*I received this book for free from Bethany House publishers to give an unbiased review*
"Shattered" is book 2 in the Alaskan Courage series by Dani Pettrey. The book begins with the murder of competitive snow boarder, Karli. Reef McKenna is covered in Karli's blood, but claims that he did not kill her. In a small Alaskan town, the case seems open and shut...Reef is put in jail and charged with murder. But his sister, Piper, is convinced that Reef is innocent and she's going to prove it...even if she's the only one who believes him.
Landon Grainger, close friend to the McKenna family, is the deputy in charge of the case. He knows he has to put personal feelings aside to discover the truth. His past makes this almost impossible. His love for the McKenna family...one of the members in particular...and his trust issues cause him to second guess everything. When he learns that Piper is going to do her own investigating, and possibly cause problems with the case, Landon decides to team up with her to find the truth.
We are then taken on a whirlwind journey filled with danger, excitement, and growing romantic feelings between different members of the McKenna family and those who are working with them to prove Reef's innocence.
This is the first book I've read by Dani Pettrey. After starting with book 2 of the series, I think it would've really helped if I would've read book 1. Even though I was able to put together the majority of the background information, there were definitely some events that had occurred in book 1 that would've helped. That said, I really enjoyed this book! There were moments when Piper's persistence and defiance of Landon's professional advice started to get on my nerves a little...because there were obvious danger issues...but gradually I started to like her more and more and by the end I was rooting for her.
One thing I loved about the story was that it was suspenseful without being creepy or too psychological. I've read a few books in the Christian fiction genre that are like that and honestly I finished feeling nervous about turning out the lights at night! This was not one of those types of books, but it had enough suspense to keep my pulse speeding up and the pages turning.
Another aspect of the story I really liked was that the ending was not what I expected. You were figuring out the clues right along with the McKennas and their friends, but here and there you'd get the perspective of the "bad guy"...but it didn't give anything away. It's kind of disappointing when there too much given away throughout the story and by the end you have it all figured out. Some of the loose ends didn't feel resolved though. Such as *spoiler warning* Rick Masterson's full role in Karli's life and why he paid for all of her physical therapy. And what was the deal with Jake? The book kept referring to him as a "good tracker" and his being so secretive about himself...but there was nothing really revealed about him. I guess that's an opening to another book? I just wanted a little more resolution there. *spoiler over* : )
The fact that the characters had their issues and seemed more realistic was also something I liked about this book. They were flawed...they made mistakes. Some of them turned to God for help with their struggles...others in the story totally rejected God. It was believeable that someone would respond that way to different circumstances and not everything was tied up nice and neat in the story. I was hopeful that we could read about their lives changing in future books. There's definitely some possibilities...spiritually and romantically : ).
Dani Pettrey is definitely a contemporary Christian fiction author that I'd like to check out more!
Happy reading!
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