Litfuse Blog Tour: The Stars Shine Bright

About the Book:

After the FBI suspends her for bending its rules, Special Agent Raleigh Harmon is looking for a chance to redeem her career and re-start her life.

Sent undercover to a thoroughbred horse track, Raleigh takes on a double life to find out who's fixing the races. But when horses start dying and then her own life is threatened, Raleigh realizes something bigger-and more sinister-is ruining Emerald Downs.

Yet she's never felt more alone.

Her one contact with the FBI is Special Agent Jack Stephan's, a guy who seems to jump from antagonistic to genuine friend depending on the time of day. And she can't turn to her family for support. They're off-limits while she's undercover, and her mother isn't speaking to her anyway, having been confined to a mental hospital following a psychotic breakdown. Adding insult to her isolation, Raleigh's fiance wants them to begin their life together-now-precisely when she's been ordered not to be herself.

With just days left before the season ends, Raleigh races to stop the killing and find out who's behind the track's trouble, all the while trying to determine if Jack is friend or foe, and whether marrying her fiance will make things better-or worse.

Raleigh is walking through the darkest night she's faced, searching for a place where the stars shine bright

My Review:

This is the first Sibella Giorello novel that I have read. When I ordered this book, the plot seemed to incorporate a quality of exciting curiosity. I was interested by this FBI novel and wanted to see what a contemporary Christian fiction suspense novel had to offer. My expectations weren't set very high (I had never heard of Sibella Giorello before) but this novel sure did exceed the little hopes I had for it and then some! I wish that I had read the other four novels in the Raleigh Harmon series!

The main character, as you may have already guessed is Raleigh Harmon. She is presented as a well- rounded character with believable struggles and battles. I enjoyed "getting to know her" through her humor, her courage and her heart of gold. The secondary characters were all well-developed with personalities of their own, some sinister, some humorous and some touching. It is obvious that Sibella put a lot of effort into forming believable characters.

The setting of this book is a racetrack and it alone provides a stage for sinister characters. I thought that the plot was very creative a bit out of the box. I also found myself laughing at the humor that is peppered all throughout.

I know that most books include this potion of text,

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, character, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

but I found it strange that the two romantically involved characters, Raleigh and Jack, have the exact same names as the main characters in Trauma Plan, except the "Raleigh" in Trauma Plan is spelled Riley.

After having read the last few words, I am let in the dark concerning what exactly will happen next. This was definitely a cliff hanger ending when I get the chance, I look forward to reading the preceding and succeeding books in this series.

I'd reccomend this book to all you FBI readers. You''ll definitely get your crime solving fix. At 400 pages, I assumed that this was going to be a long read, but the pages seemed to turn themselves and before I knew it, I was up to the final words, "Can I come?" (I didn't spoil anything, trust me:) I rate it 5 out of 5 stars.

I received this book from Litfuse publicity in exchange for my honest review.