Betrayed by Rosey Dow and Andrew Snaden

Laura McIvor is living a life under an assumed name because her father was a missile scientist who sold weapons secrets to other world powers. Her life has been ruined by Jonathan Corrigan, the man she fell in love with, until she found out that he was the one who put her father in prison. Now someone is pursuing her and breaking into the her apartment in order to find something they think she has. Her only option is to run into the arms of her new love, Wesley. Meanwhile, Jonathan has been on leave from duty because of a life-threatening injury. He goes to stay at his mother's ranch and finds himself coming to grips with the faith she is always talking about. His thoughts are always wandering back to Laura McIvor, the only woman he ever loved. When word reaches him that she is in trouble, he stops at nothing to vindicate her.

There is nothing truly special about Betrayed, but there are many run-of-the-mill aspects. This is the type of plot any author can write because it has been used before. The Christian fiction market would not miss this book had it not been written.

For starters, the characters are typical. Laura is a typical victim. Jonathan is actually a bright spot because he makes a few mistakes-until he becomes a Christian. Any other character is also typical. Besides a predictable plot structure, lack of at least imperfect characters besides the villains is the biggest problem is the genre called suspense. The least authors can do is make memorable characters and eliminate stereotypes. The cast of characters lined up in this book is ridiculously predictable. Laura the female leas victim. Jonathan, the kind-hearted male lead she doesn't like for no reason. Wesley, the love competition. The evil villains. Characters are the core to fiction, and books stink without them.

From the description, it seems like this plot could go somewhere. Not in the hands of amateur authors. Betrayed is a run-of-the-mill, cheap suspense plot that has been used a hundred times over. There is nothing special about this book, nothing that would make me miss it if it were not written. The authors act like this was a big accomplishment to write such a plot, but it is not an accomplishment if one copies a plot that has already been written. This is what makes me incredulous: why authors use the same stock plots over and over again.

If nothing, books like this make me appreciate the growing numbers of original books on the market.

1.5 stars