, her innocence, and comes close to losing her freedom; Lexie emerges from the dark side a wiser woman, tempered and honed, with deeper understandings of herself and the human condition.

Ridenour’s realistic portrayal of opposing worldviews, replete with tangible danger, and intense, fanatical emotion, in Behind the Mask challenges the status quo. It is a novel of the here and now. Its well-drawn characters, complex plot, and true-to-life setting will resonate with the reader long after the book is finished.

Behind the Mask by Dana Ridenour won 1st Place in Category in the 2016 CIBAs in the CLUE division for Thrillers and Suspense novels.

December 17, 2021
WRITING IS MURDER: An Emlyn Goode Mystery by Susan Lynn Solomon – Cozy Mystery, Paranormal Mystery Series, Women Sleuth

A perfect seasonal read, Susan L. Solomon’s mystery, Writing is Murder: An Emlyn Goode Mystery delivers a witty, intuitive red-headed writer who has many connections in her community, a handsome police detective-maybe-lover, a mouthy cat who keeps her grounded, and a Wiccan BFF whom she can trust with her most profound concerns. And, of course, magical abilities inherited from her ancestor, Salem’s legendary accused witch Sarah Goode, adds layers of mystique.

When Roger Frey interrupts Emlyn Goode battling her recalcitrant muse, she can’t be upset. Roger, aka Police Detective Roger Frey, her next-door neighbor and sometimes sleep-over boyfriend, stumbles on the hunt for coffee, a good-morning kiss, and a sympathetic ear, in that order. He’s bored at work and wants to complain.

She’s heard it all before. But soon, she sees something remarkable.

When Emlyn goes to her writers group, she experiences an out-of-body experience that takes her back in time. She travels across to the Crystal Beach amusement park, across the lake in Canada, where modern-day condominiums grow. There, she glimpses two couples, one unfamiliar to her, the other, her parents. Before she can process what she sees, one of Em’s writing cohorts jerks her away from the action, asking her a question.

The group takes a break, and Emlyn has a curious talk with Daniel Bennett, the newest writer in the group. Daniel shares with her a copy of an old document he found in his deceased grandfather’s possessions. She catches only a glimpse of it before Daniel gets spooked and puts it away – but she won’t forget.

The mystery sparks to life.

A few days later, on Halloween night, Em joins her writing cohorts for a ghost hunt. Their good fun turns to horror when they discover Daniel’s murdered body in an empty, historic home. Emlyn, to her dismay, might be implicated.

Susan Solomon skillfully uses a prologue to set Writing is Murder’s theme and mood. She introduces the reader to “perhaps one of the most haunted areas in the country,” relates the legend of an ancient Tuscarora curse and seemingly related murders, and includes accurate descriptions of historical places and events in western New York State. All this pulls the reader into the story and keeps them there.

As the story progresses, Emlyn realizes that the past and present must somehow converge before solving the murder. Thanks to Emlyn’s unique gifts, along with her friend Rebecca Nurse’s witchy knowledge and advice, she might do just that.

Writing is Murder: An Emlyn Goode Mystery will entertain readers who love their mysteries with a bit of paranormal in the mix. The plot twists and turns to satisfy even the most ardent sleuths. In addition, the burgeoning romance coupled with sometimes glib banter, and the notion that potions and spells may really work, highlight the characters’ charm.

Susan Lynn Solomon’s Writing is Murder: An Emlyn Goode Mystery won 1st Place in the 2019 CIBA Mystery & Mayhem Book Awards for Cozy and Not So Cozy reads.

October 25, 2021
TRAITORS for the SAKE of HUMANITY: A Novel of the German Resistance to Hitler by Helena P. Schrader – Historical World War II Fiction, Political Fiction, World War II Fiction

Traitors For the Sake of Humanity by Helena P. Schrader may be more terrifying today than when first released in 2008 as An Obsolete Honor and re-released in 2012 as Hitler’s Demons.

The chilling story reveals the means used under the leadership of Adolph Hitler to spread insidious Nazi socio-political ideology before and throughout WWII. Although a work of fiction, the grim, dehumanizing social transformation the tome reveals brings to mind the caution in George Santanya’s oft-quoted posit, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Schrader masterfully utilizes the setting as an unseen, omnipresent character. Scenes imbued with equal parts of detached cruelty, greed, and hunger for power – acting as a control agent affecting everyone within its grasp.

By Christmas, 1938, when the story begins, the Nazi Party dominates the German Parliament for nearly six years, and its influence alters the nation’s face. Within that period, during which Hitler becomes Chancellor, both welcome and unwelcome changes occur and spread beyond Germany’s large cities into and throughout the countryside.

The German citizenry is conflicted.

Many poor, disenfranchised citizens consider forfeiting their faith, culture, and free will for materially improved living standards and restoring their national pride as an acceptable trade-off. Others grow dismayed by the denigration and annihilation of traditional values, virtues, and mores. Residents find the mandated, unfettered obedience to the state’s authority and the flourishing of Machiavellian values an abomination.

Within this setting, we meet the aristocratic, well-educated, and cultured Baron Phillip von Feldburg. Phillip, the eldest of three children, is an officer in the prestigious German General Staff and has been imbued from childhood with the importance of honor, integrity, and allegiance to his country.

In the first chapter, Baron von Feldberg is juxtaposed with his immediate family, characters Schrader utilizes to reveal some of the varying socio-political views prevalent in Germany.

Christian, his handsome, devil-may-care Luftwaffe fighter pilot brother, lives in the moment, exhilarated by his conquests and the thrill of adventure. Theresa, an envious, entitled, and defiant “youngest child,” marries an uneducated, self-made man with a knack for doing business in the Nazi regime and little use for breeding, manners, or culture. Their widowed mother, the Baroness, gracious, kind, and concerned – but not enough to make waves—completes the family circle.

Phillip’s sense of honor and duty dominates his life, both personally and professionally.

As he advances within the military and is given more and more leadership responsibility, he begins to have troublesome questions about the decisions coming “down,” along with the ongoing, less-than-honorable actions and events he witnessed while serving on the front lines against Russia. Not until he meets the astute and savvy secretary with connections, Alexandra Mollwitz, that he begins to act upon his inner conflict, and his life begins to change in ways he could never have imagined.

Presented in multiple points of view of the von Feldburg family members, cohorts, and supporters, Schrader breathes life into some of the historically documented events occurring in Germany before and including WWII that forever changed the world. Each of their voices reflects their social status, belief systems, and loyalties—and their angst and fears as change turns evil and evil turns deadly.

Traitors For the Sake of Humanity, based upon documented historical events and personal memoirs recounted to the author by individuals who lived through that time.

In the end, the importance of this book cannot be underestimated. Traitors for the Sake of Humanity rises as a critical, provocative, and timely book that perhaps we would all benefit from reading. The Glossary and documentation alone impress.

Helena P. Schrader puts a human face on some “monsters,” and exposes the monster faces of others. Kudos, Dr. Schrader.

August 11, 2021
LITTLE TEA by Claire Fullerton – Southern Fiction, Friendship Fiction, Cultural Heritage Fiction

Author Claire Fullerton’s skillfully crafted fourth novel, Little Tea, weaves bits and pieces of the human condition into a timely story.

Prepare to visit Fullerton’s Deep South, where, like the tropical storms from the Gulf, the southern mystique engulfs the land and its people. Beneath the genteel manners and tradition are whirlpools of passion, unrelenting memories, and behaviors that ebb and flow to and from the edges of conscious thought, leaving behind a sense of anxious anticipation.

From when Celia Wakefield agrees to meet her high-school friends, Renny Thornton and Ava Cameron, to spend a long weekend at Renny’s lake cabin in Arkansas, she’s been uneasy. She hasn’t gone “home” for more than ten years—it’s too painful. She first met Renny and Ava before her life inexorably changed. They were thirteen years old – newly-minted adolescents eager to spread their wings and take on the world. Besties ever since, Renny and Ava are a part of Celia’s present and unthinkable history. Celia needs their friendship, but the past floats just below the surface, like a ‘gator waiting for prey.

But now she must go.

Ava, the fey sprite, the dream spinner, needs her help. She’s having a mid-life crisis and has reached out to her and Renny for support.

Celia agrees to fly to Memphis, meet Ava at the terminal, travel to Renny’s ranch in Olive Branch, Mississippi. From there, they will proceed to Renny’s lake house over the border in Arkansas for a long weekend of intervention and renewal. It’s all about Ava’s issues—not hers. It’s what good friends do.

That weekend, while Ava grapples with her discontent, alcoholism, and re-connects with her first love, Celia finds herself revisiting her own agonies. Her painful past, sublimated for so long, surfaces and demands resolution.

Little Tea resonates on many levels.

This modern-day drama juxtaposes the traumas of contemporary issues with unresolved traumas from history, where, for so many, the safe, secure, and predictable world of childhood innocence was ripped away, replaced by the unthinkable.

For the reader who not only enjoys an engaging story but values skilled writing, Little Tea fits the bill. Fullerton’s use of lyrical language, imagery, and authentic dialogue capture the feel of the south. Her characters are believable—everyone knows an “Ava.” Fullerton uses setting as a nuanced character, always nearby, influencing without being intrusive and, her pacing and word choices are exemplary.

Like many modern, provocative novels, Little Tea ends not by tidying up anything. Fullerton leaves her readers with an open door, so to speak, that allows readers to venture out onto the porch, sit down on the old wicker rocker, and ponder what the characters might do next. In this trusting the reader, Fullerton gifts us with latitude for interpretation.

If you’ve never spent time in the south or wish to revisit, Little Tea will take you there. All in all, Fullerton has given readers a story that engages both the mind and the heart. Little Tea won First in Category in the 2019 Somerset Awards for literary fiction.

April 5, 2021
TO BE ENLIGHTENED by Alan J. Steinberg, MD – Metaphysical Science Fiction, Magic Realism, Metaphysical and Visionary

If you have never read a work of philosophical fiction, be prepared—it’s not fluff.

Dr. Alan J. Steinberg’s latest work in some ways echoes other works with similar themes, e.g., Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, or Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. But To Be Enlightened provides a distinctive, twenty-first-century take on setting and characters, giving it a uniquely California flavor.

In a tale of ambivalence and obsession that would captivate a Freudian psychologist, Steinberg uses the main character, Abe Levy, a conflicted philosophy professor at a Southern California college, as a vehicle to recount the philosophical underpinnings of Transcendental Meditation, relating the tenets of Indian Vedic philosophical beliefs to those of Western and Middle Eastern civilizations over the ages.

Abe’s conflict is both spiritual and mundane, affecting every aspect of his life.

When he was fifteen, Abe experienced an inexplicable, life-altering event. At that time, two strangers transported him to another plane of existence—heaven, if you will—on another planet. There he lived a joyful, perfect life without the complications of sex, avarice, or any of the seven deadly sins, with a soul mate whom he had known forever. One day, when he was very old, the same two strangers returned him to his previous adolescent existence on earth.

From that time, Abe’s obsession has been to return.

Stuck in 21st century California, he is ambivalent toward his wife, Sarah, whose anxiety and panic attacks, along with her healthy libido, both distract from and interfere with the meditations that will transport him back. Abe is happiest when teaching The Insider’s Guide to Our Self, which allows him to escape his worldly concerns and responsibilities and focus on enlightenment. When Sarah masters the technique and joins him in advanced night meditations, Abe is delighted. However, he doesn’t anticipate what comes next.

A well-crafted book, To Be Enlightened is weighted with philosophical thought from multiple sources, documented with citations and footnotes worthy of a doctoral dissertation. Most of this, presented in classroom scenes, slows the pace—only the repartee between/among the students and professor save it from a complete stall. However, quirky characters and unexpected events, while stretching credulity, keep it alive.

Worthy of finishing—the reader should be prepared to set aside the time and patience it demands. To Be Enlightened is sure to illuminate the unenlightened readers, expanding their understanding of eastern philosophy and religion.

January 20, 2021
The MADWOMAN of PREACHER’S COVE by Joy Ross Davis – Paranormal Ghost Thrillers, Occult Fiction, Witch/Wizard Thrillers

Award-winning author, Joy Ross Davis’ latest work, The Madwoman of Preacher’s Cove, ventures beyond the paranormal into the surreal. Like Medusa on a bad hair day, the lives of characters are intertwined and twisted in a snaky snarl of conflicting human desires, terrifying inexplicable events, and the lingering afterlives of ancient, supernatural beings.

Davis gifts us with a 21st-century legend, replete with mythological themes and creatures, and snippets of folklore and superstition melded with documented vagaries of weather, obscure herpetology, and creates a mystical potion worthy of Circe. In other words, Davis gives us a thrilling read!

Rumors about suspicious deaths have put Preacher’s Cove, Alabama, a small, historic town notorious for powerful, killer storms, on the map. Hap Murray, Huntsville’s Channel 12 field reporter, with family ties to the Cove, arrives in town on assignment, armed with only limited knowledge of the town’s history of inexplicable deaths. The rumors speculate that the local pastor may be involved.

Hap meets the beautiful, provocative owner of Cove’s Inn, Libby Arbuckle, when he first arrives. She is a woman with many secrets—a woman with a history. When Libby, along with Chief of Police Riggs, join Hap in the search for the truth, their ensuing relationship proves integral to Hap’s investigation.

During his stay, Hap experiences supernatural events that sometimes make him question his sanity, and he already has issues. Like PTSD, he is plagued by periodic, severe headaches accompanied by fragmented, bizarre visual and auditory hallucinations along with phatomasia, he smells things that are not there, which renders him anxious, fearful, and confused. These are never far from his mind, along with the guilt he feels over losing the love of his life and their child through his own failure to act.

Little does Hap know that the affliction and emotional angst he experiences are pieces of the puzzle he’s challenged to solve. Or, that when Preacher’s Cove welcomes him, a chain of events are triggered that change the shape of residents’ lives forever, in ways that no one could ever predict.

Joy Ross Davis has crafted an eerie, twisted plot where reality is warped—slightly out of focus, keeping the reader off-balance and engaged. The Madwoman of Preacher’s Cove satisfies dreamers’ needs for a taste of magic, the desire for good to triumph over evil, and the reassurance of a benevolent all-powerful being that is always available.

The Madwoman of Preacher’s Cove won Grand Prize in the CIBAs for Paranormal Fiction.

October 20, 2020
BALIAN d’IBELIN: Knight of Jerusalem (Book 1 of the Jerusalem Trilogy) by Helena P. Schrader – Biographical Historical Fiction, Medieval Historical Fiction, Crusader States

Welcome to the Outremer, where fealties are solemn, rivalries deadly, and intrigue is served up daily along with the wine. Here, well-connected women are worth their weight in gold, and the rules of primogeniture, along with the whims of a king or mandates from the Church can determine a person’s fate.

In Balian d’Ibelin: Knight of Jerusalem (Book 1 of the Jerusalem Trilogy), Helena P. Schrader has re-created people, places, and events in the latter 12th-century kingdom of Jerusalem for the reader’s edification and enjoyment. With an elegance of language, detail, and setting rivaling that of Doctorow’s Jazztime or Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Schrader takes the reader on location to savor the world of Balian d’Ibelin in the times before he emerged as a pivotal player in the politics of the Crusader states.

Young Balian d’Ibelin, while possessing the pedigree, social graces, and knightly skills of one raised to rule, has few prospects when his eldest brother, Hugh, dies unexpectedly. Although Hugh’s stated desire that the Lordship of Ibelin title and holdings go to Balian, they fall to Balian’s next older brother, Barry, through rights of succession.

Barry, Lord of Ramla, offers Balian only the position of Constable of Ibelin. Rather than accept this powerful, but subservient post, Balian seeks a future serving Amalric, the King of Jerusalem. The king, who owes Hugh a debt of honor, proffers a court position with some risk – tutor his son Baldwin in the arts of horsemanship, swordsmanship, and sport, as the debilitating infirmity of leprosy, has put the boy behind in this training.

Accepting this offer moves Balian into the spheres of William, the Archdeacon of Tyre, Baldwin’s academic tutor, and Queen Maria Comnena, the boy’s young, educated, and savvy step-mother, people destined to be essential parts of his life.

When Amalric dies young, and Balian swears fealty to Baldwin as the new king, the die is cast. While honoring his oath, he earns the love of the queen, experiences the power of commitment, and learns the cost of honor.

Balian d’Ibelin: Knight of Jerusalem (Book 1 of the Jerusalem Trilogy) is a joy to read. As in all of Schrader’s novels, the forward to this story is a must-read that serves to ground the reader in the time, place, and cultural multiplicities of the period. By interpreting, hypothesizing, and imagining motivations, actions, conversations, and events that may have occurred as Balian stepped forward into his future, Schrader has turned a narrow slice of history into a panoramic virtual reality that will surely delight fans of historical biographies and Crusader states – and give us something to look forward to in the release of books 2 and 3.

Readers, brew a pot of tea and snuggle in, for Helena P. Schrader has cast her spell of intrigue and sent her invitation wide. In other words, prepare to get hooked!

August 28, 2020
STORM ISLAND: A Kate Pomeroy Mystery (The Kate Pomeroy Gothic Mystery Series, Book 1) by Linda Watkins – American Gothic, Amateur Sleuth Mysteries, Horror/Suspense

Mayhem, murder, and magic—Linda Watkins’ thriller, Storm Island, is a 21st-century gothic mystery replete with a damsel in distress, villains, romance, and inexplicable, supernatural happenings. And, of course, a spooky old mansion on an island off the coast of Maine provides the perfect setting.

The story begins with “just another day at the office” for Katherine Pomeroy, daughter of the Chief of Staff at Memorial Hospital in Los Angeles, where she is a second-year surgical resident. Although she is a stereotypical privileged California girl with a prestigious pedigree, budding career, powerful lover, and trust fund on hold as she is not a product of nepotism. Katherine is smart, savvy, and hardworking, making her bones on her own behalf. Overall, her life can’t get much better.

Until the day Katherine ducks into the quiet refuge of a hospital laundry supply room for quick a catnap to refuel, and everything changes. Shortly after dozing off, Katherine is awakened by a private conversation between Dr. James Conway, Assistant Chief of Psychiatry at Memorial, and a rough-looking stranger. The men are arguing—and not over a tee-time.

The die is cast.

Katherine dismisses the incident as none of her business—but not Dr. Conway.

Later in the day, while prepping for surgery, Katherine suffers a seizure-like episode resembling a bad acid trip. Her next lucid moment is awakening in the hospital’s Emergency Room being treated by Dr. Conway, who has sedated her. He orders tests and ultimately diagnoses her as having a psychogenic disorder. By virtue of her father’s position and the fact that her aunt, a renowned psychiatrist, is willing to treat her, Katherine dodges commitment to a long-term psychiatric facility. Instead, she’s sent to her aunt’s summer home on Storm Island off the coast of Maine—a familiar place filled with memories.

Katherine, who learned, with the help of a loyal friend on staff, that she was being drugged, arrives on the island with mixed emotions and finds it fraught with physical, psychological, and supernatural landmines, forcing her to continue the fight for her life and sanity.

Storm Island is an entertaining read with smart, relatable characters in a setting that is dark and mysterious. A good mixture that will leave readers feeling comfortably sated.

Linda Watkin’s won First Place in the CIBAs 2018 Paranormal Awards for Storm Island.

May 21, 2020
JETTY CAT PALACE CAFÉ by Judy Keeslar Santamaria – Magic Realism, Psychological Literary Fiction, Literary Fiction

Judy Keeslar Santamaria’s skillfully crafted debut novel, Jetty Cat Palace Café, takes the reader from the sophisticated urban areas of Washington state to its remote cranberry coast, accompanying professor Morgen Marín on a life-altering quest.

Like a present-day recipient of a DNA test gone wrong, when 34-year old Morgen, celebrated pianist and music professor, leaves after visiting her elderly grandmother Eleanor, her mind is spinning. Eleanor, preparing for the inevitable, shared family history, documents, and longstanding questions, which blindsided her granddaughter.

Everything Morgen believed about herself is wrong—not an uncommon experience, but still . . .

For Morgen, clarity is often elusive. She frequently misperceives the world around her. Like Alice, after she walked through the looking glass, Morgen exists in a kind of alternative universe. While Alice’s experiences were novel, magical even, Morgen’s are not. She lives on the autism spectrum.

Setting out with her mother’s restored Volkswagen bus and the keys to a storage unit containing family papers and memorabilia, Morgen has a clear sense of purpose. She is on a single-minded journey to find her mother’s stolen cremation urn, learn the identity of her biological father, and free herself from the man who has dominated and abused her for years.

Her search takes her to a remote fish camp on Washington’s cranberry coast, miles away from the hectic, affluent areas bordering the Puget Sound. The cast of characters she meets are society’s flotsam and jetsam who drifted in on random currents and found safe harbor in this isolated place, straight into the Jetty Cat Palace Café. With the locals’ claims of the place being haunted, the café binds the motley group together with unseen ties.

How these random people, in this unlikely place, are melded into parts of Morgen’s past and future creates a story that stretches readers’ credulity and imagination. And, as in looking glass land, Morgen learns that things are not always as they seem, random events have meaning within their own context, and actions from the past exist as long as there is someone left to perceive them.

In Jetty Cat Palace Café, Judy Keeslar Santamaria’s often lyrical, meticulous writing, engaging characters, vivid imagery, and intricate plot work together to create a winner.

March 20, 2020
SCARE AWAY the DARK: A STONE SUSPENSE by Karen Dodd – Int’l Mystery & Crime, Psychological Thriller, Literature

Scare Away the Dark raises the bar for exciting suspense stories as Jordan Stone, a young millennial who has made it as the top newspaper investigative journalist in Vancouver B.C., traverses dark physical and psychological landscapes on what becomes a life or death mission. On this journey, she encounters characters for whom human life is cheap, evil deeds are part of doing business, and revenge is an art form.

Lured by the promise of information about the whereabouts of her parents who seem to have disappeared from a witness protection program, Jordan passes up Friday evening happy hour at a pub with her coworkers in favor of a clandestine meeting with a long-time confidential informant. She has no inkling, as she drives for more than an hour through pelting rain to the agreed-upon rendezvous site, that her life is about to change forever.

Jordan meets, rather than her trusted tipster, a stranger with a different agenda. He’s a perverted monster who abducts Jordan, holds her captive in a remote underground bunker, and abuses her in unthinkable ways for what seems like forever.

Fifteen days later, the traumatized Jordan is discovered and rescued by the RCMP. One of her rescuers, Inspector J.J. Quinn, aggravates Jordan by persistently following up on her kidnapping. When she can’t remember details, he pushes her to face her demons—urges her to undergo hypnotism and therapy to unlock her memories.

After a subsequent attempt on her life, and reluctantly beginning victim therapy, Jordan takes a leave of absence from the newspaper to rethink her future. Assisted by her long-time friend and research assistant, Rachel Sommers, and former inspector Quinn, newly minted as a private investigator, she seeks to learn why she became a target in the first place. As she continues to pursue what she was working on before her abduction, an investigative piece about an Italian crime family and its far-reaching tentacles, little does she suspect that these two pursuits connect in the most inconceivable ways.

Scare Away the Dark at times leans heavily on backstory information from Dodd’s previous book, Deadly Switch, which tends to slow the pace and is sometimes confusing. However, Dodd offsets this by coupling the stuff of contemporary headlines—man-made plagues of criminal activities and the power of true love—with meticulously reimagined settings, multi-dimensional characters, and complex sub-plots, to create an engaging romantic thriller.

With an ending that comes out of left field, Scare Away the Dark leaves the reader with a gasp and ready for what happens next. Caution: Read with the lights on and the doors locked!

Scare Away the Dark won first place in the CIBA 2018 CLUE Awards for Suspense and Thriller novels.

January 30, 2020