Hiding In Sunshine - John Stuart & Caitlin Stuart

Hiding In Sunshine - John Stuart & Caitlin Stuart

3.5 stars

Goodreads blurb:
This taut thriller follows a family’s eleven-year odyssey on the run under assumed identities, where survival skills are paramount, but so are friendship, cooperation, and resilience. HIDING IN SUNSHINE celebrates one family’s abiding courage in the face of abject treachery -- and a young girl’s faith in the triumph of the truth.

 

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I recieved this book from Influenster as a special bonus in my Holiday VoxBox. I was so excited, because I LOVE BOOKS. Upon seeing the cover, and reading the synopsis... I was very skeptical. Right off the bat I will tell you that I would not have picked this up in a bookstore, just by the cover. Being a YA/NA Addict, I was thrilled to find out that it was in fact YA.

 

Reading the first 5 chapters was kinda painful. I get that the authors were trying to set up the imagery and  the backstory, and a little world history... but *yawn*. I had to pick this up on several different occassions, to get through the first 50pgs.  [Apparently, everyone else on good reads feels this way as well!] After Chapter 6, I was pretty intrigued. I get that way with books though, So I've learned that I need to REALLY give a book a chance, every since I read half of the Host [Stephanie Meyer] then picked it up a few years later, re-read it and loved it. [Thank you Ms. Kait :)]

 

Hiding In Sunshine follows Gavin and Lisa, with  their two young children. I liked them as a couple, but not so much as parents. They are shuffled off into the Witness Protection Program and are forced to take on new identities and begin a new life away from everything they know, after being the target of a kidnapping. Living your life as a technology expert, then going off the grid? I can't even imagine. No. I DON'T WANT to imagine.

 

I wasn't sure how I felt about the father/daughter duo writing. I read the House of Night series, by P.C. Cast and her daughter Kristin Cast, and towards the end [it's still not over...] The characters got whiny, annoying and repeatitive. So yeah, I was a bit hesitant about this combination. To my surprise however, The Stuarts did a fantastic job. This novel is very well written, and flowed very nicely.. even though you can pretty much tell who is writing what. I was happy with the suspense and 'danger' level that the authors braught into this book. Oh, and the ending...  Yeah, Twists and turns. but, i'm SO anti-spoiler.. I would not want ruin it for anyone!

 

<3 Beth