Edge of Recall

Edge of Recall is one of the most chilling novels I've read this year. It isn't exactly riveting, but it is very well written, with characterizations that are very believable without tiring snags to personalities. No whiners, just people with problems that are not everyday type problems.

After struggling trying to make a business out of writing grants, I find the fact the heroine makes her money by building and designing labrinths rather farfetched. In today's economy, it doesn't make sense... but, hey, it's a novel and you can get away with a lot of things in a novel. That is just about the only thing that bothered me at all.

Tessa Young has a problem so deeply embedded that she had been having therapy sessions since she was a little girl. She had also lived with monsters in her dreams. We find her at the opening chapter with a monster in her face, blood on her hands, and no one believing her that some monster had jumped out and murdered her architect partner and had taken the body. Normally, I do not like flash back tactics, but that is when we go forward and backward and forward and backward. Kristen Heitzmann takes us back then brings us forward in a single sweep, very skilled, very readable, and not at all irritating.

So, Tessa is drawn into a job because of her deep fascination of labryinths. The call comes from an old flame that had smoldered for almost ever, Smith Chandler. Now, Smith has grown up and turned into a very fine Christian man. Quite a twist from the Christian woman drawing the man into the Christian fold. This is a most enjoyable yarn, worth the money.


Of her three main interests, art, music and writing, she chose to study English at the University of Colorado and thrived on Creative Writing and Literature classes. She married her husband Jim, and turned her energy to building a family. They have four children whom they have home schooled for all or most of their education. Kristen is a music minister with the ecumenical covenant community People of Praise.

Once she realized the stories in her head were truly a calling from the Lord, she made writing not just a passion, but a ministry. She has written seven historical fiction novels as part of the The Rocky Mountain Legacy series, the Diamond of the Rockies series, and the Christy Award winner Secrets. Most recently, she has written several contemporary fiction novels, including Echoes, Freefall and Unforgotten.

Kristen and her husband, Jim, and their family live in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where she serves as worship leader in their church.