Into the Fire

Living Lies by Natalie Walters is Book One in the Harbored Secrets Series.

The lovely Lane Kent, a widow with a 5 year old son Noah, operates the Way Station Café in Walton, Georgia, that kind of small town where most everybody knows each other, but they don't necessarily know each other's pain. Helping Lane cook and run the café, Ms. Byrdie, the sheriff's wife and like a second mother to Lane, is a woman of faith and a master at encouraging Lane in her personal darkness. 

Brand new deputy Charlie Lynch, who is Sheriff Huggins and Ms. Byrdie's nephew, has retired from the Marine Corps to create a home in Walton in hopes of a different kind of service and of finding a way to build a family. As he unexpectedly learns after his first highly charged encounter with Lane Kent, she's his neighbor.

Lane blames herself for her husband's death which occurred in a car accident. The darkness she feels permeates her existence and at times she doesn't think she can face another day. During one of those moments her first glimpse of Charlie Lynch temporarily takes her focus away from the blackness, but it returns minutes later when she discovers a dead girl's body.

Living Lies is a romantic suspense that deals with the multiple sufferings caused by depression and anxiety, PTSD in veterans, and what can be an ignorance and/or intolerance of both conditions, while examining the differences and problems in family dynamics. This cleanly written* novel with dark antagonists provides a page turning tale with a few twists.

(*This time by that I mean the writing itself has little if any superfluous expression and relies on basic storytelling in spite of the well done emotional chaos of a few of its characters.)

Natalie Walters is a military wife and her understanding of those things that affect active duty soldiers and veterans shines through in this story. Thank you, Natalie, for capturing the nuances of the things our military face, and thank you, your husband, and your family for the sacrifices you make to maintain our freedom and keep us safe in the USA.  

Father, please continue to bless Natalie and her family in your abundance and fill her up with more stories to tell. May she be blessed in all she does to honor you. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.