"Engaging tale"

Special Ops Officer Wes Harden is spending time with his wife and son after an extended tour in a Middle East hot spot until a bomb explodes at the Fort Benning commissary, killing his family members. Wes breaks down suffering from post traumatic stress disorder. His stepbrother Aaron Clancy sees a chance to use Wes' military entitlement so he takes him back to Miami with him. After a few days, Wes leaves ending up in Blue Creek, West Virginia where Ally Monroe provides him food and shelter.

Abby's father worries that he done his daughter wrong by having her become the family matriarch for him and her two brothers when her mom died. He tries to hook up with a widower with three young children, but Abby refuses. As she brings Wes out of his shell, her brothers work for a chemist developing a new addictive illegal drug who wants the newcomer dead. Wes, feeling guilty for falling in love with Abby, refuses to allow harm to come to her, but the enemy is nasty and clever.

This is an engaging tale in which readers will feel the heartbreak and guilt that Wes endures after the deaths of his loved ones especially as he was saving his country at the cost of quality time with them (do not procrastinate when it comes to love). His guilt accentuates when he falls in love again. Ally is a terrific lead female who has no hope for her future until Wes arrives. The drug confrontation adds unneeded suspense though that helps Wes return to the living, but what moves MISSING is a character driven story in which love is the fabulous real healer.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted November 15, 2004

Summary

Sometimes you don't know what you're missing until you find it. . . He'd witnessed the ravages of war firsthand as an army special ops, but nothing could have prepared Wes Holden for the senseless death of his own wife and son--or the private nightmare that followed. An empty shell of a man, he is unable to do anything but survive. Until the day he walks into Ally Monroe's yard. Raised in the isolated mountains of West Virginia, Ally faces a bleak future spent caring for her stern widower father and two brothers. But that doesn't stop her from dreaming that a stranger might walk into her life and transform her lonely existence. A special bond forms between Wes and Ally. But as Wes emerges from his haze of pain, his soldier's instincts kick in. There's danger in the mountains, a place chosen to hide a thriving illegal drug business. Far worse, the threat is closing in on Ally, and time is running out. . .