Meg is a
twenty-eight year old nurse who finds out her husband has been killed
by a drunk teen driver – the same day she finds out she is
pregnant. She soon comes to the point of being convinced someone
needs to pay for her husband's death. The authorities rebuff her but
she manages to find out who the driver was, the son of a wealthy and
prominent judge. When it looks like his father's influence will once
again let the popular high school athletic star escape responsibility
for his actions, Meg is motivated for revenge. She thinks her
husband's murder has changed her forever. She is no longer the woman
she was.
Some
12,000 people are killed by drunk drivers each year (characters in
the book remind us – more than once). And many never end up serving
prison time. Hence, the plot for this novel.
Evil is
a prominent theme in the book. Evil is destroying Meg's heart. And
there is a parallel to the evil of cancer destroying a patient in the
hospital, Nancy, whom Meg comes to like. Nancy refuses pain pills
because she wants to experience all of life. Meg doesn't want to feel
anything.
Nancy
contributes an interesting argument about, if God is good, why is
there evil in the world? God has not caused the cancer from which she
is dying, Nancy says. God gave man control over the earth because he
demanded it. Man invited evil to the earth and we have been suffering
ever since.
This is
a dark novel. Meg is bent on revenge for 87% of the book (ah, the
joys of reading a digital edition). Granted, there is a redeeming end
to the book. It was a transforming experience, as God's work is, but
the rest of the book was hard for me to read. It was just dark. I
wanted to quit, but had promised to read the book for this review.
And
frankly, I did not think this novel was well written. There were
sentences or descriptions that were unnecessary. For example, Meg is
buying a yellow rose and the clerk says, “This one will only cost
you $2.75 plus tax. Let me see, the total is $2.93.” That does not
add to the plot or even the scene, at all. Here's another, “Meg
walked the four feet to where Jan stood.” Four feet? That added
nothing to the scene. I could give many more examples of odd
additions to the text that seemed to be added only for word count,
not to really move the novel along.
This is
certainly not Ace's best work. I have read others works by him and am
a bit puzzled about this one. This book could have benefited from
additional editing.
And I am
always intrigued when a male author writes a female lead character
(or vice versa). That one presumes to know the opposite sex so well
as to write their thoughts, well, that's quite a presumption. I don't
think Ace got it right in this novel. I don't think we women would
become the revengeful Meg. A man, maybe, but not a woman.
If you
like to read a novel that is mostly about all the bad things a person
bent on revenge wants to do, a novel where the person is transformed
near the end, then this novel is for you.
I am
taking part in a blog tour of this book and you can find other
reviews here.
Ace
Collins is a bestselling author who has written more than 60 books
with sales over 1.5 million. His books have become movies and network
television specials. He makes his home in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. Find
out more about him at http://AceCollins.com.
Abingdon
Press, 352 pages.
I
received a complimentary egalley of this book from a publicity group
for the purpose of this review.
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