Vanish

June 2, 2008
In Pawlik's debut novel of inspirational suspense, two men and one woman wake up one morning to find that every other human being on the planet seems to have disappeared. (Yes, one character even uses that tell-tale phrase "left behind.") The three survivors hallucinate and sense they are being watched. But by whom? Protagonists Mitch, Conner and Helen not only struggle to survive physically, but find themselves pondering vivid memories and grappling with issues from the past. Helen, for example, regrets certain choices she made in her personal life years ago, and Mitch ponders unresolved issues with his parents. Conner mourns his dead son and failed marriage, and tries to cope with the fact that his ex-wife and daughter have become evangelical Christians. The circumstances of his survival prompt him to wrestle with questions of belief. Resolution and even redemption come for some of the heroes, but the prose is flat and the character development is thin enough that readers will have a hard time caring.

June 1, 2008
Winner of the 2006 Christian Writers Guild's Operation First Novel contest, this debut psychological thriller features three strangers who find themselves alone, while everyone else has vanished, following a mysterious storm. Conner Hayden is a lawyer who abandoned his family, Helen Krause is an aging model, and Mitch Kent is a man with a troubled past. Together, the three face the terror of realizing they are being watched by sinister and shadowy "observers" who are forcing them to see visions of their own pasts. As the observers become more aggressive, the trio flees from Chicago to Washington, DC, to discover the meaning of these troubling events and who is behind them. Fans of Dean Koontz or Ted Dekker will appreciate.

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