Waking Hours by Lis Wiehl with Pete Nelson
Review by Cynthia M. (clariail)
Book Synopsis:
All towns have secrets. Some have demons. — Welcome to East Salem. A deceptively sleepy town where ancient supernatural forces are being awakened. A local high-school girl is found murdered in a park amid horse farms and wealthy homes of northern Westchester County, New York. The shocking manner of her death confounds the town and intrigues forensic psychiatrist Dani Harris, who is determined to unravel the mystery. All the suspects are teenagers who were at a party with the girl, yet none remembers what happened. Could one of them be a vicious killer? Or is something more sinister afoot — something tied to an ancient evil?
But it’s not just her waking hours that challenge Dani. Each night, her eyes open at 2:13 due to troubling dreams. Dreams filled with blood, water, and destruction. Is it a clue — or a supernatural sign?
Across town, former NFL linebacker Tommy Gunderson finds his state-of-the-art security system has been breached by an elderly woman. Mumbling threats in Latin, she attacks him with an uncanny, preternatural strength. Before he has time to process the attack, someone close to him is implicated in the girl’s murder at the park. He agrees to help and finds himself working with Dani, the only girl who could resist his charms years ago when they were in high school.
A heavy darkness is spreading. Yet a heavenly force is also at work.
My Thoughts:
I love to read Christian Fiction, especially mystery/thrillers. I also like to read books that have elements of spiritual warfare in them. This book contains both.
One of the two main characters in the story is Dani, forensic psychiatrist. I wouldn’t say that she is a non-believer but she looks are everything from a scientific stand point. If she can’t explain it scientifically then she more readily accepts the spiritual application.
Tommy is the other main character for the story, who is a believer and sees things from the view point of faith and what the bible says.
Both of these come into play as the story goes along and I did like reading the discussions between the two view points.
Even though the book was written by two people, I thought that it flowed very well. It was a slow reading book to me but it kept me intrigued to see what was going to happen. The mystery part of the book concerning the murder was resolved by the end of the book but I believe that the ground work was being laid for the next book in the series as far as the spiritual elements were concerned as there wasn’t any resolution or explanation for the events that had taken place.
The only complaint that I had, and not a real biggie, was that they used words occasionally that I either wasn’t familiar with or thought that they were using a fancier word than necessary. For instance, instead of saying they were running blood tests, they used serology. That’s just me though.
