May 8, 2020

A Firm Place to Stand by Lori Altebaumer REVIEW + GIVEAWAY

A Firm Place to Stand by Lori Altebaumer

Genre: Christian / Romantic Suspense

Independently published

Date of Publication: January 25, 2020

Number of Pages: 321

She’s either being stalked or losing her mind.

A job at a camp in the rustic and often rugged landscape of West Texas offers Maribel Montgomery a chance to escape both, especially if she makes sure no one knows she’s there. But when the body of a woman washes up in the river on her first morning, her hopes of a safe place to start over are swept away.

The suspicion that she’s being watched follows her to her new home, and Maribel is forced to take a stand or keep running. Does she have the courage to face the danger stirring at the Pool of Siloam Camp? If she doesn’t, another girl might die. If she tries and fails, it could be her.

Circumstances force her into the acquaintance of Conner Pierce—a man with secrets of his own. Can Maribel risk working with him in order to save the next victim and find a missing girl? Or is he the killer?

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I make a point of not reading book blurbs and back covers in order to go into books with no assumptions because even just knowing the main identifying genres of A Firm Place to Stand were Christian and Romantic Suspense I thought I had a good sense of what to expect. I was mistaken. A Firm Place to Stand was a source of great suspense and mystery.

A Firm Place to Stand definitely started with a bang between a fire starting then a morning run gone wrong and held onto that edge. I was drawn in and held capture from start to finish. I love a good domestic thriller/family drama and in such a small town it just raised the stakes because everyone is like family all up in each other's business for better or worse.

I enjoyed the lineage search being the perfect excuse to intentionally follow down and expose family secrets and I absolutely loved the perfectly matched analogies once you were inside each character's mind. The only element that held this book back from five stars for me was the constant reference to her past. They were presented in such small morsels that it was as if there was a prequel and I looked up twice to make sure I didn't miss a book one in the series. There is no prequel, but hold tight because her past does get fully explained and help you understand her sense of anxiety.

There are some great inspirational bible verses throughout, but the guts to this piece was suspense. The romance and Christian elements were woven in beautifully and flowed so effortlessly with this storyline. I would recommend this to everyone who loves a good suspense, whodunit, romance, or inspirational read. A Firm Place to Stand was a great redemption story that was uplifting and entertaining.

Thank you LoneStarLit for the free review copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

A life-long Texan, Lori lives in a small community not far from the rugged West Texas landscape she loves to write about. The mother of now-grown twins, she has learned that the secret to survival is a well-developed sense of humor and an active prayer life. After years spent working in the insurance business, Lori now uses her time to educate, inspire, encourage, and entertain through the written word.

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