Saving Madeline by Rachel Ann Nunes

Today I’m dedicating my blog to one of my favorite romance authors, Rachel Ann Nunes. She has not disappointed me with her newest novel, Saving Madeline. It’s a story about a hard-working, dedicated defense attorney, Caitlin McLoughlin, with daily challenges in her professional and personal life. Her new client, Parker Hathaway, is charged with kidnapping his four-year-old daughter, Madeline. He claims he did it to protect her from her mother’s carefully concealed drug use. Can Caitlin find the proof she is looking for before it’s too late, or will her client go to prison?

This was a fast-paced story and drew me in immediately. I highly recommend it to everyone, but suggest that you don’t start reading it late at night. If you do, you may not get any sleep because you’ll have to keep turning the pages to see the next surprising plot twist. It’s a story with plenty of suspense, and romance.

I was touched when I realized Rachel received inspiration for this novel after reading newspaper headlines concerning an infant’s death after ingesting meth she had found in a plastic bag on the floor of her home. Weeks earlier, her father had forcibly taken her across state lines, hoping to protect her from her mother’s substance abuse. Authorities found the child, and placed her back with the mother and sent the father to jail. I’m so glad that this and other true-life experiences inspired Rachel to write such a compelling book. She did an outstanding job telling this story concerning difficult choices.

I had a short email interview with Rachel.

C. LaRene: Which book was the hardest for you to write?

Rachel: Of all my novels, the hardest to write was A Heartbeat Away, which tell the story of a kidnapping. I wrote it right after several girls in Utah were actually taken from their bedrooms during the night, and though that didn't happen in my book, as I researched for the novel, my eyes were really opened to the terrible things people do and how many missing child cases are unsolved. I ended up enduring five months of sleepless nights as I wrote the book because I worried constantly about my own children, especially my young daughters. I had to keep making sure they were sleeping peacefully in their beds and double check all the doors and windows. I eventually alarmed the entire house, though that was after the novel was out. I started sleeping again once I'd turned in the book.

C. LaRene: How do you determine your writing goals?

Rachel: I've always hit about 2,000 words a day because that's what I can write in two or three hours, which in the past has really been all the time I've had at the computer. Now that my children are all in school, that might go up, but I've been rewriting instead of drafting and that's a different thing altogether, so I'm not sure where I'll end up with drafting goals. Basically, I stay as long as I can at the computer without neglecting my family or other important duties. It's a fine line to walk sometimes. You must set priorities.

Saving Madeline, is published by Shadow Mountain Publishers, and is scheduled for a mid-September release. It will be available on Amazon.com, at Deseret Bookstores, and at the stores listed in the following link: http://www.ranunes.com/whereToBuy.php.

If you comment on this review, your name will automatically be entered to win a personalized copy of this novel. The winner will be chosen after the last review is posted tomorrow, and the winner can be found at http://www.rachelannnunes.com/ on Sept. 26.