Friday, April 18, 2008

Melanie Wells' My Soul to Keep ~ Reviewed




My Soul to Keep (Dylan Foster Series #3)
Melanie Wells
Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Multnomah Books (February 5, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1590524284






Cover Copy:


It's psychology professor Dylan Foster's favorite day of the academic year-graduation day. A day of pomp, circumstance, and celebration. And after all the mortar boards are thrown, Dylan and some of her best friends will gather around a strawberry cake to celebrate Christine Zocci's sixth birthday. But the joyful summer afternoon goes south when a little boy is snatched from a neighborhood park, setting off a chain of events that seem to lead exactly nowhere. Police are baffled, but Christine's eerie connection with the kidnapped child sends Dylan on a chilling investigation of her own. Is the pasty, elusive stranger Peter Terry to blame? Exploding light bulbs, the deadly buzz of a Texas rattlesnake, and the vivid, disturbing dreams of a little girl are just pieces in a long trail of tantalizing clues leading Dylan in her dogged search for the truth.

My Review:


Melanie Wells grabbed me with the unique voice and kept me riveted as she drove me through a story that couldn't possibly end well. A primarily first-person dive into broken hearts, love lost and never found, hope, healing and horror, a plunge that kept me turning pages until the satisfying end.

I've not read her previous works so this was my first visit into Dylan Foster's head and Peter Terry's bizarre antics.

The subject matter is tough. An abducted child and another child traumatized, more sensitive readers may not be able to handle some of the intensity though there is a surprising and clean resolution.

Wells covers some obscure teaching on guardian angels in an engaging manner. Once again, a warning, those who don't do speculative fiction with Biblical stretching might want to pass, as well as those readers who struggle with characters who are working toward holiness but haven't progressed to looking like they've attained it. So what I'm saying is, her characters are as real as those you might go to church or work with, you know, the ones will all the warts and issues. I'm not even going to mention that I may see something of Wells' characters in my own mirror.

When I wasn't struggling with the horror of child abduction and clues with dead ends, I found myself cheering Dylan on in her secondary battle, the one with faith.


Reviewed by: Kelly Klepfer

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi Kelly. I keep finding your review EVERYWHERE. Should I come mow your lawn?

Remember in Cheers, Woody Harrellson's character made up a song about his girlfriend Kelly? Kelly, kelly, kelly, kelly, kelly... It was quite catchy. I think it should come on when people to go your websites. ;-)

Thanks for the reviews and the link love!! MW