Janet Sketchley

The men in Carol's life have caused her plenty of grief. Her aptly named husband, Skip, skipped out on their relationship, devoting himself to womanizing and a rock-music career. One of their sons died of a drug overdose. Carol's brother, Harry, is in prison for rape and murder. He claims to have become a Christian and says he prays for her. Carol isn't impressed.

Prayer hasn't "worked" for her in the past, and Harry's crimes have thrown her into serious trouble. He was wealthy before he went to prison, and the drug dealers he was involved with claim they have a right to his money. The think Harry hid it and they can lay hands on it through Carol. But she doesn't know where it is.

Carol and her sixteen-year-old son, Paul, move to Toronto to escape the money-hungry harassers. But the drug dealers soon find them, and start pestering and threatening them. Carol gets a police detective on the case, and tries to create a normal life for herself and Paul. In the meantime she meets two men who show a romantic interest in her.

One man is a deejay and reformed drug addict, Joey, who encourages her and her son to commit their lives to Christ and trust God with their precarious future. The other man, Patrick, is a sophisticated and cultured widower mourning the loss of his beloved wife.

Paul, Carol's son, prefers Joey. He tells his mother that Joey is "better than that Patrick guy….He's plastic. Nobody living inside."

Is Paul right or not? That's only one of Carol's many concerns. As his mother, she wants him to grow up to be a better man than his father, Skip. In her view that would include not becoming a musician.

On the other hand, Paul loves playing the guitar. Making music is almost as vital to him as breathing. Can he "serve his gift" without letting it take over his life in ways that hurt himself and others? Joey thinks so. He says, "You can be brilliant in one area, but if you keep your balance with the rest of your world, you can add to it instead of taking away."

Author Janet Sketchley (pictured here) has a deep understanding of keeping that balance, and explores it in this book. Also important in the book is her exploration of the virtue of trust. At one point Carol says, "If I can't trust people, how can I risk trusting God?" Her journey toward answering that question is marked by bumps, detours, and life-threatening situations. I'm glad to have shared her journey through reading the book.

Secrets and Lies is not as straightforward as Sketchley's earlier novel, Heaven's Prey. I didn't always understand why the characters acted as they did, or why things happened as they did. However, Secrets and Lies is still a good read.

One of my favourite passages begins with this advice given to Carol by one of the characters: "'Since fear is a behaviour pattern for you, your mind will go back to it. Like a path worn in the grass. It takes time for the grass to re-grow while you wear a new path.'
"A heaviness settled in her stomach. 'So I’ll have more nightmares?'
"'Whenever you catch the fear response starting, or if you have another nightmare, remember you don’t have to surrender. Say it out loud. Things like, 'Jesus is my shepherd. I don’t have to be afraid.' Believe it’s true even if you don’t feel it, and change will come.'"
Wise words from a wise author.… (mer)

The storm that 46-year-old Ruth Warner braves to attend her weekly prayer meeting is a perfect opening to Heaven’s Prey, a debut novel by Nova Scotia native Janet Sketchley. Ruth’s husband Tony can’t understand why she would go out on such a night to pray for Harry Silver, the serial killer who abducted, then butchered their beautiful niece Susan.

But Ruth’s nightmares of Silver’s destiny without salvation drive her, especially now that he has escaped from prison and other Susans may be in danger. Little does Ruth guess, when she stops at a convenience store on her way home, who will soon be in Silver’s clutches.

Heaven’s Prey is suspense at its most gripping. In it Sketchley makes us face our worst nightmares in the company of a depraved man with no compassion, seemingly no conscience, and a deep-rooted hatred of God and everyone associated with Him. At the same time we delve, through flashbacks, into Silver’s past, following his rise to stardom on the NASCAR circuit even as his addiction to pornography spirals him into a world of obsession and lust.

Sketchley’s vigorous prose places us squarely in each scene, whether it’s tied up in an isolated Nova Scotia cottage or careening around racetrack obstacles: “Danger came from what he couldn’t see. …The tire rubber would delaminate in long strips and flail his chassis to bits” – Kindle Location 1702.

Though the subject matter is edgy, I appreciated Sketchley’s avoidance of gratuitous and disturbing description. What comes through in this bite-your-nails tale is the possibility of redemption. God, the tireless pursuer intent on capturing even the worst of sinners, is the real hero of this story. Discussion questions at the end of the book help readers debrief and make sense of what they’ve just lived through.

This review was first published in the January/February, 2014 issue of Faith Today.

… (mer)

Carol Daniels has moved with her 16-year-old son Paul from Calgary to Toronto at the beginning of Secrets and Lies, Janet Sketchley’s second book in the Redemption Edge Series. It wasn’t a move of choice but of necessity, to get away from the terrifying lowlife associates that had begun threatening her in her western home—characters that were seemingly connected to her brother (the convicted killer Harry Silver from Heaven’s Prey – Redemption’s Edge 1).

Her hopes of hiding from the thugs are dashed when disturbing anonymous phone calls start again. Not only is the voice in the calls creepy but the threats are terrifying and the character behind them far too aware of her whereabouts and movements for comfort. His demand is for money that her brother has apparently salted away. The detective on the case suggests Carol will eventually have to get in touch with the brother she despises and has disowned.

Those calls aren’t her only worry. There’s Paul too—a good kid but too much like Skip, his egotistical musician father. At least Paul’s not into drugs—the most loathsome of substances that killed her other son, Keith. And she’s determined to keep him safe from the present danger and from following in the footsteps of his musical father.

When nightmares awaken her or worries about her son or the spooky calls keep her from sleep, she makes mint tea and phones the oldies station to talk to the DJ, Joey. He always has a sympathetic ear and a repertoire of Billy Joel tunes to serenade her out of any mood. It turns out that Joey, in person, is just as nice as on-air—and then she discovers he too is hiding secrets.

Sketchley’s skill at merging the believeable and homey details of a modern single mom’s life with criminal threats and shadowy danger makes her main character relatable and in a situation that seems real and plausible. More than once I found myself gripping my e-reader muttering: Don’t answer the stupid phone ... don’t trust him ... don’t go with him!

But the story is more than a well-plotted tale of romantic suspense. For in it Sketchley wades through all kinds of waters: a mother’s attempts to control her son, a son’s attempts to find his own way while not hurting his mom, trust: how we earn it and find courage to place it, forgiveness: God’s for us and ours for each other, and more.

In the faith department I appreciated the way Sketchley’s Christian characters don’t have all the answers but wrestle with their beliefs like we all do. Several characters have a strong faith and through them we hear good reasons why God is worth putting our faith in even if it seems He’s let us down in the past.

This second book in the Redemption ‘s Edge series is gentler than Heaven’s Prey but with moments just as nailbitingly tense. Sketchley’s sense of timing and ability to lull us with sweet ordinariness, only to fling us in the next page into the arms of cold, unscrupulous evil, makes this a must-read for lovers of Christian suspense. Believable, complex characters and a keen eye for telling details make Sketchley’s writing a pleasure to read for anyone. And there are bonus treats. For the music savvy, this book is a sentimental stroll down memory lane. For the reader with the munchies, all those good smells coming from the Sticky Fingers café and Carol’s own kitchen are enough to drive a person to brownies—with mint tea, of course.

A set of discussion questions at the end of the book makes this a perfect choice for book clubs.

Readers who can’t get enough fiction delivered with doses of tension and danger will want to keep an eye on Sketchley’s lengthening list of books. No Safe Place, Redemption’s Edge 3 is due out in 2015.

This excellent read launches November 5th, 2014. Check it out.
… (mer)

This was a novel hard for me to read but also hard to put out of mind. I had to know how it ended, and not only in order to write a review.

In Heaven’s Prey by Janet Sketchley we meet Ruth, the main female character who is still mourning the loss of her niece, a young woman who had been brutally attacked and murdered. We meet Tony, Ruth’s husband who refuses to accept the God to Whom his wife prays … for the killer! In a dramatic turn of events we meet the killer, Harry, who had escaped from prison and was not on the west coast of Canada where everyone was looking for him, but in Nova Scotia – on Canada’s east coast.

Mild spoiler alert: On her way home from a prayer meeting Ruth makes a stop at a convenience store. That’s when things get dramatic. In an odd turn of events Harry is there and kidnaps Ruth, not knowing her connection to his last victim (her niece) before he was caught. This traumatic event leads to dramatic change in the lives of Ruth, Tony and Harry.

Janet Sketchley is a strong writer. Heaven’s Prey is well-structured, dramatic, hard to read in places because of content, and keeps the reader interested in knowing if/how Ruth will survive, and what will happen to Harry.

Although this novel is a story of redemption and forgiveness it is definitely not a book for young readers. If you enjoy a good suspense with no foul language, scenes that are on the edge but not graphic, drama that rises and falls and increases again, then this is the book for you.

Heaven’s PREY by Janet Sketchley was a finalist in the 2014 Word Awards in the suspense category.… (mer)