Backwoods

Starred review from May 15, 2014
In her latest California action romance, Sorenson (Freefall, 2013) reconnects readers with nurse Abby Hammond, who, if she learned nothing else from the San Diego earthquake depicted in Aftershock (2013), now knows to prepare for the worst but to hope for the best. She takes this to heart when she hikes the Pacific Crest Trail with her daughter, Brooke; Brooke's stepbrother, Leo; and Leo's father, Nathan Strom, a famous baseball player now disgraced by YouTube-documented drunken antics. Although they have all heard the stories about missing girls on the trail, they believe the police who theorize that the girls have just hiked out of the area and aren't actually missing. At least, Abby and her family believe this until Brooke is abducted one night. They then begin the hunt for the strange man and his teenage son who sure did seem menacing when they met on the trail. As they work together, Abby, Nathan, and Leo come to know and respect one another in new ways, finding inner strengths none of them knew they possessed. Sorenson cements her emerging reputation as a master of romantic suspense with this tale of terror, reconciliation, and love.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)