Shadow Valley (Mira)

Rating:
Summary: Sadistic Author
Review: Anybody who would write a book like Shadow Valley ought to be horsewhipped. I lost hours of sleep reading that little thriller. Gwen Hunter must have a seriously sadistic streak. I think she enjoys torturing her readers with suspense, vicarious pain, and mayhem. And I must be a masochist, because I loved every minute of it.



Rating:
Summary: Exhilarating suspense thriller
Review: While waiting for her divorce to be finalized from her cheating spouse, Mackenzie Morgan and her teenage daughter Bella take photographs of an abandoned fishery in an isolated part of the Appalachians. However, their solitude is disturbed when geologist Dell Shirley arrives on a horse accompanied by two dogs. Dell ties up Mac expecting her to die and abducts Bella.

Refusing to sit idly by while her daughter is in trouble, Mac treks four miles although still tied up until she reaches a ranger. The police begin a search and rescue led by volunteer tracker Caleb Howell while Bella's dad Marlowe blames Mac and acts as the caring concerned father and martyr with the media. However, the seemingly random kidnapping runs closer to home as truths begin to surface, but the chances of Bella surviving her ordeal get slimmer by the second.

This exhilarating suspense thriller with a romantic subplot that rightfully takes a back seat to the abduction will elate fans as the action never slows down until the final altercation. Fans will admire the courageous "superwoman" who is a lioness out to save her cub; on the other hand readers will hiss at her unsympathetic spouse who brings his latest bimbo to the Appalachians. The final twist will surprise the audience, but seems right as Gwen Hunter writes a tense search and hopefully rescue tale.