Lexi Solomon is doing all she can to raise her beautiful little girl Molly even though her husband Grant abandoned her seven years ago. Not that Grant was much of a father figure, as he was addicted to several types of drugs and even was dealing them. Lexi’s own father is in a mental institution after a mental breakdown. Lexi’s sister’s murder triggered his mental collapse, combined with Lexi’s mother leaving him soon afterward. But now the man responsible for Lexi’s sister’s murder, Grant, and Grant’s own drug dealer Warden (who is demanding payment with interest) are all back in town. It sounds like a scenario only cooked up in the TV soap opera realm, but I promise you, this story has much more to offer than that! Erin Healy writes an excellent novel that thrills you to the bone and leaves you shaking!Lexi works all day at two jobs just to keep food on the table, but can barely afford the rent. When Grant first shows his face in town it seems all he wants is to see his daughter Molly. Lexi doesn’t trust him and suspects him of working with Warden again, however, Molly and Lexi’s mother both are on Grant’s side. Lexi really doesn’t know what to do and is balancing so many things as it is. It is in the middle of all of this that she meets a giant of a man by the name of Angelo. He drives a HUGE truck and wears clothes that make him look like a kindly Paul Bunyan. It is Angelo that always shows up when she needs him and Angelo that she begins to talk to when she has nobody else. But other things are starting to seem weird. She has been seeing black inky targets painted everywhere. Targets forming on pictures of her daughter and even the kitchen window. But what do they mean and why do they keep disappearing without a trace?
Lexi finds herself at the center of a battle between the worlds of darkness and of light. This reality and the next. It is this battle that makes this novel stand out among the rest as it takes your breath away and never lets it go. Lexi must decide what she must hold on to: Molly? Herself? Her troubled past? It defies the standard of modern christian thrillers and challenges the reader to take a step beyond the natural realm themselves. I can definitely see the impact Ted Dekker has had on her writing as she wrote with him in Kiss and Burn, but what I like the most is the uniqueness of her storytelling. She takes a leap and a bound beyond what you would expect her to write and takes you with her. She writes eloquently but also writes to her reader. We can take the same journey that Lexi takes and really discover some things about ourselves along the way. The question is are you willing to discover something nasty or will you overlook it, and if you do find something nasty will you let it go? Will you instead choose to hold on to what is good in your life?
Erin Healy is an award-winning fiction editor who worked with Ted Dekker on more than a dozen of his stories before their collaboration on KISS and BURN. She owns WordWright Editorial Services, a consulting firm specializing in fiction book development.
Advertisement
Like this:
One blogger likes this post.
