Unholy Hunger by Heather James

Evelyn Barrett wants to die. As long as her daughter’s murderer dies with her, she is ready to go. Why did this man--this stranger--destroy her family? Why has he not been brought to justice? Why is she forced to live a life of anger and grief? Amid a million questions she cannot answer, Evelyn knows one thing for sure: this murderer must be punished for his crime.

Before it all, she was a successful attorney who won all the hard cases. Now that the case is personal, Evelyn will stop at nothing to seek her own version of justice. When another girl goes missing, Evelyn plows forward, ignoring the warnings from police detectives, the pleas of her grief-stricken husband, and the strange, almost supernatural tingles that tug at her. But as she follows the stench of evil, Evelyn learns that the hardest thing she will have to face may not be the death of her child after all. Perhaps the harder lesson is this: the ultimate truth--of crime and verdict, of life and death--cannot be swayed by a mother’s revenge. In this first book of a new, page-turning series, a woman will be brought to her limits before she finally recognizes the movement of the Holy Spirit and reconnects with the source of true peace.

My review:

    This book is fictional, and it deals with some tough issues: kidnapping, molestation, and the murder of children. The author did a great job of spinning a story around those issues without being graphic or giving too much detail.

   The book was a great read with a lot of suspense and drama. It is written from the first person point of view, which is not my favorite, but I would have to say it worked better for this book than the third person point of view would have worked. The reader is given a better look into the mind of a woman who has lost her only child to an act of evil, and how it affects her and drives her after revenge.

   In spite of the tough issues the book dealt with, I enjoyed reading the book and had a hard time putting it down once I had started reading it. In addition to the issues I mentioned, the book also shows the strain on a marriage when there is the loss of a child. I didn't like the main character at first, and felt bad for her husband, but through fiction, we are given a look at two different people handling their grief in two different ways.

About the author:

 

Heather James is a practicing attorney and contributing columnist for the Bakersfield Californian newspaper, where she writes on marriage, family, and parenting matters. This is her first novel.


Unholy Hunger is available from Kregel Publishing.

Thanks to Kregel for the review copy.