Did not finish. Stereotypical hand wringing victim. ( )

Shortly after receiving this book in the mail I was at Burger King with my children on the Arkansas side of Texarkana. There in the parking lot was a small blue car with the entire bumper and lower part of the back window covered with bumper stickers that read "Lyme is alive and well in Arkansas". To be honest until receiving this book for review I had not given much thought to this disease. Then as I read this book a classmate of my husband was diagnosed with this very thing. How odd that God works things out in such a way to make us aware of something like this.

This book is very well written. From the first page the reader is drawn into the story with a full range of emotions. I found this book to be a little stressful simply because of the tensions within it. I felt so bad for the main character and within the first few pages developed a deep dislike for her husband. It seems so very terrible that this man would treat his own wife with such disinterest. In fact I found myself really wanting to put the book down because of this one character, if I didn't want so badly to see what happened to Jannie. Never before had I given much thought to Lyme Disease, but after reading this I have a new sympathy for those suffering from this and a new desire not to take my children for any more hikes in the Arkansas mountains!

Brandilyn Collins has expertly written a suspenseful drama that will leave readers on the edge of their seats. This one is certainly a page turner and is difficult to put down. I read it in one setting (shamefully staying up way past my bedtime) in order to finish it. A special thanks to the author for tackling a book that will no doubt bring awareness to many about a topic that needs to be seen.

Thank you B&H for this review copy. ( )

Waiting for the next book. ( )

I put this on a "to read" list probably around the time it first came out but just recently got around to requesting it from my local library. For me, it started out slowly and I didn't really get into the story and to the point of not wanting to put it down until about the last third of the book.

I did guess who the man was who broke into Janessa's house but not much before the author revealed it. I did feel there was a last minute effort by the author at trying to direct the readers's attention to a different character. I didn't feel that was set up well. I can tell the author knows a lot about Lyme disease by the amount of detail in the book.

WARNING: Spoilers may follow. Read at your own discretion.
*****

Dr. Brock McNeil is a leading name in the world of Lyme disease. He heads a committee that's planning to report that chronic Lyme is not a "real" disease. The impact of this is that it's likely those who do suffer from it will find it harder to get the treatment they need and that doctor's who do provide the treatment needed could potentially lose their license to practice or face sanctions if they do treat it.

Someone who lost a loved one to Lyme disease and its coinfections decides that the way to get this committee to change their minds is to have one of their loved ones suffering with the disease. He chooses Dr. McNeil's wife Janessa as his first victim.

Unfortunately, it seems Brock doesn't love Janessa as much as one would think a man would love his wife. It seems he's been having an affair and is planning to leave Janessa--a plan he doesn't change even after she gets very sick. He feels she's faking feeling bad (something she did as a child to get attention from her father) to manipulate him into staying. So Janessa's illness doesn't get him to change his position on Lyme disease. (At one point Janessa finds studies in his former home office that seem to indicate he's been able to replicate results that indicate the treatment he's been promoting for Lyme disease isn't always the cure-all it's been said to be, but I can't tell if that was a poor attempt to misdirect the readers into who was the culprit, if the experiments they'd tried to replicate the results were skewed by the lab assistant, or if the information was real and Brock just stubbornly refused to reverse his stance publicly.) ( )

Very creepy!! ( )