______________________________________________________


Sometimes the hardest person to forgive is the one reflecting back at you from inside a mirror. Matthew London can attest to this difficult truth. Ever since the former NYPD hostage negotiator changed his identity and fled New York City for the backwaters of Louisiana, regret has ruled his life.

For eight years London has lived like a hermit in a declining plantation house. Only his talent for painting Renaissance-style murals and paintings keeps the inner-demons from totally destroying him. Each day the disgraced hostage negotiator longs for a chance at redemption, never expecting it to actually happen. But then a down-on-her-luck FBI agent shows up on his doorstep one evening. It turns out Jean-Paul and Sebastian Boudreaux, two local brothers famous for lawlessness have inadvertently kidnapped a little girl.

London is quickly thrust into the starring role of a daring rescue attempt. But before he can rescue the child from the dangerous Boudreaux brothers, he first must find a way to forgive himself for a past misstep, a blunder that forever altered his once promising life. But in the Atchafalaya Basin swampland, nothing is promised. Grace cannot be purchased or earned. It can only be given

There were a couple things in the story that I think abetted my thoughts. First of all, the author knows suspense. The backstories of the main characters added to my feelings of like or distaste. It was just enough of a backstory on each character to leave me wanting more and that in itself left me turning pages faster than I can read. Mark Romang sucked me in with the flashback in the very start of the book and it only went faster after that. Also, the transition from one character to the next was never confusing. You have about three or four main characters and even more supporting characters and all were important to the story, however, unlike some books, I didn’t find myself paging backwards to get clarity of who’s who.

Romang also made it hard not to cheer for the good guys and he reminded me that there is still good out in the world. Matthew and Annie were two characters with more gumption than most, yet the motive was all for the grace of good and to help others. I was always rooting for them and may or may not have fist pumped a couple of times.  How Romang wrote all of this suspense with an undertone of religion is beyond me. This could be considered a religious book, yet Romang doesn’t preach or overdo it. The book just reminds readers that there is still good out in the world and if you believe, you will be saved. When we are at our darkest place, alone, there is still light somewhere. Gabby was the one who this was most prominent in but the innocence of childhood helped her see it the brightest. Annie and Matthew took some time, but everything that happened to both of them led them to exactly where they belonged, with each other. I being a hopeless romantic loved this most. The book proved to me that even the most terrifying of evils can be defeated and conquered.