Review Detail

This book takes some of the characters from Joshua's Island and tells a completely separate story a few years after Joshua's Island. While it is not necessary to have read Joshua's Island to understand this one, it is a suggestion I emphatically make to anyone thinking about picking this one up.

The entire tone of this is different from that of Joshua's Island, though. While some of the underlying themes are still present, this one is a mystery, which is to be expected. After all, the main character is the daughter of a police detective. It kind of goes with the territory.

When said main character, Kelsey, meets the new boy, Ethan, at school, something about him intrigues her. She can't quite put her finger on it, but there's something about him that simply begs her to figure it out. So she does. The masterful part of the writing here is that the reader, being as much in the dark as she is at the start of the story, is pulled in to the search, becomes a part of the hunt. We WANT to find out as much as she does! I know that some mysteries don't quite work out that way; this one most definitely does! I found myself trying to deduce what the answers to the questions in front of Kelsey were, but still not quite sure of I had the correct answers until the author finally yielded the answers to all.

I became emotionally involved yet again in Patrick Hodges writing. (I know, I know: I'm a blubbering sap. Sue me.) I found myself literally cheering when things went in the positive direction in the book for the multitude of characters involved, weeping when something negative came to pass, and having to stop reading so I could take a walk and calm down at times. (Don't worry. I'm not going to give any information about what exactly caused all of these reactions. You'll have to read and find out for yourself!)

This book has it all: romance, mystery, action, tension, and much more.