Book Review: Forsaken by James David Jordan

ISBN: 978-0805447491
Publisher: B&H Fiction
Hardcover: 400 pages
Genre: Christian Fiction
First Line: Even in high school I didn't mind sleeping on the ground.
One Word Review: So-So

Summary from Amazon:

When Simon Mason, the world’s best-known televangelist, receives threats from Muslim terrorists, he hires Taylor Pasbury, a beautiful former Secret Service agent, to take charge of his security. Taylor is thrilled to receive the high-profile assignment, but she has no idea that Simon already knows more about her than she could imagine.

When the terrorists strike, making a demand of the pastor that would shake the most steadfast saint, Taylor draws on all of her hard-knock toughness and training as she fights to save Simon and his daughter. Along the way, she discovers that she is not the only one who has done things she would like to forget—and she is not the only one who understands that some things are more important than living.

Forsaken never really rang true for me. I found it difficult to suspend my disbelief to accept the course of events that take place throughout the story. I think the problem I had was that Jordan was attempting to write a thriller without making it too excessively violent or gory. I don't feel that's a bad thing, but when you have terrorists who will anesthetize their hostage before surgically removing a finger (as opposed to just hacking it off while said hostage is fully conscious - these are terrorists after all), it just loses some of the believability.

The story itself wasn't bad. It definitely had it's moments of fast-paced action and adventure, but most of that was done in the first half, and the last half of the book was spent more on the exploration of the characters' faith. Again, this isn't particularly a bad thing when you're writing Christian Fiction. It is supposed to, I imagine, make the reader want to explore their own beliefs. But, 150 pages of mostly dialogue got to be a bit slow going toward the end. It seemed sometimes repetitive, which was kind of irritating, and I felt like rather than continuing to rehash the same things, the author could have developed the main character a bit more.

All in all, it was just okay. I think readers who are serious fans of Christian Fiction will probably enjoy this more than I did, though. It does pose some interesting questions.

Buy this book on Amazon.