Thursday, February 14, 2019

Review - What Doesn't Kill Her

Title:  What Doesn't Kill Her
Author:  Christina Dodd
Series:  Cape Charade #2
Genre:   Mystery/Thrillers
Publisher:   HQN Books
Format:  Kindle
No. of Pages:  384
Date of Publication:  February 1, 2019
My Rating:  4.5 Stars

DESCRIPTION:

One secret, one nightmare, one lie. You guess which is which.

1. I have the scar of a gunshot on my forehead.
2. I have willfully misrepresented my identity to the US military.
3. I'm the new mother of a seven-year-old girl.

Kellen Adams suffers from a yearlong gap in her memory. A bullet to the brain will cause that. But she's discovering the truth, and what she learns changes her life, her confidence, her very self. She finds herself in the wilderness, on the run, unprepared, her enemies unknown--and she is carrying a priceless burden she must protect at all costs. The consequences of failure would break her. And Kellen Adams does not break.

What doesn't kill her...had better start running.


MY THOUGHTS:

As this Cape Charade series has progressed, Kellen Adams is still coping with a memory gap from a year of her life due to a bullet in her brain. It is now years later. She has recently discovered that during that trauma she actually gave birth and recently met her 7-year-old daughter Rae. She learned that the man she fell in love with after escaping the clutches of her terrifying and brutal husband, Max, fathered her daughter. It was while pregnant that Kellen was actually shot in the head. At one point, Kellen left the hospital, and this was after being in a coma, and fell off the grid.

Max has found her, but it didn't mean that the three would be able to become a happy little family. During Kellen's time away, she joined the Army and hasn't quite become herself. As a matter of fact, she really doesn't know who she could possibly be in life. In the previous novels, we learned that after her husband attempted to kill her, she assumed her cousin's identity, thus changing her name to Kellen. At some point, she met Max. Now, seven years later, Kellen has to come to grips with even new changes in her life. How can she become a loving mother to a little girl she never knew?

After learning about Rae, in a state of utter shock, Kellen takes off and ends up in the wilderness and the path is borne for her to start over. However, danger follows closely on her tail and it seems that the running that she started might never come to an end. Someone is still trying to kill her and one might wonder how many lives this one woman has.

What Doesn't Kill Her is a thrilling tale of suspense and mystery, with romance and family seamlessly blended in. Just as each book before, we are left hanging with another cliffhanger. I cannot imagine what is now in store for Kellen. Other books in this series are Hard to Kill, Dead Girl Running and Families and Other Enemies, all available now. To follow later this year are Hidden Truths and Strangers She Knows.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Readers become writers, and Christina Dodd has always been a reader. She reads everything, but because she loves humor, she likes romance best.

A woman wants things like world peace, a clean house, and a deep and meaningful relationship based on mutual understanding and love. A man wants things like a Craftsman router with attachments, undisputed control of the TV remote, and a red Corvette which will miraculously make his bald spot disappear. So when Christina’s first daughter was born, she told her husband she was going to quit work and write a book. It was a good time to start a new career, because how much trouble could one little infant be?

Ha! It took ten years, two children and three completed manuscripts before her first novel, CANDLE IN THE WINDOW, was published. In the twenty-six years since, her novels have been translated into 25 languages, won Romance Writers of America’s prestigious Golden Heart and RITA Awards and been called the year’s best by Library Journal and Booklist. Christina Dodd herself has been a clue in the Los Angeles Times crossword puzzle (11/18/05, # 13 Down: Romance Novelist named Christina.) Her mother was thrilled! With more than 15 million of her books in print, Booklist praises her, “brilliantly etched characters, polished writing, and unexpected flashes of sharp humor that are pure Dodd.”

In 2018, Christina began her Virtue Falls spin-off suspense series, Cape Charade, with DEAD GIRL RUNNING, out now. The first lines are:


I have three confessions:

I’ve got the scar of a gunshot on my forehead.
I don’t remember an entire year of my life.
My name is Kellen Adams … and that’s half a lie.

Listen to a free DEAD GIRL RUNNING audio book chapter and read an excerpt here. Booklist, says, “Dodd is at her most wildly entertaining, wickedly witty best.”  


Out now, the short story, HARD TO KILL, introduces you to Kellen Adams, and on January 29, 2018, WHAT DOESN’T KILL HER (had better start running) continues Kellen’s adventures.


Christina Dodd is married to a man with all his hair and no Corvette, but many Craftsman tools. They have been married since the earth’s crust cooled.


6 comments:

  1. This looks intriguing - nice review, Robin!

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  2. Nice review. I do like books like this. I'll have to add to my TBR list.

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  3. Great review. Sounds like an intense series.
    Gemma @ www.gemmasbooknook.blogspot.com

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  4. Very nice review. Looks like one I might like.

    www.tbrandbeyond.com

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