Into the Fire

The CFBA blog tour gave me the opportunity to read one of my favorite authors, Kristen Heitzmann. Although I don’t write exactly like her, it seems we handle the spark and chemistry of romance similarly. And I happen to love the way she does it. While her stories are never just about the element of romance, they include it as a vital part of life much like it truly is—admittedly or not, gentlemen. Her latest novel The Edge of Recall could best be described as a psychological drama/mystery, however that translates to genre.

Since Tessa Young was almost six years old, she’s spent the majority of her life hoping somehow her missing father is still alive, the man she loved and who loved her—at least that’s how she remembers him. Beyond that she can find no logical reason for him to have deserted his wife and daughter, and she longs for an explanation. However, entwined with that longing is the sense that something horrible possibly happened to him, and that she is to blame for whatever it was. Frequent and terrifying nightmares occupy her troubled sleep patterns, and since spending some time at a sanitarium for an inability to define a trauma in her early years, she has her psychiatrist’s telephone number on the speed dial of her cell phone.

Her career of architectural landscaping, which features the designing and/or restoration of labyrinths, provides the impetus for a college flame, one that has never quite been extinguished, to call her to enlist her unique talents for a secret project he’s contracted. When she decides to brave her remaining hurt from his long past obnoxious treatment of her choice to switch from architectural design to landscape design, they and a third partner encounter mysterious and nearly deadly consequences as they seek to build a structure on the land of a burned down monastery with a particular style of labyrinth.

In spite of all the emotional conflict, Tessa seemingly is getting closer to the edge of recall as her nightmares become more visual, potent, and revealing.

Four of my all time favorite novels are written by Kristen Heitzmann. She has a knack for visual and rich character development and realistic dialogue, great inner dialogue, and she knows how to resolve complicated stories without formula. Her females are often high-strung, emotional, and complicated. Her male characters are manly, real, never metro-sexual, and usually complex. Peripheral but strong characters fill the pages and become important to the story.

Interestingly (at least to me), Kristen has a few pet words (keen, keening) and phrases which inevitably seem to surface more than once and since the words are not ordinary they become noticeable and hard to ignore. In light of today’s editing “rules”, I find this odd. These words and phrases stand out and seem repetitious at times.

The back and forth between the two main characters in the first part of this story can get just a hair tedious as they are both in denial of their feelings for one another. These kinds of situations are difficult to make new or fresh. I cared for both of them, but at the same time they annoyed me. Not enough to disengage from the story which moved along at a good pace but enough for me to wish they’d hurry up and get past it even though a lot of the conflict had to do with Tessa’s inabilities to process her pain, past and present. When Smith (the architect) finally realizes some of the reasons for her being the way she is, his attraction to her is infused with the male urge to protect her.

There’s a lot more to this story than their romance and her psychological trauma, but the resolution to the trauma comes in a totally unusual and unpredictable way.

While I enjoyed this story, it did not rank up there with my top four of Kristen’s books.

Father, I pray for Kristen—that you would continue to supply her with dreams and visions for her stories. I pray you would give her all the inspiration she needs to create her novels and conduct her daily life, meeting with her in fellowship and prayer and worship, using all her multiple talents. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.

*Please pray for Kristy Dykes and her family.*