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When I was last at Lisa Marie Bird visiting she game me a bag of books to bring home that had belonged to her mother in law Kitty. Most of the books was suspensful, drama’s or murder mysteries and since I watch those types of shows on TV Lisa thought I might enjoy the book.
I came home and sat down to read the book jacket and I wanted to let you know sometimes the book you pick up from someone else introduces you to an author you might never have discovered on your own. That was certainly the case for me with The Target by Catherine Coulter.
I always like being honest with my readers if I had found this book in the store I’m not sure I would have purchase it even thought Catherine Coulter was a brand-new author for me and I had never read one of her books before. I received The Target from Lisa Marie Byrd. I didn’t purchase this book, but after reading it, I can definitely see myself changin my mind and purchasing some of Coulter’s books in the future.
The Target is an FBI thriller featuring FBI agents Dillon Savich and Lacey Sherlock, but the story begins far away from the FBI—with a man named Ramsey Hunt living quietly in a cabin in the Colorado Rockies. Ramsey has retreated there after an incident that brought unwanted media attention, hoping for some peace and privacy. Instead, he finds himself right in the middle of a dangerous situation.
A Little Girl in the Forest lost was probably the hardest part of the book for me to get through. Ramsey comes across the little girl named Emma, unconscious and hurt in the forest. He rescues her, but before he can simply get her somewhere safe, people arrive with a very different purpose. They aren’t there to help. They intend to kill.
Emma’s mother, Molly Santera, eventually finds Ramsey with her daughter. Naturally, Molly is frightened and immediately suspects that Ramsey is the person who has taken her child. Once she realizes that he actually saved Emma, the situation doesn’t suddenly become safe. Instead, Ramsey, Molly, and Emma have to get away from the people pursuing them.
I had a difficult time with the opening because of Suzanne. Reading about a little girl hurt and alone in the forest touched a place in my heart that made those early pages difficult for me. But once I got past that part of the story, I found myself becoming more and more interested in what was happening. And I really liked Molly as a mother.
Her first instinct is to protect her daughter. Even though she initially believes Ramsey is the person responsible for Emma’s disappearance, she doesn’t stop fighting to get her child back. Once she understands what really happened, she and Ramsey find themselves working together while trying to stay ahead of the people who are after them.
As the story develops, Molly and Ramsey’s situation becomes much bigger than one missing child. They eventually make their way to Chicago, where they begin trying to piece together the clues surrounding what has happened. That’s where FBI agents Dillon Savich and Lacey Sherlock become involved.
They help unravel the mystery while Molly and Ramsey try to understand why they—and Emma—have become the focus of such a dangerous situation. And that’s about as far as I want to go with the story because I don’t want to give away the mystery or tell you who is really behind everything.
There are plenty of questions as you read: Why was Emma in the forest? Who is after her? Why are Ramsey and Molly being pursued? And, ultimately, who—or what—is actually the target? Those are the questions that kept me reading. Since this was my first Catherine Coulter book, I really didn’t know what to expect going into it.
I knew I was picking up an FBI thriller, but I wasn’t expecting the story to pull me in the way it did. Once I got through the emotional difficulty of the beginning, I became invested in Molly, Ramsey, and Emma and wanted to know what was going to happen to them.
The book also introduced me to Coulter’s FBI characters Dillon Savich and Lacey Sherlock, who are part of her FBI Thriller series. The Target was originally published in 1998 and is the third book in that series. There is 27 books in the series and I can’t say I will read all of them.
Here is something that surprised me even more: David is waiting to see what I think about the book. David isn’t normally a reader. So when I told him about the little girl and what happens at the beginning of the story, he became interested and said he might actually read it.
That surprised me because the edition I have is 371 pages. 😂 But then again, David has daughters too, besides Suzanne, so I understand why the story involving a little girl caught his attention. I would recommend The Target for adults who enjoy suspense, mystery, FBI stories, and books that keep you asking questions as you go.
This isn’t a children’s book, and I would definitely put it in the adult reading category. For me, The Target was also a reminder that sometimes a book comes into your life through someone else. Lisa Marie Byrd gave me this book, I had never read Catherine Coulter before, and now I’m curious about her other books.
So while The Target wasn’t a book I went out and purchased myself, it introduced me to an author I may very well be purchasing in the future. And if David actually picks up a 371-page book and reads it after hearing me talk about this one, I may have to come back and tell you about that, too!
You can learn more about Catherine Coulter and her books through Penguin Random House. The Target is currently listed there as a 400-page edition, although different editions of the book have different page counts—including the approximately 371-page copy I read.
Disclosure: Lisa Marie Byrd provided me with this copy of The Target by Catherine Coulter. I did not purchase this book. All opinions are my own.
About the book:by Catherine Coulter (Author)
FBI agents Dillon Savich and Lacey Sherlock are faced with the case of an abducted child in this “absorbing”(Publishers Weekly) FBI Thriller.
Escaping unwanted media attention after a notorious incident, Ramsey Hunt retreats into the solitude of a cabin high in the Colorado Rockies. But his isolation is shattered when he rescues a small girl in the forest and strangers invade his private meadow with intent to kill.
Molly Santera, the little girl’s mother, catches up with Ramsey and her daughter, mistaking him for the kidnapper. When she discovers that he instead saved Emma, there’s little time for thanks. With the strangers in pursuit, the trio flee to Chicago for sanctuary.
With an unexpected assist from FBI agents Dillon Savich and Lacey Sherlock, Molly and Ramsey begin to unravel the clues, and in the process they make an astonishing discovery as to the true nature of the target.
Meet the Author: Catherine Coulter
Catherine Coulter is the New York Times bestselling author of 97 novels (gasp) to date. She wrote lots of historical romances set in many time eras (from Regency to Vikings, with a stop in Medieval) She’s very pleased they’ve hit the spot with so many readers worldwide.
Her popular (yea) FBI Suspense Thriller series stars husband and wife team FBI agents Savich and Sherlock.
With J.T. Ellison, Coulter wrote six books in A BRIT IN THE FBI international series, before closing it down because, she said, it became impossible to think of new, intriguing, fantastical, and utterly unique ways of trying to kill Nicholas and Mike, the two lead characters.
Coulter added fun novellas, starring Grayson Sherbrooke (from the Sherbrooke historical romance series), titled The Grayson Sherbrooke Otherworldly Adventures. You want fun, excitement and ultimate strange, these stories are for you. You’ll meet demons and ghost and various ancient butt-kickers.
Coulter lives in the Bay area with her husband (talk about hot). She posts on her Facebook page daily and chats with readers and includes a photo from her hikes. Too, if you’re really interested, visit her at her website, super friendly so even aliens have navigated it with ease.
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Thankful. Grateful. Blessed.
Gracias,
Glenda, Charlie and David Cates
