Spellbound / Deanie Mills

Reviewed by: BigAl

Genre: Suspense/Thriller

Approximate word count: 90-95,000 words

Availability    

Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: YES  Smashwords: NO  Paper: NO

Click on a YES above to go to appropriate page in Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords store

Author:

Author Deanie Mills has ten suspense thrillers, plus one true crime book, that were published traditionally in the early 90s. With the help of her daughter, GeekyJessica, Mills is giving those that have fallen out of print a second life via your ereader.

For more, visit Mills’ blog.

Description:

“Twenty years ago, Faith ‘Dani’ Daniels was subjected to the most terrifying ordeal a child can ever know. The painful memories of cruelty and abuse haunted her, tormented her...until finally, as a schoolteacher in a quiet Texas town, Dani rebuilt her life--and escaped her malevolent past.

Now the forgotten terrors of her youth have returned. In a deserted park Dani discovers a woman's body, scarred in a way that only Dani herself can comprehend...marked by the same assailants who shattered her youth. For twenty years, Dani has been on the run from her destiny. But she can stop running now...

They've found her.”

Appraisal:

This is a well done psychological thriller. Putting together the pieces of what was happening along with Dani, figuring out what it meant, and hoping she’d come out of the experience unscathed, was quite a thrill ride for me. Another thing Spellbound  has that I like to see in a book is a strong sense of place. If a story is happening in a real place that I’m familiar with, in this case East Texas, getting the look and feel of the surroundings right and correctly reflecting the culture and attitudes of the people, makes a big difference in how much I enjoy the read. Mills nailed this aspect.

The only negative I saw wasn’t a big deal for me. The book, first published in 1991, has some pop culture references that would be meaningless for the younger crowd. But I’m sure when I read Twain and Hemingway in high school, references that were contemporary at publication time meant nothing to me a few years later.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues

Rating: ***** Five stars