Unholy Hunger

Be warned, the subject matter of this book is powerful and geared to provoke a strong emotional response!

"Yes, I wanted to die. As long as my daughter's murderer died with me, I was ready to go. I was already three quarters of the way there after the blow he had given to my head.

Everything turned black for a moment as the sudden, slicing pain radiated into numbness. Black then gave way to a white, heavenly blur, and I strained to see past the world closing in on me. I saw a brown shirt, faded jeans, blackened eyes...oh, there he was; there slouched the monster against a kitchen counter. He was clutching one side of his chest, futilely trying to seal the singed bullet hole and cupping his warmed blood before it all bubbled out to the cheap linoleum below.

I fought t see more, to take it all in deeper and beyond the fuzziness of my depleting consciousness, but something oozed over my left eye. More blood. My blood. I blinked, but that made it worse, further welcoming the dark, sticky stuff to seep in from my open wound.

His mouth moved; his lips puckered in and out trying to say something. He looked like a fish plucked from the ocean and left to die on a pier caked with bait and spilled guts. I wondered what he was trying to say, or maybe even ask. Perhaps the question of the day for him would have been a big fat, "Why?"

If he had managed to ask that, I knew how I'd respond: "You want the Why? Join the club, you dying carp."

So opens the Prologue for the novel Unholy Hunger, the first book in the Lure of the Serpent Series by Heather James. It hooks you right from the beginning and never lets go until you turn the final page. It is powerful, and makes you question your own response to what would you do if someone kidnapped your daughter, abused and murdered her. My own response felt much along the lines of just what the author captured in this compelling novel. Along the way, we see things through the eyes of Evelyn Barrett, as she goes from a powerful successful attorney, married to Eddie, a telephone line repair man, and raising their first and only child, Corinne. The emotions she goes through are so real that you often wonder how real this book is. I know that even in my own mind, I was walking through the chapters of her life right along side with her, even though I was watching from a distance. This is every parents nightmare and thus the warning at the beginning of this review.

There are those who wouldn't be able to read this type of book, not for the writing style but simply based on the subject matter. However, Evelyn soon finds herself gifted with a heavenly gift of being able to detect child predators based on their smell. She calls it unholy hunger. They seem to wear their sinful filth like a bad stench and soon finds herself working with the local police to uncover her daughter's murderer based on this gift. The police don't believe she has this ability but soon find her solving more cases than they ever could and bringing the criminals to justice before they have a chance to hurt children like her Corinne.

I received Unholy Hunger by Heather James compliments of Kregel Publications for my honest review and literally could not put this down because I had to see how it turned out. Perhaps it gave me a way to see what the consequences of my actions might be if I too, pursued this type of justice in a safe way. In the end, I think I would have followed things through much the same way as Evelyn even justifying my actions with the fact that nothing remains of you when your child is brutally murdered. I can't wait to see where her next book will be headed, but I know I will be prepared to face the unknown horrors that you often find staring you in the face when the lights go out and the darkness remains. I rate this one a 4 out of 5 stars and loved how it ended.

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Unholy Hunger by Heather James

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