Vendetta....A Harrowing Story That Will Keep You Turning Pages!

  

I stayed up again the other night to finish a  page turner called Vendetta by Lisa Harris.  I purposely waited a day or two to begin the book because I knew once I started a new book by Lisa I was bound to get hooked right away and find every excuse to get back to it every chance I could.  The book didn't disappoint and when I had 35 or so pages left past midnight I pressed on to find how the story would end.

Nikki Boyd is  on the Tennessee Missing Persons Task Force and has a particular reason for her commitment to her new job.  Her own sister disappeared in front of her school while waiting for Nikki to pick her up.  Now a case that is all to similar captures the attention of Nikki and her team of experts, taking them on the hunt through the Smoky Mountains National Park. 

This case, though, begins with social media and the profile of an unsuspecting teen. A young girl who is lonely and seeking friendship and understanding meets a young man who is perfect, just the right age and as an added bonus, his pictures prove he is good looking and a model brother.  What more could a girl ask for and why not agree to meet him for a hike while visiting at a remote cabin?

 

Vendetta is the first book in the new Nikki Boyd Files series.  The story is a good lesson on privacy, trusting social media and how important your teen knows how to safeguard themselves. The world we live in can be sinister and while I am an optimist, we can learn a thing or two to stay safe.  Lisa Harris tells the story like it is and I admire that about her writing.  She develops her characters well and her plots are thoroughly researched and carried out so that the reader is transported into the midst of the case. My heart sped up at times, tears fell at times and if the author's goal is to get the reader to become thus engaged in her book, Lisa Harris has accomplished just that!

Reviewing....What Follows After...Suspensefully Good Story!

What Follows After, by Dan Walsh is a novel with enough suspense to keep you turning those pages. Set in 1962, it is about the perfect dysfunctional family, but '60s style.  The story coincides with the Cuban Missile Crisis, a scary memory from my childhood.

Back in the days of black and white television broadcasts and neighbors building fallout shelters our seemingly simple lifestyles were just as stressful as they are today.  Husbands went to work to get ahead and the wives stayed at home and raised the children in most households. In the case of Scott and Ginny Harrison, they had been secretly separated for a year but kept it a secret from all but their two children, Colt and Timmy. For holidays and birthdays they kept up the charade, meeting up and driving to family gatherings in the same car.  This all came of Ginny walking in on Scott kissing, or so she "saw" one of the young secretaries at a Christmas party. No amount of explanations that followed could salvage the marriage.

 Ginny had had enough of deceiving the families; she was ready to move one. The boys had enough. The boys though, came up with the best plan to resolve the issue....leave their Florida home and go to their favorite aunt and uncle's home in Savannah, Georgia, alone on a bus. Things worked out great until Colt left Timmy for a few moments only to find him leaving with a stranger on another bus.

What follows is a heart wrenching nightmare no parent wants to face. This journey to find Timmy takes everyone into places they would have gladly avoided and forces them all to confront what went wrong in their lives. This story is full of the long shots in life that only faith and love can get us through. Will things turn out well? I cannot tell you without spoiling the story. I will say though, that Dan Walsh is very good at character development. I enjoyed reading this book and looked forward to each chapter...I hope you will too.