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Motorcycle Book Store > Motorcycle books beginning with R
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Ransomed Dreams (Defenders of Hope Series #1) |
Author: Amy N. Wallace
Published: 2007-04-17 |
List price: $12.99
Our price: $10.39
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As of: November 21st, 2008 08:14:17 PM
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Customer comments on this selection.
 Great Story, Great Writing
It was an accident. Gracie Lang didn't lose her life, but she might as well have. The drunk driver of the truck that hit her family never stopped. How many others were in danger of losing their lives with him still on the road?
Although she finds nothing but dead-ends, Gracie's driven to find the one responsible and can't seem to give up on her search. But it was time to rejoin the human race and begin to live again. Date again.
Steven Kessler is raising his son without the help of his ex-wife who abandoned him. His parents help out when Steven's job as an FBI agent in the Crimes Against Children Unit pulls him out of dad-duty. Steven's partner keeps planting verbal seeds and waits for him to return to God, but Steven doesn't see the point.
Steven's job and his son brought him and Gracie together since she'll be his son's teacher when school starts. He'll be seeing a lot of her in the coming months. Something he wouldn't mind. But it can't get serious. Not with his ex back in the picture.
The villains are wretched and scary. And real enough that I wanted to get to the end of the book where they wouldn't be running around loose anymore.
Amy Wallace weaves superbly, showing the many hold-my-breath conflicts at the right time and allowing me to catch my breath before I fall over from lack of oxygen.
I finished reading this book a few months ago and set it aside. The story was still on my mind when I started writing this review, but I skimmed through the prologue anyway. Having already read the entire book, you'd think I could get through a few of the beginning pages without tears coming to my eyes. No chance. Wallace's writing makes Gracie's story real enough that Gracie's emotions became mine.
 Real and Terrifying, but unable to put down
I have to start this review with my disclaimer as I do for many.. I just do not really like the "real" contemporary fiction books, they are not my "escape". With that said, when I started this book it was just so real and heart wrenching that I was going to put it back and not even try to read it. But, I couldn't. No matter how bad I was feeling and the facts of the storyline depressing, I just had to know what happened. I couldn't put it down and had to find out what would happen to Gracie and her life. So, obviously, Amy's writing hooked me.
I'd say that the type of story is much like that Justice series of Karen Ball. They are similar in that they touch many aspects of life and a very true to reality. I did enjoy the overall story, with getting to the end. The message of Christ's love and forgiveness throughout is very refreshing and great to see in a "real" environment, since so often in life it appears to be only quietly present.
Now for my rant. Parts that I did not like was that it seemed nobody was in their original marriage. Maybe it's just because of the way that I am, but that bothered me. I'm a marriage is for life person, there is no second, but I know many people disagree with that. In this story there was a widower remarried, a wife who abandoned her husband and remarried her adultreous partner, a woman living out of wed-lock with her children's father, and then hints at other remarriages. I do not know why it bothered me so, but it did that just one couple it seemed was married to their original spouse.
Overall, the message is great, and I do think this book would appeal to the reader who enjoys the edgy storyline. There are cops and criminals, death and life, some romance and Christ's love and a great message. This is a book that would probably appeal also to those outside of the normal "Christian Fiction" genre, because it is not the flowery and overly preachy sort, but it is still present.
Finding Forgiveness in Rough Circumstances
Gracie Lang starts to her parents house for the holidays only to watch her husband and two children run off the road in front of her and killed. A drunk driver in a van speeds away. This and other problems that come into her life - like being shot, kidnaped and the killer of her family trying to kill her keep her entrapped until she can finally find forgiveness to move on.
Steven Kessler is an FBI Agent who is going through struggles of his own as his wife left him for someone else the day his son was born. He is a single Dad trying to raise his son alone while being an Agent and it is hard.
His son ends up in Gracie's class and their lives become entwined with each other.
A British Ambassador's daughter is kidnapped and killed and the search for her killer ties all the other events together.
This book will grip you from the first page and you will keep turning to find out what will happen next. You will wonder how each person's life is going to come together with the other person. I like the way Amy has entwined all these people's lives together but it makes you realize that what you do does affect other people.
This book will open your eyes to the fact you are not the only person to have ever questioned God and He is big enough to handle it. He will lead and guide you to the point you can embrace him with open arms.
Forgiveness is a hard thing to do and not as easy as people would spout at you. It lets you know you are human and all of us are walking a road that even if circumstances are different, we ask some of the same questions.
You can see how an FBI Agent is a real person just like you doing his job with problems to face also.
This is a must read in my book for everyone.
Excellent Book You won't be able to set down...
Gracie Lang lives every mother's nightmare, and Steven Kessler learns how to find his way back to God after walking away. Gracie shows us how important forgiveness is, if we ever plan to move forward after a painful past. God commands us to forgive, but some things in life are just unforgivable, or are they? Through Gracie and Steven we learn it is only by the power of Christ that we can forgive ANYTHING.
What I like about this book was they are imperfect people, who lived imperfect lives, and God never let them go. Also, Gracie and Steve displayed real feelings, not the platitude feelings. These characters show us it is ok to be angry with God, for God can take anything we dish out and turn it around to be used for His glory.
 Wallace weaves the notion of forgiveness into a warm and passionate romance.
Gracie is haunted by that horrible new Year's Eve two years ago, when the husband she adored and her two little children were killed by a hit-and-run drunk driver. Since then she has limped along emotionally, but the only way she can truly go on with her life is if she can find the man who did this. The trail has gone cold, but she can't give up searching just yet. What she doesn't know is that she's being watched by him, and that she's stirring up a hornet's nest.
Steven Kessler is a disillusioned single dad who absorbs himself in his job as head of the Crimes Against Children Department of the FBI. Gracie and Steven's paths collide when he brings his little boy to her first grade class at the private and prestigious Hope Ridge Academy just outside of DC. But these two lonely hearts have baggage that gets in the way of the instant chemistry they feel for each other. Steve is guilt ridden about the children he hasn't been able to save. All the senseless violence he's seen against the innocents of the world has started to turn him from God. That and his bitterness towards his ex-wife.
There is a kidnapping involving the British ambassador's daughter which ends badly. Steven is determined to find the perp, and he becomes intertwined in the political rivalry between the British and the American secret service. And then Gracie's stalker colludes with the kidnapper, and suddenly both she and Steve are in danger.
Interestingly, Wallace suggests to us early on who the killer of Gracie's family is by using his name, and yet he's still an enigma. He is right under Gracie's nose as she searches far and wide. You don't usually expect to know who the killer is so early in a mystery, and yet there is still plenty for us to figure out, since he's not the only villain. The mystery here is how will she find out, and will she find out before he kills her?
The physical charge she and Steven feel for each other is palpable from the first time they meet. But there are so many obstacles in their way, so many misunderstandings between them. Both are struggling with their faith and how the tragedies in their lives could have happened. Thankfully, Wallace doesn't give us the pat answer that God allowed Gracie's family to die or Steven's wife to leave him---rather, she bravely leaves it at there are things we just don't get to have answers for. It takes a long, painful journey for each of them to learn the spiritual lesson of the book: "Peace comes from knowing God, not from having answers to every question. The answer is faith. Trusting Him."
Ransomed has a more realistic ending than a full blown riding-off-into-the-sunset one, yet it's full of the toe-curling smiles and face flushing glances romance lovers expect. Amy Wallace weaves the notion of forgiveness into a warm and passionate romance. Couple that with a suspenseful mystery and you've got a winner.
--Reviewed by Carol Kurtz for TitleTrakk
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