Welcome
to my Christian romantic suspense book
review page, this month featuring . . .
Dana
Mentink,
who says, "The very best thing about writing romantic suspense
is the way the writer can absolutely bring the characters to their
knees, plunge them into their darkest moment and then . . . tada!!!!
. . . return their universe to the proper balance. Where love and
faith are restored and everlasting. Where villains are punished, carted
off to jail, or worse. Where everyone receives what is coming to them.
It’s very satisfying to be in charge of the fictional characters'
universe for a while!"
Dana's
success at this is evidenced by her novel, Betrayal
in the Badlands, which won Romantic Times Reviewer’s
Choice Award in 2011. Killer Cargo
was nominated for American Christian Fiction Writers' Book of the
Year in 2008.
Escape
from the Badlands
(Love Inspired Suspense, January 2012) is her
latest release.
Nurse Kelly Cloudman
takes a one-week stint as race medic in
the
South Dakota Badlands
to help support herself and her adorable three-year-old
nephew. With Charlie in tow, she arrives at the Desert Quest Extreme
Race headquarters, unaware that the job will put her in contact with
Shane Mason. Shane had suddenly bailed out of their love relationship
when
Kelly
took in the toddler after
her sister--Charlie's mother--had vanished.
Contestant Shane Mason,
under the alias Shane Matthews, enters the Desert Quest event to find
evidence to clear his brother of a murder conviction. Someone involved
in the race knows the truth, and he will do whatever it takes to free
his brother from prison. When Kelly turns up as the event medic, he
knows he's never gotten over her. But when a killer targets her, he
plunges into double duty to stop the
attempts on Kelly's life while
racing to identify the killer responsible for last year's event death.
What
a refreshing change! Finally, a romantic suspense novel where neither
hero nor heroine are
military or law enforcement personnel. In
Escape from the Badlands, Kelly
and Shane are ordinary folk with so much to lose that they scramble
to pit whatever courage, skills and connections they can muster to
fight their way to love and survival. Don't miss this exciting, satisfying
story.
While
preparing to write Escape
from the Badlands, author
Dana Mentink did what she always does. She indulged
in her love of reading books and articles about incredible places
(like the Badlands or the Arctic Circle). "I’m
sort of a virtual traveler," she admits. "It
sets my imagination going. Like, what would it be like to try to survive
in the Badlands? On your own. Without supplies. No phone handy. While
someone is trying to KILL you? The mind reels. The more unique the
setting, the more fun I have writing the book."
"Virtual traveling lets me go all over the world," she says,
"and I want to take my readers with me."
She's
never been to the Badlands, so how did she decide to write about it?
She read a book describing the various names given the Badlands by
the Lakota (bad lands), Spanish (wasteland) and others who tried to
capture the moonscape quality of the place. "This desolate acreage
is also one of the fastest eroding landscapes on earth and home to
the richest fossil beds on the planet. It’s the perfect setting
for a suspense novel, if you ask me."
She's
never participated in an endurance race either, but she enjoyed talking
to cyber friends about their kayaking and long distance biking experiences.
"I did a bit of kayaking in Hawaii (in completely placid water)
so I had to do some interviewing to appreciate the kind of white water
racing that takes place in the book."
Dana's
Escape from the Badlands
is
the last novel in her Badlands series. Her next three-book series
with Love Inspired Suspense features the Gage family and their Treasure
Seekers business. "You won’t believe the trouble they get
into!" The first book, Lost Legacy,
releases May 2012. The release dates for the second and third novels,
Dangerous Melody and Whisper
Mountain (working titles), have not yet been chosen.
