Hidden in the Night (Missing in Alaska, Book 3)

 

ELIZABETH GODDARD

Stats: Trade paperback, Revell, 2024.

How acquired: Revell Reads Blogger Program

(Goodreads synopsis below.)

My thoughts: This third book in the Missing in Alaska series didn’t capture me quite the way the first two books did, and I’m still not really sure why that is. I think that I just wasn’t really drawn to Nolan, the hero. Compared to the heroes of the first two books, he was just a little...bland.

Ivy has traveled from Florida to Alaska in search of a long lost Jack London manuscript. Ivy is a former FBI agent who left the FBI to work in the family business after her mother was diagnosed with cancer. She has been blackmailed into locating the manuscript by her deceased father’s old business partner, who has threatened to reveal a secret about her father to her mother. Ivy is desperate to find the manuscript, desperate to keep her mother from learning this secret and I struggled a little with this aspect of the story. Her mother doesn’t have a lot of time left, and instead of spending that time with her Ivy is racing around the Alaskan wilderness. Of course we, the reader, don’t learn the secret until the very end of the book, but a former FBI agent allowing herself to be blackmailed? It just didn’t sit right with me.

Well, I guess I do actually know why the book didn’t quite capture me the way the first two did! Despite all of the above, the narrative is wonderfully written, as Ms. Goddard’s writing always is, and her descriptions of the Alaskan wilderness are evocative. And of course I did get very caught up in the story, while also a little worried about Nolan and Ivy getting their happily ever after. I don’t know if there will be a fourth book, but if so I will definitely want to read it.

*Received via the Revell Reads Blogger Program and voluntarily reviewed*

Synopsis from Goodreads:

At the behest of her ailing mother, former FBI special agent turned rare-book collector Ivy Elliott arrives in Alaska to secure an unpublished Jack London manuscript kept secreted away for decades. But when she arrives, she learns the manuscript is gone--taken by the granddaughter of the woman who possessed it. Ivy sets off in pursuit, not just to save the manuscript but to save the vulnerable girl, who was previously trafficked and has no idea what she's getting herself into. 

Joining forces with Alaska State Trooper Nolan Long, Ivy must battle a blizzard, sabotage, and the worst of an Alaskan winter as the search goes on. But every answer they find only raises more questions--and the danger to their lives and to the missing girl may only be the tip of the iceberg.

The Road Before Us

 

JANINE ROSCHE

Stats: Trade paperback, Revell, 2024.

How acquired: Revell Reads Blogger Program

First line: Miles from any high-rise, the generations-old asphalt crumbles beneath the soles of my borrowed boots, and I wish my story would fall through the hot cracks along with it.

(Goodreads synopsis below.)

My thoughts: I’ve never felt any desire to travel the old Route 66. I have traveled a very small portion of it, though not in many many years. But traveling along with Jade, Bridger, and Bernie made it sound like a worthwhile journey to take.

The trio are traversing Route 66 while shooting a documentary about Benny, who traveled the same route in 1956, headed to Hollywood to become a star. Along the way, they visit landmarks, both well known, and personal to Benny, such as motels where she and Paul, the love of her life, stayed on their journey, or other places they stopped to visit. But the journey is also personal for Jade, who has bittersweet memories of traveling with her father in the summer of 2003. The narrative bounces between those two times and the present day, with each section told in first person POV. I enjoyed Benny’s sections the most, as she and Paul fall in love on the way. I probably would have been happy with a book just about the two of them.

In 2003, Jade is eight years old, and I struggled a little with her narration. If I hadn’t known she was eight I might have thought she was only five or six. But I’m not sure if her narration really came off that way, or if I just don’t remember what an eight year old is like, not having been around one since my now adult daughters were that age.

Adult Jade, however, along with Benny, both her younger self and her current day elderly self, and Bridger, her foster son, were all beautifully written. Bridger is a very quirky character who often made me laugh. In her Author’s Note, Ms. Rosche tells us that she traveled all 2,448 miles of Historic Route 66, and it shows in her writing. She packs in so much interesting and descriptive detail about the road and the towns along the way that THE ROAD BEFORE US could serve as a travel guide.

I very much enjoyed traveling along with this trio, and was sorry to part company with them. Bridger and Jade were about to embark on a new journey when I turned the last page, and I desperately wanted to accompany them.

*Received via the Revell Reads Blogger Program and voluntarily reviewed*

Synopsis from Goodreads:

How far would you go to fix the mistakes you've made and regain the trust you lost? For Jade Jessup, the answer is 2,448 miles. Once one of Chicago's significant financial advisors, Jade lost her credibility when her fiancé (and coworker) stole millions of dollars from their clients in a Ponzi scheme. Now she's agreed to help one of them--an aging 1960s Hollywood starlet named Berenice "Benny" Alderidge--seek financial restoration. 

Jade sets off along Route 66 with Benny and her handsome adult foster son, Bridger, who is filming a documentary retracing the 1956 trip that started the love story between Benny and her recently deceased husband, Paul. Listening to Benny recount her story draws Jade into memories of her own darker association with Route 66, when she was kidnapped as a child by a man the media labeled a monster--but she remembers only as daddy. 

Together, all three of these pilgrims will learn about family, forgiveness, and what it means to live free of the past. But not before Jade faces a second staggering betrayal that changes everything.