Welcome to the life of Jude Fontaine, a terribly traumatized young woman, who is abducted, imprisoned in a basement, and tortured for three years by a malevolent man. This is an impressive chapter in the fact that the author focuses not on Jude’s continuous rape, but on the fact that Jude in time comes to a place where she needs to love this man. While I absolutely despise him, to save her sanity, Jude releases her hate and turns it to love, a false love, but love nevertheless.
After a fantastic and emotional escape, Jude’s desire is to return to her occupation as a police detective. She is given back her old position, but is assigned a new partner, Uriah Ashby. Her previous partner hovers around the borders of her new life as a detective. He thought he was in love with her at one time and isn’t too happy when she lets him know that is never going to happen. He is a continual and important character to the plot, but he is not given a lot of action.
Although her new partner, Uriah, is certain she’s not ready to return to her job, she does a commendable job at convincing him she is good to go. If he could read her mind, like the reader is allowed to, he would definitely be worried about her sanity. I sure did. For years, she was able to read her captor’s body language and now, as a detective, she finds she can easily read others and even, sometimes, the bodies of the dead. Her first time reading the body of a murdered teen freaks Uriah out, but he finds out that when it comes to Jude, what you see is what you get. I think this is the reason that I really like Jude. Her courage is impressive and, while she is looking at a long recovery for overcoming the trauma she endured, she refuses to be destroyed by it.
Unfortunately, it is soon apparent that Uriah has his own ghosts to deal with. While Jude manages to hide some of her issues, he is not quite as adept and she quickly discovers that she knows more about his troubles than she’d like to. Soon, trust issues develop and nearly destroy her opportunity at being a detective. The ending is surprising and I thought it was very cleverly done.
Although there are not a lot of supporting characters, the ones that are included are fascinating and add a lot to the story. I found this to be an extremely powerful read that hit me on an emotional level. I think readers who enjoy thrillers and suspensful books will appreciate this one.
Now, for the rating:
- Genre and general reading age – Mystery/Thriller and adult or older teens.
- Level of sexuality – Not a whole lot. Even the rape scene was centered on Jude and not the sexual act.
- Was there graphic language? Not that I noticed.
- Did I cry? It’s not that kind of story.
- Is this part of a series? No.
- Level of character development – I found it to be highly developed from the get-go.
- Did I laugh? No, it’s not that kind of book.
This story is very well done. I think that it flows well and I was sorry when it ended. So, with that said, I give it ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ stars.
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