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Tainted

by Brooke Morgan

     

This story unfolds on a little fishing town in Cape Cod, Shoreham. The protagonist, Holly Barrett, and her five-year-old daughter, Katy, live in the modest home she inherited after the death of her parents. Henry, Holly’s grandfather and good friend, lives only a stone’s throw away.

As Holly Barrett is going to and fro living life, she crosses paths with Jack Dane. Jack Dane was reared in England by socialite parents who only cared about the awe and reverence Jack and his older brother could bring them through their good looks, good grades and social status. Fail at bringing them any of these things or even more, and the child would quickly be viewed as null and void—useless. Jack had failed.

It wasn’t long before the English wolf—hiding in sheep’s clothing—took residence with Holly Barrett and became comfortable in disrupting her life. Before long, hidden identities, murders, brainwashing, and kidnapping with a hint of child molestation, all gripped and disrupted the quiet life of Holly Barrett.

Brooke Morgan takes the reader on a phenomenal journey in her first novel, allowing us to witness a predator and his prey: the control that takes place. Had Holly Barrett heeded Oprah Winfrey's warning "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time," she could have saved herself and her loved ones the horrific pain Jack Dane, psychopath, inflicted on their lives.

In Holly we’re able to see what can happen to a child when she is too sheltered. Her instincts and intuition were dull; she didn’t trust either. There’s a fine line between being too lenient and being too strict. As parents, we do our children a disservice if we don’t teach them life skills the way we teach academics. Being sheltered may help many things, but it doesn’t help us learn about human behavior and how to read such behavior. If our senses haven’t been trained correctly, we‘re clueless about human behavior and we begin to assume that other people hold our beliefs and values. If they don‘t, we figure with some TLC and time they‘ll come to see things our way. Hogwash. That can be true sometimes, but at other times it can be far from truth and reality. The only way we can train our senses is to be exposed. Holly Barrett’s senses were dull, hence making her easy prey for a skilled manipulator.

I like this book, although at first it was hard to follow.  I can't wait until Brooke Morgan comes out with her next psychological thriller.

The Book

Avon / Harper Collins
December 2009
Trade paperback
978-0-06-185337-1
Suspense
More at Amazon.com
Excerpt
NOTE: There are some violent scenes and two people are killed.

The Reviewer

Angela Ambroise
Reviewed 2010
NOTE:
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