Review: Pursued but Shielded by Frannie Watson

4 Stars!

This was a good suspense novel that I enjoyed reading. I really liked that it was set in the 1990's, I love reading books that are set during the decade I was born in. I think my favorite character was Del, I would love to have a best friend like her. I really admired Elizabeth, her strength and the fact that she allowed everything she'd been through to lead her to God was very inspiring. Speaking of which, the faith thread in this story was wonderfully done, it was woven into the storyline well and was incredibly powerful, I don't want to spoil anything but I do want to say that my favorite scene in the whole novel took place inside the Saint-Chapelle in Paris, that scene was so incredibly beautiful and moving that it brought tears to my eyes.

I was a bit surprised that the rapist's identity was basically revealed to the reader (though not to the other characters) through his own narrative at not quite halfway through the novel, but even though I knew his identity from that point forward the story still made for a suspenseful read. 

What could be improved: I realize that this was the author's first novel and while I did enjoy the story there are some things that I feel could be improved. While I did enjoy the story there were times that I struggled with the narrative and some of the dialogue as it often felt very simplistic to me, and a tad repetitive at times. There were also a lot of point of view characters and at times some of them felt a bit one dimensional because the narrative kept changing from character to the next so I didn't have a chance to connect with them as much as I would have liked to.

Overall, I did enjoy this book and recommend it. I look forward to reading more books by this very promising author.