Book Review ~ Rising Darkness by Nancy Mehl

 

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 Blurb:

 

Sophie Wittenbauer left her strict Mennonite hometown under a cloud of shame and regret. After a rough childhood, her teenage poor choices harmed others, leaving her with no choice but to change her life. Her entry-level writing job at a newspaper puts her in the right place at the right time to overhear office gossip about a prisoner who has information on a decades-old unsolved crime. While the other reporters write off the tip as the ravings of an angry criminal, Sophie can't ignore it because she knows the name of this prisoner from her old life.

Upon learning from the man that one of the other suspects is hiding out in the Missouri town of Sanctuary, she takes on a false identity to investigate and meets the young pastor of a local church--the very man she'd loved as a troubled teenager. As she gets closer to finding the suspect, will the truth of her own past come out before she discovers the identity of the criminal--or the very person she's seeking puts a fatal stop to her investigation?     

 

My Thoughts:

 

Nancy Mehl is a wonderful mystery/suspense/romance author.

This book had it all!

I really enjoyed Nancy's series about Kingdom, Kansas where Sophie and Jonathan were from.  Although I didn't read the first two books of this series, Finding Sanctuary, I felt like I was picking up right where I left off.

At times Sophie seemed a bit naïve, but I think a lot of that could have been that she was fairly young and grew up in a Conservative Mennonite town.

It was fun getting to read about Jonathan again and the changes he had made to his life.

Although there was some light reading about Church Potlucks, etc., the author also wrote about some pretty tough issues in this book.  I don't want to give too much away so I'll leave it at that.

This was a thoroughly enjoyable book and makes me want to read the first two books in the series just to visit Sanctuary again :)



Colletta