I haven’t read a book by Susan May Warren in a while. That’s my fault! I couldn’t have picked a better way to get back on the Warren train than with Sunrise, the first book in her new Sky King Ranch series. This novel is packed with adventure, suspense, and romance set amidst the backdrop of wild Alaska. I loved it!
Pilot Dodge Kingston has always been the heir to Sky King Ranch. But after a terrible family fight, he left to become a pararescue jumper. A decade later, he’s headed home to the destiny that awaits him.
That’s not all that’s waiting for Dodge. His childhood best friend and former flame, Echo Yazzie, is a true Alaskan – a homesteader, dogsledder, and research guide for the DNR. Most of all, she’s living a life Dodge knows could get her killed. One of these days she’s going to get lost in the woods again, and his worst fear is that he won’t be there to find her.
When one of Echo’s fellow researchers goes missing, Echo sets out to find her, despite a blizzard, a rogue grizzly haunting the woods, and the biting cold. Plus, there’s more than just the regular dangers of the Alaskan forests stalking her….
Will Dodge be able to find her in time? And if he does, is there still room for him in her heart?
Sunrise is the first explosive volume in a new nail-biting series from USA Today best-selling author Susan May Warren.
Susan May Warren is the bestselling, Christy and RITA Award–winning author of more than 40 novels whose compelling plots and unforgettable characters have won acclaim with readers and reviewers alike. She served with her husband and four children as a missionary in Russia for eight years before she and her family returned home to the States. She now writes full-time as her husband runs a lodge on Lake Superior in northern Minnesota, where many of her books are set. She and her family enjoy hiking, canoeing, and being involved in their local church.
Susan holds a BA in mass communications from the University of Minnesota. Several of her critically acclaimed novels have been ECPA and CBA bestsellers, were chosen as Top Picks by Romantic Times, and have won the RWA’s Inspirational Reader’s Choice contest and the American Christian Fiction Writers Book of the Year award. Five of her books have been Christy Award finalists. In addition to her writing, Susan loves to teach and speak at women’s events about God’s amazing grace in our lives.
My Impressions:
If you like romance mixed with adventure and suspense, you are going to love Sunrise by Susan May Warren. Let me first say that the setting is fantastic! Fans of Warren may recognize Copper Mountain from her Summer of The Burning Sky novella collection. I loved revisiting the majestic Alaskan wilderness through this latest book. The wildness is beautifully depicted — the harsh terrain, the wildlife, the weather. And the independent homesteaders added to the narrative. The book focuses on main characters Dodge and Echo. These high school sweethearts got it all wrong years before, but now are given second chances. Their chemistry is great! Along with the romantic thread, marauding grizzlies, a missing person, and poachers add suspense and adventure. The reader gets to travel by snowmobile, dogsled, planes, and helicopters. Warren adds the spiritual message of God’s care and provision. One truth I especially took to heart was our limited perspective versus the omniscience of God. Dodge and Echo’s love story is wrapped up, but there is an unfinished story line, plus a teaser of what is to come in book 2, Sunburst. I can’t wait!
Recommended.
Audience: adults.
(Thanks to Revell for a complimentary copy. All opinions expressed are mine alone.)
I enjoyed this one as well.
My book club is reading it later this year. We haven’t read one of her books in a while.