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25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ms. Thompson's Best Ever!, November 25, 2007
This review is from: The Salt Maiden (Mass Market Paperback)
Colleen Thompson has risen to a new level of complexity in this amazing novel. Talented wordsmith that she is, Ms. Thompson has touched depths of characterization a lesser writer might fear with two strong, passionate people searching not only for necessary answers to a well-plotted mystery, but also for their own personal answers, perhaps the more painful of the two. Dana Vanover's life has been a little rocky of late. Her small animal vet clinic is operating at a loss because of the time she had to take off for surgery. Oh, and speaking of the whole hysterectomy-at-thirty-one thing, she has not even had a chance to return all the wedding presents for which she was left responsible when her cowardly ex-fiancé dumped her by text message three months before. She definitely is not going to get sucked into another of her big sister Angie's dramas. But the niece Dana has never known because Angie placed the child for adoption at birth needs a bone marrow transplant as a last hope to beat the cancer slowly leaching the child's life away. So once again, Dana is off on a rescue mission chasing her dysfunctional, druggie sister, and this time to the very end of civilization, a miserable community called Devil's Claw, Texas. Jay Eversole is back home, following in the footsteps of his uncle and his grandfather before him as sheriff of Rimrock County. That he has come back after being relieved of his law enforcement duties in Dallas because of PTSD - flashbacks to the nightmares he survived in Iraq - doesn't bother the small town folks who have known him all his life. Now green-eyed Dana Vanover, as attractive as she is big in the trouble department, is stirring it up faster than he can take care of it. Within the first thirty minutes he knows her, she nearly passes out from the unrelenting temperature, then manages to get herself bit by a five-foot rattlesnake. The shimmering heat of the surrounding area houses more scorpions and centipedes than it does humans. No one has seen Angie in two months, but a stubborn Dana believes her sister is still in the area. The only item sacred to Angie's sanity is the loom the artist uses to create her tapestries. Dana knows her sister wouldn't have abandoned it here had she moved on. The desert doesn't have anything on the steamy heat Dana and Jay generate as their attraction grows. Add the intrigue of small town politics, a questionable salt dome project and new clues unfolding in the mystery surrounding Angie's disappearance that lead to life-threatening danger, and you've got an amazing romantic suspense. This thriller will keep you entranced until its very last secret is unveiled. This is Ms. Thompson's best ever.
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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Romantic Suspense in an outer and inner desert wasteland, December 22, 2007
This review is from: The Salt Maiden (Mass Market Paperback)
THE SALT MAIDEN by Colleen Thompson is riveting suspense with an emotionally satisfying romance. The finely detailed characterization combines with an eerie exquisitely written landscape to make this novel a reading and re-reading pleasure. Dana Vanover needs to locate her sister Angie and time is of the essence. Nikki Harrison needs a bone marrow transplant to save her life. Dana and her mother, Nikki's grandmother, are not matches, so as her biological mother, Angie is Nikki's last hope. With urgency to save Nikki and please her mother, Dana travels to Devil's Claw, a desert in Rimrock County, Texas --- the last place Angie was located. The deeper Dana delves into her sister's life, the more danger she unearths... including a body preserved in salt. The town's residents were none to keen on Angie's eclectic ways or her interference in town affairs nor do they relish Dana's digging up the past. As soon as she arrives in Devil's Claw, danger lurks everywhere. Sheriff Jay Eversole is Dana's only ally in the small town but as a former desert warrior and war veteran, he is plagued by day time nightmares. Can Dana find her sister in time and is her growing attraction for Jay a threat to her safety? Will the sheriff's past come back to haunt their search, making him a threat? Each chapter of THE SALT MAIDEN begins with either an entry from Angie's sobriety journal or a quote about salt, adding a suspenseful or reflective dimension to the novel. The desert wasteland haunts the landscape of this novel, creating an almost paranormal character in THE SALT MAIDEN. Colleen Thompson creates an intriguing landscape, not only of the natural world of the desert but also a landscape that extends into the daily life and dynamics of the community of Devil's Claw. The outer landscape becomes an internal landscape of her characters as Colleen Thompson reveals the vulnerabilities and inner psychological wasteland within Dana, Angie and Jay. The suspense of THE SALT MAIDEN twists and turns as the motivations of different characters conflict and add new suspects. When one clue is solved, another even more intriguing mystery remains. Colleen Thompson creates fast-paced suspense where every second contains both danger and a pressing need to find answers. At the same time, Colleen Thompson creates a romance that is reflective in tone through her portrait of the wasteland, adding a fresh intriguing vision to the genre. As the desert warrior Jay and Dana work together, they are forced to reveal parts of their pasts that they have kept hidden. THE SALT MAIDEN is a romance that dares to look into the wasteland of the heart and heal wounded souls. Readers will appreciate THE SALT MAIDEN both for the immediate reading pleasure but also the mysteries and questions that remain afterwards. The almost mystical nature of salt and the salt maiden haunts even once the suspense resolves. THE SALT MAIDEN leaves the reader with a question that will make this book a re-reading or book club discussion delight: are some unforgivable acts redeemable?
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
brilliant, November 15, 2007
This review is from: The Salt Maiden (Mass Market Paperback)
Colleen Thompson is an author waiting to "happen". Oh, she has been out there, is well respected as a growing talent. She has a solid backlist of amazing tales; only, she just has that presence of an author ready to have that break out novel. The Salt Maiden is that book. Her skill and flow of the prose marks her as a master wordsmith. She weaves an intricate plot into this eerie, sinister tale that kept me spellbound. This simply is Colleen Thompson at her very best. Dana Vanover is resolute to find her sister. Her determination takes her back to the desert town of Devil's Claw, where she encounters nothing but resistance to the answers she's come to find. The strongest stonewalling to her prodding and probing for an explanation about her sister's disappearance comes from Sheriff Jay Eversole. The sheriff makes no bones about it - he wants her gone for more reasons than one. However, Dana is not leaving without her sister. As she continues the hardheaded pursuit of the riddle of the mystery, Jay causes other problems - namely the passions he provokes in her. Lives are at peril in this deadly sinister story, and under the careful crafting of this very talented writer, the reader is guaranteed a tale that will keep them on the edge of the seat, with temperatures rising, as they turn page after page unable to put this novel down. Very highly recommended.
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