Hiding Places by Erin Healy

★★★★★

Family means safety. Family means protection. Until it doesn't.

Eleven-year-old Kate Whitby leads an invisible life, the youngest member of her odd family. They live in their historic small-town hotel, where she is an expert at keeping everyone's secrets: her sister's a thief, her great-grandmother isn't as crazy as people think, her mother lives in the past, and her beloved grandfather might have killed his best friend. Devoted to the people she loves – more than they have ever been to her – Kate vows to protect each one.

Charlie Fuse has lived on the streets since his alcoholic father threw him out. When Charlie's powerful street family tests his loyalty by demanding that he kill the son of a rival gang leader, he refuses. They frame him for the murder, forcing Charlie to run.

When Kate finds Charlie injured and penniless, she hides him from his enemies and her uncharitable relatives, unaware that he has a connection to her family as old as the hotel itself.

The murderous gang tracks Charlie down. To flush him out, they take the clueless family hostage and threaten young Kate. Even then, Kate keeps Charlie hidden, putting all her childlike faith in one terrible hope: that the family who has never been able to protect her before might learn how to do it now.

Erin Healy’s Hiding Places will keep its readers on the edge of their seats. With a lot of suspense, action and drama packed into a short, but well-paced timeline, I couldn’t stop reading this book until I found how it ended for Charlie, Kate and the rest of her family. The characters exist within dysfunction, providing interesting interactions, and in the midst of it all, eleven-year-old Kate is easy to like with her caring spirit and knack for spying. An overall addictive and intriguing book involving family and hiding places - both literal and figurative - Hiding Places offers fans of suspense a highly enjoyable read. I recommend it.

Thanks to BookLook Bloggers, I received a copy of Hiding Places and the opportunity to honestly review it. I was not required to write a positive review, and all the opinions I have expressed are my own. (I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”)

About the Author

Erin Healy is the bestselling coauthor of Burn and Kiss (with Ted Dekker) and an award-winning editor for many bestselling authors. She is a member of ACFW and Academy of Christian Editors. Her novels include such thrilling stories as Never Let You Go, The Baker's Wife, Stranger Things, and Motherless. She and her family live in Colorado. Visit her online at Facebook and Twitter.