Amy Wallace, Ransomed Dreams

Ransomed Dreams

Amy Wallace

Multnomah, Apr 2007, $12.99

ISBN: 159052747X

In the Atlanta area, Mark and Gracie Ann Lang and their two preadolescent children Elizabeth and Joshua are going to spend New Year's at her parents' home. However, Gracie Ann forgot to turn on her oven so sends her three loved ones ahead. After they leave, Gracie Ann realizes she can bake the cake in her mom's oven; she leaves also. On the highway she is behind her family when an out of control pick-up truck rams into their minivan. The truck driver keeps going while Gracie Ann sees three sheets.

Two years later in DC, FBI Crimes Against Children Coordinator Steven Kessler is assigned to the abductions of seventeen-year-old Olivia Kensington, daughter of the British ambassador Sir Walter, and her best friend Jordan. Sir Walter hides information from Steven, making the case increasingly likely to result in murder. Steven meets still grieving Gracie Ann when he goes to pick up his son James at the Hope Ridge Academy where she teaches (having left Georgia). He arranges with a private sleuth friend to investigate her obsession to bring to justice her family's killer even while someone watches every move she makes to insure she cannot get to close to the killer driver.

Though the DC link between Gracie Ann and the vehicular homicide "watcher" seems too great a coincidence and her meeting the Fed at the school seems doubtful but not as stretched, RANSOMED DREAMS is an exciting, romantic suspense thriller due to the caring personalities of the lead couple. Whereas Steven personalizes when he or his team fail to save the life of a child from a human predator, Gracie Ann obsesses over an-eye-for-an-eye justice for her late family. Fans will root for this couple who need one another to move past recent traumas (hers is obvious; his is a kid "saved" too late). Amy Wallace writes a strong character study as grief is personal, surfacing differently in people.

Harriet Klausner