A Book Review: Redemption by Samantha Charles

For those of you who are devouring books by the day this summer, I have a recommendation for you.  What's great is that it's part of a series, and it's written by a fantastic woman who is gracious and approachable and appreciative of fan feedback.  She's feverishly working on Salvation betwixt her public appearances. You can find Samantha Charles here Author Website, and if you follow her on FB, you can enjoy some sneak preview excerpts while you await the 2nd novel of the series.

I posted this review on Amazon a few weeks ago, but Samantha's been doing lots of book talks and signings of late, so I'm reposting here in case you missed the 5 STAR applause of Rememption.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Gripping and Instense with a little bit of Shakespeare Fun, May 15, 2014

By 

KSZ714 (Boston) - See all my reviews

I’m a slow reader, so the fact that I started this 300+ page book a little over a week ago and plowed through it in about 10 days speaks volumes for the power of Redemption. The moment we meet Lindy is when she wakes up “with the carved wooden grip of her .38 caliber revolver still clutched in her right hand.” Intense. I was sucked in, as if I had stepped into literary quick sand.
The 3rd person omniscient narrator moves the story from scene to scene, evoking empathy for the battered Lindy from the first page when, “she gently touched her stomach right below her naval where the embryo would have, given the chance, transformed.” In only three paragraphs of brilliant and descriptive writing, Charles crafts a character so bruised and beaten by life and her husband that the reader can do nothing but hope that she can escape from her suffering. With her dog, Atticus, as her companion, Lindy courageously leaves her marriage, but her return to Parson’s Gap lands her in a world far more dangerous.
On the anniversary of her miscarriage and her best friend’s untimely death, Lindy sojourns upon a wild expedition to unravel the mystery of her past. The lover of her teenage years has also returned to Parson’s Gap, but their history is littered with so much angst and misunderstanding that Lindy can not forgive Kit. But, I fell for Kit, and I fell hard. He is sweet and tender and forgiving. Lindy, though, refuses to see the grown man before her, recognizing him only as the “failed” boyfriend of her past.
Upon Lindy’s return to Parson’s Gap, we meet the complicated characters of her past who are intertwined with the crimes of her father, Preacher Carver, and her illicit father-in-law Harrington. The savior-best-friend-Bard-quoting, Grady is seemingly delicious but unavailable, which makes me love him all the more, but before we can piece together the clues of the mystery in Parson's Gap that connect Lindy's father and father-in-law, the now adults need to forget the pains of their teenaged selves. Not so easy to do. The plot twists and turns as we travel up and down the mountain between Mama Ray’s, Big Stone Gap, and Ole Cougar’s dive.
While the tale is a mystery, it’s also rich with the complexities of being human. Linday, Grady, Kit, Becky, and Verle all deal with issues of love, rejection, race, sexuality, loss, and—of course—redemption. As the group works to unravel the truth of Sara’s accident and Scooter’s death, they unearth some complicated personal dilemmas that bring them closer together. I kept forgetting that this is fiction because they felt so real to me.
Lindy is guarded because of her vulnerability. She has learned to protect herself, but she learns so much more about friendship and love as she comes closer to the truth in this gripping and intense tale of Redemption.