iola

Charley (a strong Christian) is the victim of a bank robbery gone wrong, and finds herself offering herself as a hostage to ensure the safety of the other victims. She forms a relationship of sorts with Raider (who she names based on the logo on the cap he wears). Charley allows Raider to take her as a hostage, at which point the book takes on more of a speculative nature, while still being grounded in the real world.Charley is a great character. She’s older (her age isn’t given, but she’s had over thirty years of marriage, so must be around sixty). She’s a Christian with a strong personal faith, but one that has been challenged and grown through hardship—something Raider doesn’t understand, and he taunts her for her faith. But Charley’s not afraid to take it. She’s the antithesis of many heroines in Christian fiction—she’s got guts, has a wicked sense of humour, calls a spade a spade, and isn’t afraid to stand up for herself. I really liked her.Raider has his own history, including the abusive Aunt Rose, who used to lock him in the vegetable box and make him pray for forgiveness. Aunt Rose is the primary reason why Raider doesn’t have any time for God, or for old ladies who pray. It’s quite easy to feel sympathy for Raider, and that’s important: few authors can write a convincing sympathetic villain. The book has a number of editing issues, including point of view violations, tense shifts, run on sentences, redundancy, thinker attributions, incorrect grammar and a relatively unsophisticated writing style. It has been proofread well (although I did get annoyed by the persistent use of the word ‘drug’ for the past tense of drag. Drag, dragged, dragging. Not drug). The book would benefit from thorough copyediting. But the story was interesting enough that while I could see the editing problems, I was able to ignore them because of the strength of the plot and characters, and that doesn’t often happen. The story started to drag at around the 60% mark. It felt as though it was reaching the end—and it was. The main story ended somewhat abruptly at the 70% mark, and the rest of the book was introductory chapters for some of the author’s other works. This sudden end marred an otherwise solid read. I think the author would be better placed removing this, to prevent readers being misled as to the length of the story.Thanks to the author for providing a free ebook for review.