A quick read of the back cover to Leslie J. Sherrod’s Without Faith shows a lot of action. We have an abandoned wife/single mother/small business owner who 1) is worried sick about her son, gone missing on a church trip, 2) has a secretive new couple as a client whose shenanigans bring danger and drama to her front door and 3) has not one but two men knocking on the door of her heart and hoping she will open up and let them in. I wasn’t sure how she could pull all this off in 300 pages and have it make sense, but she most definitely succeeded.
Social worker Sienna St. James came through the worst time of her life with her head held high.
After years of waiting for her estranged husband RiChard to return, she has moved on. She bought a new house, started a new business and officially started her new life. Unfortunately, her desire to keep her head down and enjoy living outside the shadow of her husband is scuttled not only by her new clients, but also by her own son.
A wealthy new couple’s rampant mistrust of one another pulls Sienna into danger, even as her son sneaks away from a church trip to Arizona to find the father he never knew (except through sporadic gifts and letters that stopped coming three years ago). Sienna finds herself waging a war on two fronts; find her son and figure out who is in that red Lexus that keeps following her around. Every answer she seeks morphs into two more questions. Why is this couple so secretive? What is the man hiding? Who is Silver and why is she so important to the resolution of this mystery? And will Sienna find it in herself to open her heart to the man who loves her and is patiently waiting for her to love him back?
I found this to be a major thrill ride; the characters were real to me. I found myself scolding Sienna in my head when she did something that I felt was careless or not too bright, and held my breath as each new plot twist and turn was revealed. Without revealing any plot twists, let me say that the book moves fast, hits hard and takes no prisoners. I look forward to seeing more of this character in future works.