Among the Ashes

When an arsonist destroys her Cincinnati home, Kit Blume loses everything. All that remain are her annoying neighbour, a cryptic letter from her father, and the disturbing flashbacks and nightmares about her childhood that involve a killer with a gun. Determined to reveal the truth about her life prior to adoption, Kit discovers that some memories should be left in the dark. She joins forces with residents of the economically blighted town of Moose Creek, Minnesota, to unearth the truth about her past and her link to a fire that destroyed an inn decades ago. The harder Kit presses to uncover the facts, the closer the killer moves to silence her and the people who want to help her.

About the Author :
Knowing that survivors of trauma and abuse often feel broken beyond repair, Cheryl Denton encourages and inspires readers through her mystery, humor, and self-help books. She often creates characters with underlying mental health problems who find a way to rise above life's challenges. Early in her career, she served as a teacher with neglected and abused children, using her writing skills to develop intervention programs for them. Working as a magazine and book editor provided her with more valuable experience, which she brings to her current writing. She is a graduate of the University of Michigan, as well as the University of Central Florida, and holds BA and MA degrees in education. The wife of a hospital chaplain, she has served as a Stephen Minister, worship leader, and women's ministry facilitator. When she is not writing, she is motivating audiences by sharing how her faith helped her to overcome the pain of her past.

Review :
"Expertly plotted, 'Among the Ashes' is a murder mystery that will keep you turning pages late into the night! Didn't see the twist ending coming. Wow! " ---Ian Olmsted, Vanderbilt University A psychologically traumatized woman must decipher her violent flashbacks to stop a killer--and to understand her past--in Denton's debut novel. Kit Blume has been afraid since the day her adoptive parents found her abandoned in a laundry basket 24 years ago. She can't remember anything from her first four years of life, except for one terrifying scene: there's a gunshot, someone's chasing her, and she takes off running through the woods. After an arsonist destroys her Cincinnati home, killing her parents, it becomes clear that someone still wants Kit dead. Denton's protagonist clearly has deep psychological issues, justifying her immaturity and odd lack of life experience, but the character's hostile personality comes off as one-dimensional. Kit excessively growls, snaps and slams, even pushing away her predictably good-looking neighbor, Grant. A letter from her deceased father reveals that her childhood home has been left to the church--introducing a minor subplot about embracing the Christian faith--and that her never-mentioned birth family may come seeking a relationship. Meanwhile, in a small northern Minnesota town, Harvey Trent's Alzheimer's-stricken father insists that he saw Annabelle Vernon the day after a tragic fire supposedly killed the girl and her family a quarter century ago. It doesn't take much investigating for Harvey to realize that the town's creepy chief of police botched the investigation of the fire. But someone still living in town doesn't want the case reopened--evidence disappears and suspects are murdered. Kit's flashback, if she can face the repressed memory, could solve everything. The story's action-heavy plot maintains the fast pace required of a successful whodunit, but cliche narration ("Drop the gun... or I'll blow your head off") and several ultimately unanswered questions result in a book not wholly satisfying. For readers willing to look past hackneyed prose and a few inconclusive plot points, there's a