Safe Beginnings Exciting Read Recommended 4 stars
The Review Following a threatening telephone call; fire breaks out and Kaye Berreano hurries to vacate residents in the Denver Battered Women’s Shelter where she is night shift counselor. Kaye pounds on doors, locates the fire and to her dismay the soon to be single mom with divorce pending Kaye finds the new resident Mary Ellen Schuster is unconscious in the fire.
Complicating the situation is the fact that no one at the safe house was too fond of the woman. Kaye fears pregnant Nicky and her two small children may also be trapped. Before long Farrell the Denver police arson investigator working the case is certain Kaye knows the perpetrator.
Kaye’s life becomes totally hectic: her hours and paycheck are cut, then her paycheck is hung up in red tape. The safe house residents are moved to a Red Cross shelter, Roger decides he wants custody of their children and the threatening telephone calls continue. When the police down play the calls Kaye decides to do a little investigating on her own along with caring for her teenaged son and daughter and dealing with the divorce from Roger.
In her initial mystery novel
Safe Beginnings author Christine Duncan presents a suspense filled, fast paced page turner filled with fully developed characters and nicely plotted tale. Duncan’s main character Kaye is a delight because she is so human. She reacts in predictable understandable manner just as most humans do in particular situations. On the night of the fire she become flustered and forgets the fire extinguisher, she is a good mom who worries about her role with her children and she doesn’t want her husband to know when he is getting to her.
Safe Beginnings weaves a good plot, believable dialogue and plausible characters as writer Duncan takes a difficult theme and creates a highly readable story about women and their struggles in a circumstance that only a decade ago was only whispered and received little understanding or interest. Difficulties encountered by those living in a battered woman’s shelter or even the necessity for a shelter has just begun to move away from the level of taboo in our social mores.
Reviewed by: Molly’s Review
molly martin
Author: Christine Duncan
Genre: Mystery
Cover: Susan Bodendorfer
Line/Publisher: WordBeams
ISBN: 1-894606-02-7