REVIEW: Breach of Trust

By DiAnn Mills

Amazon Version

I downloaded this book for free as an Amazon Prime member.

This book is the first in The Call of Duty Series. It is published by Tyndale House Publishers. It is a Christian book. Let me say upfront that I am not a fan of Christian fiction. I had forgotten that it was Christian fiction. Once I realized what it was (a few pages in), I decided to set aside my prejudices and focused on the story.

The story follows Paige Rogers, a former disgraced CIA operative, masquerading as a librarian in a small town in Oklahoma. During her last mission, she was severely injured and found God during her convalescence. She is not incognito by choice, but is being blackmailed by her former commanding officer, Daniel Keary, who is the real traitor and has threatened to kill her parents should she ever reveal the truth.

Daniel Keary, a non-Christian, is now running for governor. The only threat to his candidacy is Paige. While she has agreed to maintain her silence, he does not trust it and wants her to become part of his campaign.

Miles Laird, the high school football coach, is the love interest. He's hunky and incredibly persistent, even though Paige turns him down again and again.

The beginning of the story is very fast-paced. It's well done, and despite the frequent "What do you want me to do God?" questions, it works. I wanted to find out what happened and did read the story in one day. That would be a good sign except that the last 50 or so pages lost my interest, and I finished it only because I had so much invested at that point. The plot becomes more fantastical and less believable as the story goes on. Finally, when Miles ends up saving this very capable woman, I am irritated that once again, the heroine no matter how kick-ass she is, she is saved by the hero. O.O

Why? Not that he couldn't help, but does he really have to be the one who saves them? This woman who beat him in a shooting contest? It reminds me of this fabulous blog post by Nonny Morgan about this very issue. (Peeps, don't give me a kick-ass heroine who has to rely on a man, who doesn't have the same skills, to save her.)

There are also three POVs in this story: Paige's, Keary's, and Miles'. In my opinion, Keary's is unnecessary. Not only is it unnecessary, but it is first person present tense when the rest of the story is third person limited past tense. First, I am not a fan of alternating between different types of POVs (Eg. first person to third person, etc.). Second, I am not a fan of present tense. Now, changing tense from one type of POV to another irritates the hell out of me. You can see how this would thrill me. (g) This is very unfortunate as Mills really does an excellent job staying within each POV. (Many authors struggle with this.)

I also didn't like the stereotyping. All of the villains were non-Christian. You know, because all non-Christians are evil, and Christians can't possibly be evil. (Let's forget about Jim Bakker and his ilk.) This might be a requirement for Christian fiction, though, so the author could be writing to her audience.

Despite all of this, I would still give this story a three star rating. If you are into Christian fiction and don't mind the 3rd to 1st person POV switch and the hero saving this bad-ass heroine, you might really enjoy this story.

You can purchase the eBook at Amazon.