Hope Road

Finding Marie [Susan Page Davis]

Finding Marie by Susan Page Davis ***

Marie Belanger is a Navy wife in her young twenties. Her husband, Pierre, has just completed a two-year assignment in Tokyo, and Marie is flying home to Maine, where Pierre will meet her in a couple of weeks. But after Marie witnesses a shocking murder, she flees under the realization that she is being chased. Over the next few days, she does her best to elude the men who are stalking to her in search of sensitive political information… and her husband and the government do their best to find her.

I read this novel very quickly, and I skimmed quite a few passages. I am not one to skim, and I think it is because this book is well-written suspense and drama. It is absorbing and well-done in those aspects. And yet it belabors so many points and details, using unecessarily elaborate language. I got the impression that words were used just to use them, instead of to drive a point home more strongly. The cardinal literary rule of “Show, don’t tell” was definitely not followed. It got more noticeable near the end of the book.

However, as I mentioned, the suspense was very well-done, complete with multiple cliffhangers. The ending was a little anticlimactic, but there was no disappointment in the amount of drama all along the way. Some of the romance was a little melodramatic, especially the peripheral but overstated romance of two characters who really had little to do with anything else in the story. On the flip side, I appreciated the way the characters’ Christian faith was worked naturally and convincingly in. It wasn’t avoided or continuously mentioned just for the sake of mentioning it… it was lifelike and believable.

If you’re willing to read a little slowly even as you’re dying to know what happens, Finding Marie would be a great choice for you.

Age recommendation: 14+.