BETRAYED - J.M. Windle - EXCITING GIVE AWAY!!

This week, the
Christian Fiction Blog Alliance
is introducing
Betrayed
Tyndale House Publishers (February 6, 2008)
by
Jeanette Windle
Fires smolder endlessly below the dangerous surface of Guatemala City’s municipal dump.

Deadlier fires seethe beneath the tenuous calm of a nation recovering from brutal civil war. Anthropologist Vicki Andrews is researching Guatemala’s “garbage people” when she stumbles across a human body. Curiosity turns to horror as she uncovers no stranger, but an American environmentalist—Vicki’s only sister, Holly.

With authorities dismissing the death as another street crime, Vicki begins tracing Holly’s last steps, a pilgrimage leading from slum squalor to the breathtaking and endangered cloud forests of the Sierra de las Minas Biosphere. But every unraveled thread raises more questions. What betrayal connects Holly’s murder, the recent massacre of a Mayan village, and the long-ago deaths of Vicki’s own parents?

Nor is Vicki the only one demanding answers. Before her search reaches its startling end, the conflagration has spilled across international borders to threaten an American administration and the current war on terror. With no one turning out to be who they’d seemed, who can Vicki trust and who should she fear?

A politically relevant tale of international intrigue and God’s redemptive beauty and hope.

MY REVIEW:

Abraham and Sarah of Old Testament fame offer many examples of faith to those who have come behind them, but NEVER in my wildest dreams would I have ever imagined that their life choices could have been so masterfully woven into a suspense novel in 2008! J. M Windle has got to be one of the most exciting discoveries I’ve made since I started collecting “new authors” here on my blog. This very talented writer has written a suspenseful, thrilling story that very naturally incorporates some of the most powerful lessons of faith I’ve encountered in fiction in some time!

Travel in your mind to Guatemala. Lush green jungles, exotic animals, unusual noises, smells, sensations….this entire sensory experience is captured so realistically that I actually dreamed of the landscapes in Betrayed while I was reading it! And I’ve never been out of the country! Windle captures this from her own life experience as a missionary’s daughter, and later as a missionary’s wife growing up and then serving in Latin America. Within this rich environment, she draws a stark picture of the life struggles of the native people as well as the brute power of the militant regime that has ruled that part of the world for decades.

It is into this richly staged world that Windle’s main characters make their entrance. Vicki and her sister are brought to the region for reasons as unique as each of their passions. Vicki is trying to aide the children of the region, while her sister is trying to preserve the environment itself. Neither of them realize that there is more than 20 years of history that tie many people, including their parents, to the area, and that the past is about to explode into the present with no apology! Beginning with the murder of Vicki’s sister and propelling you page to page at an alarming rate, is a story of political intrigue and terrorism that refuses to let you go!

Where do Abraham and Sarah enter in? Well, early in the story, Vicki receives a challenge from the director of the children’s home where she is staying. “Do what is right. And do not give way to fear.” She explains this in the context of Sarah’s heritage preserved for us in the Old Testament. We are not called to solve or even understand the evil working in the world around us. However, we are called to do what is right and not to give way to fear. This lesson is built one experience at a time in the life of the main character, and by the end of the novel you are rejoicing with new understanding in God’s sovereignty in ALL situations! What hope! What victory! Truly, it makes an eternal difference for some of the characters in this story.

So don’t waste a moment! Purchase a copy here today! And it just so happens, I have an extra copy to GIVE AWAY!! So leave a comment and enter a chance to win this wonderful book!