Burn by Ted Dekker and Erin Healey

Janeel Mikkado is a gypsy living in the camp of her father. She is no longer a teenager, but a young woman. She has been approached by a man named Sanso Saalazar about finding a hidden large sum of money her father allegedly has stashed in the camp. He says he borrowed the money from the government, something that is not done among the gypsies. Sanso has commissioned Janeel to find the money in return for an award. But when Janeel finally finds the money, she takes too long to decide what to do with it, and in turn, Sanso burns down the entire camp. Janeel escapes and fifteen years later, has made her way in the world, thinking she was the only one who escaped from the fire. But there are two others who escaped. None of them know about the others. But they are about to find each other because of one man chained to a hospital bed-Sanso Saalazar. Something happened in the fire that only two of them know about, but what happened could change everything.

"Good characters and an original end could make this book soar." That's what I said when I wrote the preview for this book a number of months ago. Little did I know that those two factors would actually be fulfilled. What a way to start off 2010. Ted Dekker has returned to the glorious original days of old by writing a book reminiscent of Thr3e. The biggest problem with this novel is I don't know who to give the credit to. Either Erin has dragged Ted out of the Circle and into something worthwhile or Ted has taken her back to those days in order to boost sales of Erin's solo novel Never Let You Go. It doesn't really matter; this is a superb novel.

The characters are imperfect and complete with personalities. Unlike the stereotypical characters of Kiss, the few characters in this novel are realistic, once again demonstrating that fewer characters equal better characters. Burn is about choices, and all the characters make wrong ones and right ones. There is nothing missing in the character department. Even Sanso doesn't even seem like a villain, but a person like the rest of them.

Burn

is strictly a parable of life-altering choices. There are no victims or innocent people. The entire book is based on the choices of one person and backed up by a strong foundational idea that hits the reader in the gut at the end. And as it was with Thr3e, this idea is backed up by Scripture that is displayed at the end of the book. This book sheds light on the future of both authors where Kiss only dimmed the light. Burn is ten times better than Kiss and displays the kind of writing we should have seen there. These two authors have been taking a vacation for the past year or so and have just now returned to reality. The result is powerful. This just proves that one should not prejudge any novel.

We will see who was the genius behind this plot with the release of Never Let You Go.

5 stars