I recently read Twisted Roots by Shelly Goodman Wright. For full discosure, I know the author and was given a copy of this book.
Jessica is living a nightmare. Her mother is evil and wants her to marry this creep, and her father is in a coma. In order to keep her mother from ending her father’s life, Jessica feels that she has to do everything that her mother wants her to. When her father dies, she figures that she’s had enough and decides to escape. After she leaves, she finds a group of people in the Okefenokee swamp that treat her more like family than her own family.
The book was interesting enough. The characters are likeable, and I thought the family-type dynamic was pretty cool. The villains can be pretty creepy and I definitely hate some of them.
This is Christian fiction, so there is a good vs. evil storyline in here, and it’s also a clean book, so you don’t have to worry about a curse word or sex scene that you’re not interested in seeing. Since it is Christian fiction, there may be elements that bother people if it’s not their thing. Jessica meets a guy that she’s interested in, and their relationship develops slowly, with a few bumps in the road to make it interesting.
While I liked the story overall, it’s not without it’s problem areas. The book could have used another run-through by an editor. I found quite a few mistakes while reading the book (granted, I find mistakes in lots of books, but it’s usually one or two per book). There were also some places where I was unclear how a few of the characters found out some of the things that they did.
It wasn’t my favorite story, but it was a pretty good read nevertheless. I would consider reading the next book in the series, but I’m not going to rush out and put it at the top of my TBR.