Terri Blackstock is a master of suspense…not intense like Steven James, but good, page-turning, she-isn’t-going-there-oh-she-just-did suspense.

Vicious Cycle was a book I’d been waiting for since hearing her talk about the plot at a writers retreat. I enjoyed the first book in the series (if you can enjoy a book that deals with addiction, murder, and a family trying to stay together!) But this was the book I wanted to read.

In Vicious Cycle, the Covington family is back. It’s a year after Intervention and Emily is about to come home from drug rehab. But now her little brother Lance is the one in trouble. He finds an abandoned baby in the backseat of a car — she’s the newborn daughter of a meth addict he’s befriended. Before he can take the infant somewhere for help, the police are on his doorstop arresting him for kidnapping. And the story is off.

I loved this story! I cared deeply about the Covingtons from the first book, but the author does a masterful job of writing in such a way that you don’t need to read Intervention to get caught in Vicious Cycle’s web. This plot went so many directions it was almost impossible to keep up. And I cared so deeply about the baby’s mother that as she made wrong choice followed by good choice followed by wrong choice I kept wanting to see if she’d get it right in the end. Ultimately, this is a story of redemption. A story that shows we should never give up hope. In each other or in ourselves. I loved it!

I received this book as part of the CFBA tour.