Title: When the Wind Blows
Author: Marilyn Gardiner
Published in 2002 by Wings ePress
Genre: Romantic Suspense
ISBN: 1-59088-099-4
For single mother Molly Masters, life is no bed of roses. Life is hard, especially so when you don’t have a support network in place to fall back on. Molly didn’t plan on being a single parent; she’d thought that Fred and she would grow old together. That was before he used physical dominance to prove his manhood. The decision to leave happened the night that Fred threatened her with a weapon for the first time – she knew for a certainty that he was getting worse. Able to rent a three-room garage apartment for a song, Molly is secure in the knowledge that whilst she is at work, her son Gilly is safe at school. It had been tough. She had been alone when her parents died, then her grandmother died, and now a final bitter aloneness when she left Fred. The gregarious six-year-old is all she has now. Without Gilly, Molly just doesn’t know how she would carry on.
It’s every mother’s worst nightmare; a child seemingly disappears into thin air. Molly knows exactly who took her son. But why? No one wants to believe her. Or so it seems. And what about the other strange occurrences? Why is she being targeted by these more than frightening pranks? In the face of opposition from her in-laws, she is finding it increasingly difficult to go on. Every day that passes without Gilly being restored to her, Molly believes more and more that she won’t ever see her baby alive again. Without him, she is rudderless and has no reason to go on fighting the world. Molly draws on her reserve of courage that she never knew she had as she fights her rising panic, and a secret fear only Fred and Gilly know about, as she does whatever it takes to bring her son back to her.
Detective Colin Herrick doesn’t look at all like a policeman. Tall, with copper-coloured hair curled tight against his head, and cold ice-blue eyes that show a patient intelligence, his business is finding small boys. And he is good at what he does. Goal-oriented and hard-driven, he does not tolerate negative thinking. Herrick has learnt the hard way to focus on the moment, to not live more than one day at a time. His brother, in recession from leukaemia, taught him that and that maxim has held him in good stead. Surviving on a peculiar mix of tea, brewed the English way, and Big Macs, the dependable officer of the law doesn’t miss a thing, and he certainly doesn’t accept things at face value. Herrick’s hard-boiled authoritarian side hides his gentle and compassionate nature, which is a good thing, as it wouldn’t do to allow himself to get personally involved in any case.
What started as a simple open-and-shut case has turned out to be much more than that. Each new shred of evidence is keeping Detective Herrick on his toes. Experience and intuition tells him that everything is not what it seems. Why the boy? His parents aren’t liquid and his grandparents, although wealthy, are not rolling in money. And the boy’s mother? It’s plain to see the stress that she’s under so why isn’t anybody there for her?
Constantly fidgeting with cigarettes as Herrick’s shrewd mind sifts through all the information being gathered, he realises that there is more than one target here. While retrieving the boy alive is still the number one priority, there is a real need to protect the other target as well. The problem is that his compassionate nature has been stirred and that could result in trouble beginning with a capital T.
Frustrated that nobody seems to believe her when she claims that her ex-husband snatched her son from school, Molly is at her wits end. Time is running out for her little boy and there are only two people she can turn to for support – Detective Herrick and Derek, her brother-in-law. She can’t be too dependent on Detective Herrick as he will be gone when the case is closed and, to her dismay, Derek has something to hide that may make him a suspect. Steadily the net is being drawn around the person responsible for the kidnapping. In wanting to alleviate Molly’s anguish, Herrick lets her tag along on his investigations, but is he putting her in more danger? Is he getting too emotionally involved? When the Wind Blows brings an electrifying climax to the suspense, the likes of which you would not have imagined.
Suspense; drama; romance. What more could you ask for? When the Wind Blows throws you right in to the deep end. From the moment you start reading, you are instantly drawn into the drama and suspense so that it surrounds you, so much so that you do not want to put the book down until the end. Marilyn Gardiner writes as though she has drawn from personal experience, the emotion is real – palpable. She is very cunning as well. The twists and turns ensure that you are glued to your seat. Marilyn has carefully thought out every nuance, every action and reaction. She has very cleverly woven web of intrigue. More suspense than romance, When the Wind Blows demonstrates that love can creep up on you, especially when you are not looking for it. Not a book for the die-hard romance enthusiast, nevertheless it is a book that realistically portrays what may happen in the real world. When the Wind Blows is available now through the wonderful people at Wings ePress.
Enjoy!
Tanya
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