Into the Fire

Broken by Travis Thrasher and published by Hachette Book Group’s FaithWords is a featured novel for the CFBA Tour. Let me start by saying I love Travis’s writing. It’s always straightforward, doesn’t pull punches, isn’t afraid to look at the seedy stuff and plunge right into it, and he’s never been one to write by the rules—which of course endears him to me. He uses present tense in this story, and he switches POVs while telling this rather sordid tale of Laila Torres, a drop-dead gorgeous young woman who’s seen way too much of an ugly lifestyle and barely lives to tell about it.

It’s a dangerous fete for an author to make his “heroine” a hardened woman on the run from both a dangerous and ugly lifestyle which is only partially revealed in the beginning and from men who are pursuing her for what they plan to take from her. The reader gets pieces of Laila’s life through her journal, her nightmares, and her delusions, but it isn’t until midway through the story where some of the nightmares and delusions begin to come to life. The tricky part for the reader is establishing which of these episodes are real or imagined. The difficult part of reviewing the novel is trying not to spoil the total unique experience with too much information.

The defining moment in Laila’s life comes at the age of 15 and colors everything else with its black crayon. We don’t experience this encounter until a while into the novel, but when we do, it makes us sick with dread and revulsion. From that moment in her history Laila stops correctly assimilating people and events until her next wretched decision at the tender age of 17 which serves to override her future sanity at different moments in her waking and sleeping hours.

Using her incredible beauty to gain a measure of recognition as a model, it also leads her places she never intended to go and invents this damaged and cynical character we meet on the pages of Broken. On the run and with total reliance upon her own cunning, she learns she can’t outrun her past and with this revelation comes death and destruction and a slew of memories she can’t escape. When visions prove to be more than delusions, she realizes one of the reasons for her guilt isn’t really what she thought, and this sends her packing for who knows where yet again.

When Laila, as a young girl, left her family in Texas to explore a career in New York that ended in Chicago, she figured it would be forever because of what she’d done at every different crisis in her youth, thinking none of those decisions could be excused or forgiven. With her misinterpretations of who God is based on the travesties of her life and choices, she figures she’s as good as dead, welcoming it like a drug to an addict until it’s in her face. Learning her younger brother is also pursuing her, she’s afraid for his life when it seems those chasing her will stop at nothing to get what they want.

Those who know me know I believe in the supernatural. Demons do wicked things to and through people in this world. God sends ministering spirits (angels) to do his bidding however He determines to use them. There is always a supernatural element included in my stories. In Broken it’s almost in hindsight that the reader sees evidence of God’s intervention in some of Laila’s crises. Having said that, I found the incidents involving the “toy” gun and the trunk of the car to be convenient and contrived, and neither worked for me.

The other plot point that didn’t work for me was the amount of money involved in this chase. It seemed like far too little to go to these lengths to retrieve.

Barring those few examples which I felt weakened the story, Travis Thrasher has created another fascinating novel with an unusual heroine who is both hard to like and hard to resist. The satisfying conclusion brings Laila’s condemnation to an end, and as odd or cliché as it might seem, the story lingers like a haunting melody.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0446505552

Lord, you’ve given Travis his diverse talents. Continue to guide his writing and bless the work of his hands done to honor you. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.