The Salt Maiden
by Colleen
Thompson
Romantic
Suspense in an outer and inner desert wasteland
Publisher:
Leisure (November 2007)
THE SALT MAIDEN
by Colleen Thompson is riveting suspense with an emotionally satisfying
romance. The finely detailed characterization combines with an eerie
exquisitely written landscape to make this novel a reading and
re-reading pleasure.
Dana Vanover needs to locate her sister Angie and time is of the
essence. Nikki Harrison needs a bone marrow transplant to save her
life. Dana and her mother, Nikki's grandmother, are not matches, so as
her biological mother, Angie is Nikki's last hope. With urgency to save
Nikki and please her mother, Dana travels to Devil's Claw, a desert in
Rimrock County, Texas --- the last place Angie was located. The deeper
Dana delves into her sister's life, the more danger she unearths...
including a body preserved in salt. The town's residents were none to
keen on Angie's eclectic ways or her interference in town affairs nor
do they relish Dana's digging up the past. As soon as she arrives in
Devil's Claw, danger lurks everywhere. Sheriff Jay Eversole is Dana's
only ally in the small town but as a former desert warrior and war
veteran, he is plagued by day time nightmares. Can Dana find her sister
in time and is her growing attraction for Jay a threat to her safety?
Will the sheriff's past come back to haunt their search, making him a
threat?
Each chapter of THE SALT MAIDEN
begins with either an entry from Angie's sobriety journal or a quote
about salt, adding a suspenseful or reflective dimension to the novel.
The desert wasteland haunts the landscape of this novel, creating an
almost paranormal character in THE
SALT MAIDEN. Colleen Thompson creates an intriguing landscape,
not only of the natural world of the desert but also a landscape that
extends into the daily life and dynamics of the community of Devil's
Claw. The outer landscape becomes an internal landscape of her
characters as Colleen Thompson reveals the vulnerabilities and inner
psychological wasteland within Dana, Angie and Jay.
The suspense of THE SALT MAIDEN
twists and turns as the motivations of different characters conflict
and add new suspects. When one clue is solved, another even more
intriguing mystery remains. Colleen Thompson creates fast-paced
suspense where every second contains both danger and a pressing need to
find answers. At the same time, Colleen Thompson creates a romance that
is reflective in tone through her portrait of the wasteland, adding a
fresh intriguing vision to the genre. As the desert warrior Jay and
Dana work together, they are forced to reveal parts of their pasts that
they have kept hidden. THE SALT
MAIDEN is a romance that dares to look into the wasteland of the
heart and heal wounded souls. Readers will appreciate THE SALT MAIDEN both for the
immediate reading pleasure but also the mysteries and questions that
remain afterwards. The almost mystical nature of salt and the salt
maiden haunts even once the suspense resolves. THE SALT MAIDEN leaves the reader
with a question that will make this book a re-reading or book club
discussion delight: are some unforgivable acts redeemable?
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