Stolen in the Storm

Rating:
Summary: A Twist At Every Corner
Review: As travel nurse, Karissa Carpenter, travels from hospital to hospital, so do the incidents of newborns vanishing during violent storms.  Does the fact that Karissa lost her newborn to Sudden Death Syndrome have anything to do with these babies "Stolen In The Storm?

Each time that Karissa is taken in for interrogation, young Dr. Braden Marcison is there to comfort the traumatized nurse, but does he have other plans for the traumatized nurse?

Things are not only busy at the hospital, but then Karissa's private life also takes a turn when her pregnant sister arrives to escape the wrath of their father who is a self-righteous, fundamentalist preacher.

This book, billed as a romantic suspense, has a twist and turn around numerous hospital corners.  I enjoyed every minute of it!  This ending will definitely surprise you!

As reviewed by Epstein LaRue, author of "Crazy Thoughts of Passion" and "Love At First Type" http://www.epsteinlarue.com/

Rating:
Summary: A Twist At Every Corner
Review: As travel nurse, Karissa Carpenter, travels from hospital to hospital, so do the incidents of newborns vanishing during violent storms.  Does the fact that Karissa lost her newborn to Sudden Death Syndrome have anything to do with these babies "Stolen In The Storm?

Each time that Karissa is taken in for interrogation, young Dr. Braden Marcison is there to comfort the traumatized nurse, but does he have other plans for the traumatized nurse?

Things are not only busy at the hospital, but then Karissa's private life also takes a turn when her pregnant sister arrives to escape the wrath of their father who is a self-righteous, fundamentalist preacher.

This book, billed as a romantic suspense, has a twist and turn around numerous hospital corners.  I enjoyed every minute of it!  This ending will definitely surprise you!

As reviewed by Epstein LaRue, author of "Crazy Thoughts of Passion" and "Love At First Type" http://www.epsteinlarue.com/

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating
Review: Karissa Carpenter Elkins is a travel nurse. Her current assignment has Karissa working in a neonatal nursery in South Texas. Karissa had lost her infant daughter, Mariah, about ten months before. Her husband, Ori, was about to be arrested for smothering Mariah on purpose, so he shot himself in the head. Therefore, when an infant is stolen from the hospital nursery, Karissa is looked at closely. Then the detectives learn that infants were kidnapped from two other hospitals in which Karissa had previously worked, on the last day of Karissa's contracts!

Dr. Abdul Mutabagani, the head Neonatologist, and Dr. Braden Marcison, a resident, believe Karissa innocent. They seem to be the only ones though. Braden has more than a passing interest in Karissa, but vows to take things slowly since she seems to still be hurting from her past.

Karissa's little sister, Betsy, has recently began living with her too. Betsy is pregnant and the father dumped her. Knowing there would never be any help from their unloving parents, Karissa takes care of Betsy and helps her to begin making some life altering decisions. Through it all someone watches ... and hates.

**** Here is a fascinating romantic suspense that will not only keep you guessing, but also give you a glimpse into the world of travel nurses and hospitals. It is not difficult to figure out who is behind all the kidnappings, yet in no way does that make the suspense any less thrilling. A wonderful tale to curl up with. Recommended! ****

Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.


Rating:
Summary: The story held me through its final paragraph.
Review: Karissa Carpenter seeks a new life as a travel nurse, a professional whose agency places her temporarily in hospitals desperate for such help. She has two reasons for escaping her old life. One is her repressive father, a fundamentalist preacher whose God defines a woman's role (and for that matter, any Christian's) with incredible narrowness. The other is the recent loss of her own little family, when the sudden death of her four-week-old daughter ended a marriage she now realizes she never should have entered.

In Corpus Christi, far to the south of her Texas Panhandle home town, Karissa takes her third contract nursing job. As a storm blows in from the Gulf, she huddles in her apartment holding her dead baby's quilt to her cheek. It was storming on the night Mariah died. It was storming, also, when newborn babies disappeared from hospitals where Karissa was working in two other cities. She wakes after this storm to learn that a baby has gone missing from her Corpus Christi hospital's nursery.

Clues pointing to her guilt abound, and Karissa honestly wonders if she can be to blame even though she has no memory of taking the babies and cannot believe she would do that. With her job threatened by public relations damage control, and her pregnant younger sister arriving in need of a haven, Karissa feels overwhelmed and terrified as never before in her life. But she has something now that she never had before: friends. An older travel nurse, Julie; Dr. Mutabagani, a distinguished neonataologist to whom the Corpus Christi nursery's occupants are "my babies"; and Dr. Braden Marcison, a resident just completing his final rotation, all offer their confidence and support. In fact, Braden Marcison offers Karissa a great deal more than that...but is she ready to accept it?

I seldom find myself tearing up while reading a book or watching a movie, but this is the second time I have done just that while reading a book by Melissa S. James. Karissa Carpenter rises above her earlier life's pain and repression, and comes into her own, as this twists-and-turns mystery plays itself out. She's a protagonist you will truly care about. There are shades of gray here, and people with real-life imperfections.

What fascinates me as I reflect on the book this morning, after finishing it and falling into bed at 2 a.m., is how Karissa finds her greatest strength by learning to trust in her friends and to lean on them, after years of struggling futilely to be totally self-sufficient. That is how we humans become fully ourselves - by connecting with one another. I came away reminded of that lesson, but without any sense of having been preached to because I stayed immersed in the story through its final paragraph.