Into the Fire

Nightshade is Ronie Kendig’s second novel, this one published by Barbour Publishing and featured this week on the CFBA Tour. It’s the first in a series labeled Discarded Heroes.

Former SEAL Max Jacobs sports a volcanic temper which not only stems from the atrocities witnessed while serving his country but originates from the pain he suffered early in his dysfunctional family that has yet to leave him. When his wife’s coworker seems to be showing a little too much familiarity with her, Max levels him but in the process his wife Sydney gets in the way and receives a punch too. Sydney gets a separation and restraining order against Max and files for divorce under the encouragement of her over-protective brother. Max is devastated by both connecting his fist to Sydney’s face and the possibility that the one person he loves in this world might never be in his life again.

As a result, Max lives in a grungy apartment with the bare necessities and rides his crazy-fast bike to deathly speeds. After crashing it and landing in a ditch, battered, bruised, and scraped, a man in a Stetson picks him up and takes him to a meeting where other former Special Ops guys are asked to join a well-funded secret group to obliterate nasty situations involving evil men across the world. It’s Black Ops at its brightest and best, unknown and unrecognized by anyone in government or otherwise. The team called Nightshade rescues all kinds of victims without recognition until an African woman transported to the USA wants to tell her story in order to thank the men who saved her.

Sydney loves Max but has zero understanding of his PTSD symptoms and because of seeing his rage, she has become afraid of the man she loves. While pursuing a story for the newspaper where she holds a job, she interviews the African woman and learns the men who came in the shade of night to deliver her from certain death were Americans. Pursuing this story causes a terrible tragedy and takes Sydney places she never thought she’d go.

Nightshade fits comfortably into commercial Christian fiction with plenty of action and some romance. Here’s the problem for me—and let me emphasize this is for me: Sydney’s naïveté in this day and age, especially for a reporter at any level, seems absurd. What do normal people think SEALs do? And to marry one? I know Ronie’s inspiration to write this novel came from a real person experiencing difficulty in her marriage to a SEAL (http://www.relzreviewz.blogspot.com/), and I have no doubt how extremely challenging it would be for these kind of men to ignore their experiences and participate in a “normal” marriage, but I hope the ladies considering marriage to men of this caliber would be more informed and less wrapped up in their own desires and attractions to these men of passion and dedication. They and others who work covertly bear deep scars that don’t just fade into the sunset after the romance of the courtship and/or honeymoon. Why is it supposed reporters such as Anna in the Vince Flynn novels and Sydney in this novel don’t get what is required of these men? From the secrecy of missions to the torment of those same missions—sorry, I just can’t conjure up any sympathy for women who don’t take reality into account before marrying men like these and then expecting them to conform to the sometime silliness of everyday life and cope with “normalcy”. And not sharing the most important part of their lives together in spite of their separation? Nope, can’t handle it. And going from one extreme of hatred to another of unsurpassed love? Hormones can only twist a stable mind so far. And being unaware of her coworker’s fawning attraction to her? Geez, lady, get real. And using God more as a convenience than a real source for her direction? I have a hard enough time with these kinds of namby-pamby Christians in real life, so it’s doubly difficult in stories. So there you have my multiple problems with Sydney.

Max is a conundrum and takes everything to an extreme including his mad-on with God. While continually calling himself a failure, he refuses to take responsibility for his actions insisting this is who he is. But his pain is palpable. And even though he doesn’t “do” emotion, he’s strangled with all kinds of them. All unresolved except his love for Sydney—the one absolute unwavering emotion in his life. His stubbornness and resistance to the real friendship offered him makes Max just short of a truly lovable character.

The dialogue between the members of Nightshade is good and realistic.

Ronie’s pet word in this novel seemed to be “knuckles”. We writers all have them, but when they’re obvious words, they stand out. Strange occurrence:

Chapter 2

Sydney Jacobs traced the knot patterns in the oak tabletop . . . Vanilla-scented steam spiraled up from the mug of hot tea cradled in her hand.

. . .

With a shuddering sigh, she lifted her tea and took another sip. . . . Sydney rose and headed to the sink with her mug. . . . She dumped her coffee.

(I read this over three or four times to see if I’d made a mistake in thinking she was drinking tea instead of coffee. Nope. It won’t matter to most, but it stopped my reading and made me retrace my steps. Okay, so I’m obsessive.)

Nightshade captures the devotion of Special Ops guys, the pain of having seen the true depravity of humanity, and the challenges all of life brings to these very honorable individuals.

 http://http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/160260777X

Father, you’ve given Ronie multiple talents and the gift of storytelling. Please continue to provide those stories and the blessings that accompany writing them. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.