Never Let You Go by Erin Healey

Lexi Solomon's life has been spinning out of control ever since her sister was murdered in public by Lexi's lover and Lexi's drug-addict husband ran away from her and their daughter. Now one of her husband's "associates" has begun following her around, using her daughter's life as blackmail to make her pay a debt she never owed. On top of this, her sister's murderer is about be let out on parole. Lexi loses it when her daughter is finally kidnapped. Since her father has been living in a mental health institution for some time now, Lexi wonders if she has inherited the disease her father has. When her prodigal husband returns to help her find their daughter, Lexi begins to realize he is one of the only people on earth she can trust. The question is, will she trust his promise that he will never again let her go?

The release of Burn made me think that Erin Healey truly is an elite author, even in light of Kiss. Yet Never Let You Go only confused me more. In the two novels she co-authored with Ted Dekker, it is hard to know where one of them ends and the other begins, because Never Let You Go is a slight return to the average nature of Kiss, making me wonder if Ted Dekker helped Erin out in Burn to make his fans anticipate Never Let You Go more than they were. All I know is, Erin Healey has not yet arrived.

The characters of this book are reminiscent of Ted Dekker characters: all of them are imperfect, yet not one of them has a complete personality. But what can one expect of the woman who edited Ted Dekker for many years. She obviously does not have any higher standards than this for characters. The surprising part is that Lexi is not played as a perfect victim. This is one of the rare books I have read that does not contain a single perfect character. This definitely keeps the book from being as bad as Kiss, yet Erin needs to learn how to develop personalities.

However, if she does not want to develop personalities, she at least needs to do what Ted Dekker does with his plots-make them so good that the book is either Elite or five stars despite under-developed characters. Unfortunately, Erin did not do this in her solo novel. The foundational idea behind the plot is good, but the delivery is inconsistent. The book is longer than it needs to be, a problem that can be attributed to many unexplained scenes designed only to create suspense and drama. Such scenes are unnecessary and only serve to muddle the book. Lexi's daughter seems to be invincible, since she sustains several near death experiences with minor injuries. Another main problem is a cheesy showdown scene in which the villain explodes. Basically, the biggest mistakes Erin makes in this book is trying to add too many supernatural and suspenseful elements to the plot, trying to copy Ted Dekker. She fails to capture the philosophical writing style that make his books interesting, making herself look like a copycat.

All in all, Erin Healey has potential if she will do her own thing and cease living in the shadow of Dekker. If she will boost her characters or improve her delivery, she can be an elite author.

3 stars

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

Kiss by Ted Dekker and Erin Healey

Shauna McAlister wakes up after a six-week coma to find that she and her brother were mangled in a car crash. Her brother is basically brain dead, yet she is almost back to functioning normally.
Only, several days after leaving the hospital, she discovers that she has a mysterious gift. Every time she kisses her boyfriend, she dreams something from his past. As the book progresses, she discovers that her gift runs deeper than she originally thought.
This core idea behind the plot is very original. But why do authors have to muddle original ideas with Literary Trash?
The characters aren't any good. Everyone plays his or her part too well. Everything is too clear cut.
The villains are cheesy, one of them being an evil stepmother! I thought we retired that one back in the days of fairy tales! The other villain is just average.
There are too many issues crammed into this plot; politics, dealing with your past, inevitable romance, and selling babies on the black market.
Shauna's original gift is stifled among all this littering the authors did. When she starts to use the power in an original way, the authors cut it off.
Hostage/kidnapping scenes are getting as old as the proverbial hills. Now there's only one way to end a hostage scene, and Kiss did not use it.
It's really hard to tell how much either of the authors did in this book. It's half Ted Dekker good suspense and half rookie mistakes by Erin Healey.
The prologue and the epilogue are in the first person perspective of Shauna, but the rest of the book isn't. I think it would have been better if the whole book would have been in that context.
Shauna's gift is the only thing keeping this book afloat form the doldrums.
2.5 stars