Friday, October 24, 2014

One Kick by Chelsea Cain


One Kick by Chelsea Cain

Kick Lannigan was abducted as a young girl by a stranger and found six years later, miraculously alive, but not at all well.  Since her rescue she has been working on making a safe life for herself, her dog and her brother.  She has tried numerous therapies but the ones that work best include physical defense mechanisms.  Now 21 she is feeling better about her life but still hates herself for what she did.  Kick knows she is the reason that other kids are being abducted and used like she was.  She didn’t notice enough and she destroyed evidence, so now she notices everything.  To help in a small way she drives for hours looking for cars reported in Amber Alerts hoping to find other missing kids and bring them home. The arrival of a strange man on her doorstep changes Kick’s life; she may finally have an opportunity to do something and assuage some of her guilt.

I’m a fan of Cain’s Gretchen and Archie series so I was interested in her new series.  Her main character is extremely damaged but oh so strong.  I was very glad the author didn’t detail what Kick suffered at the hands of her kidnapper.  We know that Kick was in many movies collected by pedophiles, but thankfully we don’t know much about them.  But what we know is more than enough and the fact that this character wakes up and faces each day seems like an amazing thing.  While disturbing it had a satisfying ending and I would read the next in the series.  And for audiobook fans this one zipped by; worked really well in this format.