Online Book Tour, Review & Giveaway - Finding Claire Fletcher by Lisa Regan

Welcome to my stop on Lisa Regan's Online Book Tour for Finding Claire Fletcher.  Please make sure to leave a comment or question below to let Lisa know you stopped by.  You can fill out the Rafflecopter form below to enter her giveaway.

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Finding Claire Fletcher

by Lisa Regan

Publisher: Sapphire Star Publishing

Release Date: December 2, 2012

Genre: Psychological Thriller/Romantic Suspense

ISBN: 978-1-938404-18-4
ASIN: B00AHJN7BS

Length: 430 Pages 

Purchase Links:

Amazon Paperback        Kindle 

Barnes and Noble           Nook  


Blurb:


Down on his luck, Detective Connor Parks takes solace in the arms of a woman he meets at a local bar, but in the morning, Claire Fletcher is gone, leaving behind clues to a decade-old mystery—her own abduction. Perplexed and driven by an unsettling need to see Claire again, Connor must solve the mystery of her disappearance and find her once and for all.


Excerpt: 

Chapter 1 

I still saw her sometimes-the girl I used to be. She lived behind a locked door in my mind. The door that protected the last secret part of me. The last bastion I had that no one else could infiltrate or overcome. It was locked so securely that no one but me could force or tease it open.

Behind the door, the girl stood on the street corner waiting to cross, shielding her eyes from the sun with one slender hand. She was in the tenth grade and she was on her way to school. She had a backpack slung over her left shoulder. She wore jeans and a yellow cotton shirt.

Behind the door in my mind, I liked leaving the girl suspended on the street corner for as long as I could. Sometimes I just watched her stand there, shielding her eyes, vaguely aware of the cars whizzing by in front of her. She had a slight smile on her face. I wanted her to stay right there on the street corner forever, frozen in her peaceful beauty and teenaged innocence. But she couldn’t stay there forever, not even behind the secret, locked door in my mind. 

Eventually she crossed the street, walked the 30 feet or so . . . In my mind, however, she didn’t stop when she saw the man crouched next to his car, neck craning to peer beneath it, the backseat door hanging open next to him. In my mind she kept walking.

She never knelt down beside him to look beneath the car as he did, attempting to coax an imaginary but frightened kitten from beneath it. In my mind, the man didn’t smash her head off the door jamb and stuff her stunned, slack body unceremoniously into the backseat. These things never happened to the girl I used to be behind the locked, secret door in my mind.

I envisioned two alternatives for that girl. One was that she stood on the corner, shielding her eyes with one hand and when she stepped off the curb into the street, certain that the way was clear, she was crushed by an oncoming truck and killed instantly. There she lay in the street, limbs twisted and bent at odd angles, her thick red blood congealing on the pale asphalt. Her eyes were fixed upward, blank, unknowing. I liked this scenario because it did not involve the man who unmade her and took everything pure away from her.

The second alternative was that she did not cross the street. She decided to turn left instead of crossing and she avoided the man altogether. And so she went on with her life. She knew nothing of the abject horror she avoided. She was still innocent in that way.

This girl from scenario two lived a parallel life. I imagined that she was out there, still living my life. She went to her proms and high school graduation. She had a boyfriend and went off to college. The very second I thought about her, she was out there living the life I was supposed to live.

Maybe she was making plans to get married or have a child with someone. I liked to think of her that way, as if she still existed in some other dimension. I liked to think that someday I’d run into her and see in her face that in spite of what I’ve been through the girl I used to be is all innocence and light.

That when she smiles it’s beautiful and not broken.

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BIO:

Lisa Regan is a suspense novelist. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in English and Master of Education Degree from Bloomsburg University. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and daughter.



ONLINE LINKS:

Website: www.lisaregan.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lisa-Regan/189735444395923
Twitter: www.twitter.com/lisalregan @lisalregan 

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6443334.Lisa_Regan

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My Review 

While a psychological thriller and fictional at heart, Finding Claire Fletcher by Lisa Regan, could easily be mistaken for front page news.  Told from the view point of the two main characters, this tale of a young kidnapped girl, tortured, beaten and repeatedly raped over a period of ten years, is not for the faint of heart.  Brutally frank and captivating in it's depiction of a young woman who refuses to remain a victim, this story grabbed my attention from the first page and never let go.

At the end of a day gone terribly wrong, Detective Connor Parks finds his attention captured by "Claire", an attractive young woman at a local bar.  Divorced and alone for two years, Connor thinks he might get lucky and not spend the night alone.  Realizing Claire is special, and nothing like he thought, Connor and Claire spend the night talking and while he's still attracted to her, he wants to become her friend.  Gone when he wakes up, Connor discovers that Claire is an adult who was a missing teen.  She's also a cold case in his department - finding Claire becomes the most important thing in Connor's life.

Kidnapped, beaten and raped since she was 15, Claire Fletcher refuses to surrender who she is to the monster who took her.  While she's allowed some physical freedom, the monster now shackles her by  psychological means.  Determined to let her family know she's still alive, Claire picks up Connor in a bar and leaves her address behind hoping he'll let them know she's alive.  She never thought he'd be instrumental in her salvation.

While Connor works on Claire's case and tries to locate where she's gone, Claire works at staying alive and keeping the monster away from both Connor and her family.  Ms. Regan lets us get to know both characters by giving us both their actions and their viewpoints.  We also get the brutal and occasionally difficult to read history of Claire's captivity.  I found it easy to connect with both Claire and Connor, they were both well developed and likable characters.  I rooted for Claire to survive and actively waited for her captor's capture or demise.  He was truly a disgusting and despicable monster.

Will Connor be able to locate Claire before it's too late?  And will the police catch up with the monster?  You'll have to read Finding Claire Fletcher to find out.  I loved this psychological thriller and I highly recommend it.

My Rating:  5 out of 5 Stars and a Recommended Read 

  

FTC Disclosure: I was provided a complimentary copy of this book as a part of a book tour in exchange for a fair and honest review.

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