I was provided a complimentary copy of this book by Just Read. I was not compensated for this review and all thoughts and opinions expressed are my own. I was not required to write a positive review.
Beauty in Flight by Robin Patchen Series: Beauty in Flight #1
Published by JDO Publishing on January 22, 2019
Genres: Clean & Wholesome, Contemporary, Fiction, Mystery, Romance, Thrillers, Women
Pages: 150
Source: Just Read
Amazon|Barnes&Noble|Goodreads
Her beauty once opened doors, but the felony conviction now slams them shut.
Harper Cloud used to love the gilded glamour of Las Vegas, but on the far side of prison, she sees the cracks in the veneer. These days, she keeps her head down and focuses on the elderly patients in her care. Even her new wealthy east-coast boyfriend, Derrick, can't entice her away. She's trusted men before, and look where that got her.
She tries to brush off the feeling that she's being watched. She won't allow a baseless paranoia to derail her life. But when she's followed home one night, her pursuer gets within a hair's breadth of grabbing her. She knows it's time to get away from Las Vegas.
Maybe Derrick can be trusted. Maybe his job offer—to care for his aging grandfather in Maryland—will be the second chance she needs.
But Derrick has secrets of his own, secrets that could take him down--and take Harper with him.
Can there be a second chance for someone like her?
Buy Beauty in Flight today , Book 1 in a 3-book-series that’ll keep you guessing until the very end.
When this trilogy of books first came across my radar I was hooked in the need to read them all. I am a sucker for Christian fiction filled with suspense and intrigue. I mean please, an ex-con, maybe a stalker and a bit of the Vegas life? What is not to fall in love with? OK, perhaps I didn’t fall completely in love with this first book but I was definitely invested in the read and completely hooked for the next one!
Let me first share with you why I wasn’t completely in love with ‘Beauty in Flight’. Initially, at only 150 pages it was entirely more novella and less novel. I just didn’t get enough to go on. That bleeds into the second part where I felt like too much time was spent on things of lesser consequence (the beach weekend for example) that while they laid groundwork for later things dominated too much time while other things weren’t explored near enough (Hello, why was she in prison?!?!?). Finally, the faith felt too forced. While what was included was gold it didn’t mesh with the story, or even the placement in the story, and felt like an add on to match the Christian label and less organic to the actual story being told. It matched the characters OK but not the story. Perhaps with more to go on (remember novella) and more appropriate development into the full story it would have come across as more organic.
Despite that I was still intrigued. I still need to know why she was in prison! I need to know why she made some pretty drastic, read stupid, choices. There’s a lot of intrigue laid out and ready to be explored in the next book. While a little more in this one would draw a haphazard reader more toward the next book, it’s still a book that is begging to be read. Like next!
About Robin Patchen
Aside from her family and her Savior, Robin Patchen has two loves—writing and traveling. If she could combine them, she’d spend a lot of time sitting in front of her laptop at sidewalk cafes and ski lodges and beachside burger joints. She’d visit every place in the entire world—twice, if possible—and craft stories and tell people about her Savior. Alas, time is too short and money is too scarce for Patchen to traipse all over the globe, even if her husband and kids wanted to go with her. So she stays in Oklahoma, shares the Good News when she can, and writes to illustrate the unending grace of God through the power and magic of story.
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