Customer Reviews

Alaska Twilight (Women of Faith Fiction)

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've read this twice and enjoyed it immensely both times. The heroine is a spunky lady who comes to terms with her fears and losses right before your eyes. She is a wonderful example to us readers who may need some help to see past physical handicaps to the person inside. Our hero is strong and rugged and everything you'd expect to find in an Alaskan Bear Researcher/Guide. Alaska Twilight is incredibly entertaining! Colleen Coble has a way with words that kicks my visual imagination into overdrive. I'm glad to have this novel in my personal library.

And I agree with other reviewers: the ending was wonderful!

Colleen Coble is a MASTER at weaving a detail plot, loveable characters, and the perfect setting. I was swept away to the beauty of Alaska, fell in love with a big, hunky hero, and my heart broke for poor Haley. If you love reading stories of suspense, love, and hope, you don't want to miss this one!

I've read all of Colleen Coble's books and I have to say, this one blew me away! Using a protagonist with a handicap was a stroke of genius. . .makes you root for the heroine all the more. And the surprise appearance of some of Ms. Coble's favorites was a welcome delight. I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves romantic suspense--you won't be sorry!

I probably should not review this book because it is a romance and romance novels are not "my cup of tea." I knew that, of course, but I decided to try the romance genre again to see if I might like it better now that I am (much) older. The book is OK but if I had to choose between romance and mystery I would choose mystery every tiime. If you like romance novels read this! If you prefer another genre, read something else.

Indiana author, Colleen Coble, needs a "heads-up" for the men. She's not just writing romance for the ladies, even though most women will love her books, including "Alaska Twilight" for that aspect. Coble mixes it all together. Kings and Queens, if you like rugged wilderness nature, and/or complicated mystery, then here is a book to read. The setting alone gives the satisfaction of a travel book, with its scenes intricately described. Readers can almost smell the pine needles...
and bear scat.

The mystery involves a family house fire accident and a cave collapse that causes death. When Haley returns to the Alaskan area where all this happened in the lives of her family, new events take place that begin to weave a tapestry of clues. Not all is revealed about the truth. Haley struggles with deciding if she wants to know all the truth.

The adventure takes place during a summer in Alaska with a crew thrown together to document human interaction with bears. A TV nature/animal star seeks a new documentary, a local biologist (Tank who looks the Paul Bunyan type)who studies bears, Haley the still photographer, camera crew, and Grandma Agusta (author) all converge on the Alaskan bear population for each their own reasons. Often their personal purposes clash, but the summer must go on. I learned more about bears than I'll ever use the rest of my life, but it was a pleasant education while reading about the story characters that loved them and thrived due to them.

The family connections and personal relationships of the characters in this small village area in Alaska required me to keep a paper handy as a sort of genealogy chart. Nothing like small town backwoods Alaskan life for intimate interaction.

For the Christian reader, you'll find the morals of several of the main characters either near perfect, or flawed and forgiven. As it should be. However, in the same fashion as slipping in the nature qualities, and the mystery clues, author, Colleen Coble, integrates Christian values as a natural part of certain people. Just like real life. No preaching, just the beliefs of a few, some willing to share openly, others, reservedly; like frosting between cake layers, good but not showy.

I may get comments from this observation, but I see Coble's Christian characters' build and interaction (with life and others) somewhat similar to the many earthy stories by Scottish writer George MacDonald.

Coble has a way of presenting many clues and situations. They must be woven together to see any kind of full picture so guessing the who-dun-it prior to her revealing it comes as a near impossibility. Good for mystery lovers. The action is intense at times (attacks by bear, fire, water, gun, and accidents). Good for suspense fans. A romantic situation develops, but it's an impossible mix. Good for the heart-throbs. Travel and nature fanatics are covered throughout the book.

Sounds a bit like a review of a blockbuster movie--right? Well, that's the way it reads. It could be a movie. In the written form, Colleen Coble has provided the film footage of Alaska. Read, enjoy, and above all, when they arrive in your presence...don't feed the bears.

I enjoyed this one and finished it quickly. Haley was a likeable character and I was impressed to find that she was handicapped. The mystery was engaging though I figured out whodunit about halfway through. The biggest hint was in the prologue. ;)

I'd love to give this 5 stars but I felt that at times the storyline was a bit confusing. The events in the prologue seemed like they happened over a decade from the story's beginning, not just a couple years. There were also multiple characters with motives and a few relationships that you had to remember how they went together. My advice would be to take notes and to draw out a family tree as you go. The other women in our reading group felt the same way. We actually spend a bit of time trying to figure out the actual storyline!

All in all though, it is a good read. The characters are well developed and the setting is nicely described. I will be reading the next one in the series!

I've read all of Coble's books, and I've never been disappointed! The settings are amazingly real and the twisting, turning plots keeps me guessing until the end.

No matter where Ms. Coble sets her books, once I start reading, I'm there. I found myself looking over my shoulders for bears on the loose as I hiked over rocky terrain without ever leaving my sofa. I wanted to knock some sense into a couple of characters while my heart melted toward others. A book of intrigue, suspense, and believable characters, this book was a page turner from start to finish.

I highly recommend Alaska Twilight!

Book review for:

Alaska Twilight
By Colleen Coble


Alaska is a wide-open state full of wonder, wildlife, tundra, and scenery, any one of which would open ones eyes as wide as most any other sight on earth.



Colleen Coble takes you into this land of adventure with Haley Walsh. Haley travels to the wilds to attempt to find out what happened when her parents were killed in their cabin fire years before. Haley meets some long lost family members as she tries to unravel the mystery of her parents' death in that fire. She meets up with a tough man, Tank Lassiter, who works as a bear biologist, especially with Miki, who Tank had raised from when he was a cub.



The descriptions of the Alaska wilderness, the bears, the few towns in the vicinity, the many types of people, some nice and some defiantly not nice, and the living in this country will dominate your mind from cover to cover. During all this, Haley tries desperately to find God since she thinks He forsook her when her sister and her parents were killed years earlier.



Alaska Twilight is hard to put down. Colleen Coble writes in a way that keeps you involved and makes you feel as though you were looking behind you for the bears!



Review written by Cy Hilterman

May 17, 2006

low cost and in good condition just like i like it. This is a great read and i'm happy to find i could buy it. If you want a new athour coleen coble is the way to go.