Romantic Suspense Book Review: Submerged

About the Book

"A sabotaged flight. Two murdered divers. A single clue—a grainy image of sunken treasure.
 
Dive Rescue Captain Cole McKenna has never worked a case like this, but who he’s working with may prove more dangerous than the assignment. It’s been a lifetime since Bailey mangled his heart. Now she’s back in town and he needs her expertise to track down the illusive treasure.

Professor of Russian Studies Bailey Craig vowed never to set foot in Yancey again, but when her beloved aunt dies, she has no choice. Her plan of attack is simple: return for Agnes’s funeral, get the family business ready for a quick sale, and then put Yancey and all the heartbreaking memories wrapped up in it behind her for good.

Cole walking through her door, asking for her help on a murder investigation, wasn’t part of her plan, neither are the feelings he’s resurrecting—feelings best left dead.

Bailey agrees to help for the sake of the victims, and travels with Cole across Alaska’s rugged terrain and deep beneath its coastal waters. As the case escalates, so do their feelings for one another. Unfortunately, not everyone is willing to let go of the past and just when Bailey thinks she can’t take it any longer, the case shifts in a new and extremely personal direction, fastening her in for its duration.

Racing against the clock and a rising body count, Cole and Bailey fight to find the treasure and uncover the hidden history at the root of it all. But will they be too late?"

Amber's Review

With a unique and majestic setting, Submerged offers an engaging reading experience! The characters who play their parts against such a great backdrop are wonderful - especially their interactions as a community, whether just the McKenna family community or the community of the townsfolk of Yancey. The McKenna family certainly won me over, including those members who were "adopted" into the family. What a fun, welcoming bunch!

In this Romantic Suspense, the romance takes precedence - not in thrills (although there are some!) so much as in slowly learning to open one's heart and allow healing to take place. The suspense is more subtle until closer to the end of the book. It's there on the sidelines, intermittently reminding the reader of its presence, but it doesn't seem to be the main focus. Instead, the suspense serves to propel the romance along and to allow the reader a glimpse into how all of the relationships in the story actually work.

And those relationships really are interesting to read about! It's sad to see how easily miscommunication can occur and how easily people can be hurt by the words and judgments of others. But this story also shows how wonderful it can be when people choose to love others and offer the hand of friendship.

Submerged has a gentle pacing as it dives deeper into the feelings of the characters - but it still has its suspenseful moments, especially at the ending. Unfortunately, the ending - in comparison with the rest of the book - felt a bit rushed, without as much explanation as I would have preferred for what exactly went down at the climax (and why it happened the way it happened). But overall this is a unique story (with a unique, lovely cover!) that introduces the reader to some unique characters - especially some secondary characters whose budding romance really caught my attention!

*With thanks to the author and Bethany House Publishers for providing me with a copy of the book in exchange for my honest opinion.*

(This review was previously published at Seasons of Humility.)

About the Author

"Dani Pettrey is a wife, homeschooling mom and author. She feels blessed to write inspirational romantic suspense because it incorporates so many things she loves–the thrill of adventure, nail-biting suspense, the deepening of one’s faith and plenty of romance. She’s a huge fan of dark chocolate, is always in search of the best iced mocha and her dream is to one day own a little cottage on a remote stretch of beach. She and her husband reside in Maryland with their two teenage daughters."

You can find Dani on her website, Twitter, and Facebook!

And if you missed it, our very own Sandra Robbins interviewed Dani over a month ago... You can check it out HERE!

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Winners

Happy Saturday, BB fans! Thanks to everyone who participated in our "puzzling" Friday giveaway! Keep all those facebook and Twitter notifications, coming! This week's winner is:

Christina Banks - Love Notes by Sherrie Hansen Decker!

Congratulations, Christina! Please use the button in the upper right side of this page to email me with your email address. Then, sit back and wait for your book to arrive. Thank you all so much for stopping by The Borrowed Book!

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Weekly Drawing

It's fun Friday at The Borrowed Book!

To enter:

Follow Us! Followers are automatically entered. Or...

Leave the time it took you to complete the puzzle in the comments section. Winners will be drawn from ALL of the times, so the person with the fastest time may not be the actual winner, but by leaving your time, you double your chances.

Want another entry? Tweet your puzzle time and mention The Borrowed Book, get another entry. RETWEET our Tweet, get two entries!

Post your puzzle time on BB's Facebook wall and...you guessed it...get another entry!

Post it on your OWN Facebook wall and you could get as many as FIVE entries.

It's all a way to spread the word about the great giveaways on BB. So c'mon! Help us spread the word, and have a little fun at the same time. :-)

This week's puzzle feature is brought to you by Sherri Hansen Decker and her newest release, Love Notes.

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Sherrie Hansen Decker Interview

I'm welcoming Sherrie Decker to The Borrowed Book today. Sherrie lives in a 116 year old Victorian house in northern Iowa who, just like her, got a second chance when she rescued it from the bulldozers grips and turned it into a bed and breakfast and tea house, the Blue Belle Inn. “Love Notes” is Sherrie’s fifth book to be published by Second Wind Publishing, and her debut Christian Inspirational novel. She attended Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL and University of Maryland, European Division, in Augsburg, Germany. Her husband, Rev. Mark Decker, is a pastor and Sherrie’s real life hero. She enjoys playing the piano with their worship team, needlepointing, renovating and decorating historic houses, traveling, and going on adventures with her nieces and nephews. Welcome, Sherrie.

You've just had a book to release. Give us the title and a blurb about it.

LOVE NOTES was released on June 4 and is available on amazon.com, smashwords.com and at www.secondwindpublishing.com.  

Hope Anderson’s heart is finally starting to thaw.
Tommy Love is treading on thin ice – he wants the only thing Hope has left.

For Hope, recreating the past - reopening Rainbow Lake Lodge and seeing it bubbling with families, children, and laughter again – means new life. It’s the only way she can honor her late husband's legacy.

For Tommy Lubinski of Tommy Love and the Love Notes fame, Rainbow Lake means coming home - peace, quiet, seclusion - and a second chance at stardom. Once he’s bulldozed the lodge and built his dream house overlooking the lake, everything will be perfect.

Hope is sinking fast, but she’ll be fine if she can just keep her head above water until spring. Tommy’s troubles run a little deeper, but there’s no need to worry for now… Rainbow Lake is frozen solid. Or is it?

Where did you get your idea for this book?

My husband’s aunt and uncle own a cabin on Bear Island Lake near Ely, MN. Every summer, we go up north for a visit. On one trip, when we were out boating on the lake, Pat showed me an old lodge with cabins where she and Frank spent their honeymoon, and the story grew from there.

Tell us a little about Hope Anderson. What makes her determined to have Rainbow Lodge?

Hope’s late husband, David, who died in a tragic car accident, was raised at Rainbow Lake Lodge. His family and hers are gone. She and David had no children. The lodge is all she has left. Hope believes that fulfilling she and David’s dream of reopening the Lodge - filling it with love and laughter and children once again – will honor David’s memory.

Your hero Tommy Lubinski seems to have other plans for the lodge. What has happened to bring him back home?

Tommy Lubinski has been waiting for eons for the perfect piece of lake front property to come on the market so he can build a quiet, private, secluded home with a view. When his old friend and classmate, Billy Bjorklund, tells him that a prime parcel of land on Rainbow Lake will soon be available, Tommy thinks he’s found the perfect place to write a new hit song.  Tommy would never admit it, but he’s deathly afraid of being forgotten. That’s why he’s determined to write a new hit single, one that will make him a star with the younger generation. 

What do you hope readers will take away after reading Love Notes?

I hope that those who read Love Notes will have their sense of hope restored, that they’ll start to believe that God can and does work miracles, that you’re never too old to find hope, joy, peace and love, that God is a master at surprising us with second chances.

In addition to writing, you run a bed and breakfast. I saw that you are starting a new activity on the first Friday night of the month for guests. Tell us about this venture.

I’ll have owned the Blue Belle Inn for 21 years as of August 1^st. After two decades of doing what I do, it’s an ongoing challenge to come up with new ideas and activities that will generate renewed excitement about visiting the Inn. My latest idea is to have an open mike night the first Friday of every month. Hopefully people will come and read their poetry, sing, play an instrument, read aloud from their books… We have ears to listen! Anyone who performs will get a free piece of dessert - kind of like singing for your supper – in a good way. I’d love it if I make some new friends who are creative and enjoy sharing their talents.

What are you writing now?

I’m working on a book set at St. Conan’s Kirk in Scotland called Wild Rose. The hero is a vicar and Rose is, well, a bit wild. I can’t wait to write the scenes between her and the church ladies of St. Conan’s.

Do you have any advice to give to beginning authors?

My advice to beginning authors is to be brave and tell people about your story whenever you have the opportunity. Soon, it will become second nature, and you will have the confidence you need to pitch to editors and agents as well as customers and book store owners and librarians who will want to buy your book. Writing is everything, but so is selling yourself as an author. Together, the two make a winning combination.

Thank you for being a guest on The Borrowed Book today, Sherrie. To find out more about Sherrie go to http://www.bluebellebooks.com/.

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Write Right~Pepsodent©

I own a number of old magazines, among them a Ladies Home Journal from August 1938. I find the advertisements as interesting as the articles. This week I thought I’d post a couple ads about Pepsodent©  toothpaste, along with a brief history for anyone who likes to read or write in this time period. 

Pepsodent© was a popular brand of toothpaste back in the mid-20th century. Its early history is sketchy, but it may have started as a dentrifice in powder form, eventually taking on paste form. It was advertised to fight tooth decay and whiten teeth. 

Pepsodent© was well-known for its minty flavor derived from sassafras. Its key ingredients were irium and I.M.P. 

Irium is sodium lauryl sulphate, a detergent commonly found in toothpastes and other products today. (You may be familiar with the claims that it has poisonous properties.) Lauryl sulphate foams, which was a plus because it made people feel as if it was really working. Claims were that the foam helped carry away debris. Lauryl sulphate also has antibacterial properties.

I.M.P. was supposed to whiten teeth, but what it stands for remains unknown.  

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Historical Setting as a Silent Character by Diane Tatum

A historical setting is a silent character in a novel. Several important steps help novels live and breathe in history.

1. Choose the best time period for the story. Gold Earrings is set in 1868, just after the Civil War. Many things in society have changed with the coming of Reconstruction. For Missouri, it’s a time for compromise. The politicians in Jefferson City are trying to appease the US government by appearing “reconstructed”, but their sentiments still run deeply to the lost Confederacy. In Gold Earrings, Charles Bardsley is such a character. He wants to appear in tune with the new governments around him while still maintaining power and control. He has helped select a Yankee minister for the church. He assumes he can control Rev. Jonathan Thomson with his money and intimidation. However, Reconstruction has also created the beginnings of civil rights, the middle class, and women’s rights. Like it or not, Bardsley’s society is changing.
2. Do lots of research. I wanted Angelina to have access to a sewing machine. When were they available to private citizens? I did some research and found that mechanical sewing machines, while new, were definitely available. I wanted Jonathan to be involved in an important, life-changing battle in the Civil War. I wrote about the battle in Hampton Roads because I lived in Newport News, VA, at the time I was writing and had access to museums and information. Be careful about assuming something. If you’re wrong, it will set the reader sideways, and they may never buy back into the scenario.
3. Research period fashion. People wear different clothing in different periods of time. Description of dress sets the scene historically. In Gold Earrings, Angelina discovers that women don’t dress ‘fashionably’ on the prairie. Due to her background and city heritage, Angelina’s clothing is more fashionable and inspires the women of St. Joe to dress more fashionably. As is true in all time periods, class, wealth, and power are also denoted by dress. 
4. Include historical details and personalities as they fit into the story. St Joseph, MO, was the perfect place for Gold Earrings because it was an edge-of- the-West town. In western Missouri, the members of the James gang were Confederate heroes. Jesse James used an alias, Mr. Howard, when doing business in the St. Joseph area. Allowing such a historical character to come on stage in a chapter allowed me to insert a part of Missouri history. This detail lets my Missouri readers nod and say, “Oh yes, he did!” to a semi-obscure piece of history. Medical advancements come in different time periods as well. Travel options also change over time. Is it a hansom cab, a yellow cab, or a black Town Car? Are there horses on the street? Is the street dirt, cobbled, or paved?
5. Know the geography of the place in time.  The river bluffs, the tornado, the historic buildings, and founding citizens are important details in Gold Earrings. Since I grew up in Missouri, I had studied state history and geography in elementary school. I knew things about Missouri that other writers and readers might not know when I wrote Gold Earrings. Holiday celebrations, like 4^th of July fireworks, can change.
6. Add minor details as often as possible. In Gold Earrings, Angelina’s train ride across Missouri is documented with the stops along the way to St. Joe. The Internet is an amazing fact-checker as is the local library. In the Bibliography of Gold Earrings is an obscure book about the railroad. The sequence moves Angelina and the reader from the large cities of Boston and Chicago into the small prairie towns of Missouri. 

WARNING! Research helps the writer create the world for the story. Only use the information that gives it life and sustenance. Keep track of your sources; create the bibliography to show the reader you are well informed AND to allow the reader to check out your sources for their own edification.

Many reviews of my novel Gold Earrings remark on how the reader feels a part of the story, as though they can really see what I’ve described. As a novelist of a historical novel, that means I’ve done my job with not only the description of the setting, but in the layout of the historical package.

Diane Tatum grew up in St. Louis, MO. She started writing her own stories in elementary school. While in high school, Diane E. Tatum wrote the short story that grew into her novel, Gold Earrings. College brought a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting and Business Administration and later a Masters in Teaching Language Arts. Between degrees, she stayed home raising her boys and began writing again. She started freelance writing for magazines and church Sunday school curriculum for LifeWay and David C. Cook. 

After teaching middle school language arts for eleven years in Tullahoma, Tennessee, Diane “retired” in 2009 with her husband’s encouragement, to write the books that she had been starting and saving on her computer. Gold Earrings was published in 2011. She is currently completing her second novel, A Time to Choose. She also writes for Yahoo!ContributorNetwork and Suite101.com. Diane and her husband, Ken, live in Tullahoma, Tennessee.

Blog: www.blogspot/tatumsthoughts4today/

Website: www.dianeetatumwriter.weebly.com

FaceBook:  https://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/tatumlight 

Twitter: @DianeTatum

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To Tweet, or Not to Tweet?

Ah, Twitter. It can seem rather pointless when it's treated as a glorified Facebook status page where you can tell all your "followers" every little detail about your day - limited in the words in each Tweet, but not limited to the number of Tweets you can share. Not that it's bad to celebrate the small things and let your friends know what's up with you. But if that's all that's Twitter is about... Yeah, we just really don't need another social network site.

Or do we? Well, I really think it depends on the person. Nobody needs Twitter - but if you're a writer and blogger, here are some reasons why it might be a beneficial tool:

• Sharing Links. It's quick and easy - not to build up a following, necessarily, but once you have your network, it's a snap to share the links to your blog posts and giveaways (hosted by you or your author/blogging friends). A lot of blog posts have several buttons at the bottom that let you share the post - including a button to quickly post a link on Twitter. When you press the "t" button you can edit the wording included with the link to draw readers' attention. (Don't have the sharing buttons at the bottom of your posts? If you're using Blogger, just go to the "Layout" page, then click "Edit" at the bottom of the big "Blog Posts" box, and then check the box next to the "Show Share Buttons" option.)

• Writing Time. Need some encouragement to just sit down and write? Try getting some of your fellow writers on Twitter to join you in a #wordwar or #1K1HR (1,000 words in 1 hour). Setting a time limit can really help you pound some words out - and it's nice to have the companionship of others who need to get some writing done, as well. (I've recently been introduced to TweetChat.com, and it's a great tool for you and your group to just view tweets that have to do with the hashtag (i.e.: #wordwar) that you're using.)

• Quick Communication. Everybody on Twitter has to keep it short and sweet. You can browse through the tweets your friends have written, easily respond directly to a person's witty or more serious remarks, and even send a direct message to someone you need to get in touch with to ask about doing interviews on your blog (etc.). 

These are just a few reasons why I think Twitter has merit. I deactivated my Facebook account a couple of years ago after having it for a few months because it was just too distracting and created too much drama. (If I ever do start up an account again, I think I'd try to just create a professional page for my writing career or something.) But because I use my Twitter account in conjunction with my blog, I've found it to be fun and useful.

What about you? What social network sites do you prefer to use and why?

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