4-1/2 * rounded up to 5 *
Goodreads Review on 2022-09-24
Colleen Chi-Girl's review
Bookshelves: 2022, audio, netgalley, contemporary, crime-mysteries, usa

This was a fast-paced, exciting, thriller that I read in 2 days on audio because I couldn't put it down. Much in part was the great job that Amy McFadden, did as the narrator, and of course, the author Carter's writing. I received this ARC from NetGalley, the publisher, and author, A.F. Carter, for my honest review. (I wrote in a previous review that you only get honest reviews from Sagittarians - lol - thanks to all!)

The story is set in a small, rural town in the Rust-Belt* and involves the kidnapping of a highly intelligent and precocious 15 year old, Elizabeth Bradford. Elizabeth's wealthy family only recently moved to town and they have a strong security team and the home is well-protected. Her family has bid on a major construction project to build a Nissan plant, which could be their answer to their struggling economy, and the high crime and drug use.

* Named the "Rust Belt" in the late 1970s, after a sharp decline in industrial work left many factories abandoned, causing increased rust from exposure to the elements. It stretches from New York through the Midwest....near the Great Lakes.

Luckily, Delia is the local captain of the police force and she's a major dynamo. Smart, caring, a single mother of a high functioning teenage boy, Danny, who is most likely on the spectrum. Their relationship is so well written and developed! I find it very warming when authors put in "real" people and struggles. There's also a possible LGBTQ love interesting for Dellia, a lesbian, which I really hope pans out in a sequel. I don't need the romance, but REAL people, strong women as leads...wonderful. HOPING FOR A SEQUEL IN THE WORKS! I also really appreciated the well-edited writing that didn't drag on about something silly or minor or just to get laughs.

There was also a cool part, which reminded me of a true-crime podcast when some of the teens get involved and help Delia with clues and ideas, and there's just something about them coming together and helping...and valuing ideas despite their age. Several feel-good moments throughout the novel.

Yes, there were a few very slight cons, in the form of cliches, which I chose to overlook: wealthy family saving the town, wealthy kidnapping, Russian antagonist...

BUT, GO WITH THE STORY and just enjoy it!

The Hostage Book Review:

*****Spoilers*****Spoilers*****
I wanted to thank the author for letting me read this book and letting me give my honest review. I was able to read this book early on NetGalley. I highly recommend this book. The storyline was so captivating. I’m hoping another book will come out. I would really love to see where Detective Merola goes from here.

From the first few chapters, I was hooked. The book starts from the perspective of Elizabeth Bradford, who has been abducted and is being held in the trunk of her abductor's car. It gives a real insight into her panicked yet calm demeanor. It provides a glimpse into what kind of person Elizabeth is and the mind of a 15-Year-Old girl who is brilliant and exceptionally wealthy.

In the upcoming chapters, we meet Captain Delia Merloa, who is a veteran police officer in the town of Baxter. She aims to clean up the small town of Baxter in preparation for the upcoming Nissan plant. In the first introductory chapter, Delia is preparing to raid a well-known meth house. The author's explanation was exceptional; we could get a glimpse into Delia’s mind and how understaffed and the defective equipment the police department has. Delia hopes that because of this upcoming Nissan plant it’ll bring more funds to the small town.

As the book continues to switch from the mind of Delia to Elizabeth. I thoroughly enjoyed the different perspectives of both main characters. I especially love the intimate thoughts of each character and how it beautifully flows together to create an exciting story.

When Elizabeth escaped, my heart started racing. I was completely engulfed in the whole storyline from the beginning. I was worried that Tasha was going to find her. The scene where detective Merola and Cade walked up to the residence was so intense I couldn’t stop reading!!

This book was a 4/5 star book for me.

I felt like this book was really fast paced, and was really easy for me to finish.

In this book we follow a dual POV. We have Elizabeth, the daughter of a very rich and powerful man that is about to build a Nissan plant that will ultimately bring the town back to life, who was kidnapped and held for ransom. We also have Delia who is the Captain of the police department and is determined to clean up the streets so the Nissan deal doesn't fall through.

What I really liked about this book, is there wasn't a lot of wasted time. Things were pretty straight forward, and there wasn't a lot of fluff with long paragraphs about how worried people are or how Elizabeth thought she was going to die.

I really like Delia's character as she seems to have real life problems, but she keeps going and tries not to complain to much. She does have a love interest but that is in the background, and there is a orphaned child she saved from one of her raids that super connected to her. I felt like that was unneeded but I think it was to show that Delia is human, otherwise she does come off a little cold.

Elizabeth was a great character also! She is able to leave clues in her phone calls and really like that. I do find it a little weird that everyone in her life says she is super smart and acts like it, implying she is a know-it-all but she never really seems that way with the captures. She is obviously very smart, and confident but she never seems as arrogant as the family makes her out to be.

Overall I enjoyed the book and would recommend it to other people looking for a quick and fun mystery/light thriller book.

Enough action and criminal connections to keep me interested and fabulously developed characters, written in alternating POV. Kidnapping, drug dealing, murders, random demands. Refreshing, palette cleansing easy read.

You know a book is good when you immediately search for other books by the author upon finishing it. This book was no exception. There were multiple storylines going on at once, but it brought depth to the book, not confusion. This felt like a middle America Ace Atkins book, if Ace Atkins followed a female detective instead of a male one. The characters were likable and easy to get behind. The story moved at a good pace so I was never bored or bogged down in it. If you like female detective books, this one is a great one to try!

The Hostage was a wonderful and interesting read. I truly love a good book with multiple POV so going between the two was perfect for me. I wasn’t convinced on Elizabeth from the beginning but after finishing the audio, I see how wonderfully the author wrote her to display her pretentious and snotty attitude. Hearing the case from the law enforcement side as well provided some interesting perspective. I wish the climax had been slowed down a little, it felt rushed to me but I overall really enjoyed the Hostage.

This was really well done. I liked that it was a departure from the usual tropes. Recommended.


Review copy provided by publisher.

Thank you @netgalley for my ARC of The Hostage on audio. This was a great listen. I’m it was told in two points of view, Elizabeth, the hostage, and Delia, the detective searching for Elizabeth. It was definitely an edge of your seat kind of book.

Title: The Hostage
Author: A.F. Carter
Audiobook Narrator: Amy McFadden
Publisher: High Bridge Audio
Genre: Mystery Thriller
Pub Date: September 20, 2022
My Rating: 3.5

Story is told from the POV of Captain Delia Merola of the Baxter Police Department and Elizabeth Bradford, the fifteen year-old who has been kidnapped.

Story starts with Elizabeth Bradford in the trunk of a car. She is the daughter of Christopher Branford of the Bradford Group that is currently the highest bidder on the construction contract of the new car plant. She has been kidnapped and being held hostage for a large ransom.
She is a very intelligent teenager; in fact, at fifteen she is a senior at a highly competitive prep school. She is smart enough to know that the kidnappers cannot be trusted to release her once the ransom is paid. She decides to act the part of a not so smart teen (rather than the arrogant teen she really is!


Captain Delia Merola is a busy mother of fourteen year old Danny and as Captain of the Police Department she is trying to clean up ‘out of control’ drug situation in Baxter.
The Nissan Car Company has plans to build a plant which will surely be a plus to the economy of the small town of Baxter so she and her small town team police force need to clean of the town. Her story starts when drug raid turns violent, three fatalities and a house fire.
So when the daughter of a member of the wealthy Bradford Group is kidnapped, Delia is fine with the FBT handling the case.
When the FBI advises the family to pay the ransom and wait for Elizabeth’s release, the family asks Delia if she and the local authorities would also investigation.
Hmmm

Story was a bit slow at times. At first I was enjoying the parts with Delia more as the hostage situation seems like a normal kidnapping of a the bratty daughter of a rick family. However, I soon got very interested in Elizabeth and how she was dealing with her captors..
Story ended up more interesting that I thought!
I have a feeling we are going to hear more from Delia.

Want to thank NetGalley and High Bridge Audio for this early audio Galley.
Publishing Release Date scheduled for September 20, 2022

The Hostage by A.F. Carter

While I wasn’t swept away by the events of the story, I was transfixed by the characters. For a thriller, The Hostage is pretty tame. Rather than lots of blood and gore (there is some, just not buckets) there are complex characters and nuanced interactions.
My favorite element of Carters writing is how spot on they get with the minor atmospheric details. Considerable care was taken in scene setting descriptors.

Plot - 4
Writing and Editing - 5
Character Development - 5
Narration - 5
Personal Bias - 4
Final Score - 4.6

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I really liked that this was written from both the perspective of the hosts age and the hero. It was a classic hostage story but had a lot of modern twists that made it more relevant. I also thought the en

🌀Synopsis
Elizabeth is abducted shortly after her family moves to Baxter. Her kidnappers, however, actually kind of take care of her. They assure her that if she follows the rules and her parents give them the money that she’ll be let go, free and clear. They keep her hidden in the woods and fill her with junk food. Her family is willing to pay to get her back but they’re also having a hard time trusting the FBI and end up getting the local law enforcement involved.

Enter Delia Merola, who is left to decode the secret messages that Elizabeth is sending them and find her without her parents losing a dime. As it turns out, her kidnappers are repeat offenders and following their trail Delia is able to track them down.

Entertaining small-town thriller.
3.5⭐

I enjoy this thriller very much and already have "The Yards" which I think is book #1 on my eReader!

Captain Delia Mariola is with Baxter PD. She's a single lesbian mom with a fourteen-year-old son, Danny. Baxter is a Rust Belt town that thrived in the past but with many large processing plants gone, it's struggling. Crimes and drugs ensue.

A promising opportunity arises when a Nissan assembly plant is coming to town. Mariola and a few officers from poorly funded Baxter PD are cleaning up the city. Things get more riveting and we have a second perspective when Elizabeth Bradford, a fifteen-year-old daughter of the Nissan plant construction bidder is kidnapped.

A.F. Carter writes a very hard-to-put-down thriller. The suspense flows nicely, especially in the first half. I like Mariola's (cop's) perspective as well as Elizabeth's, the victim. What really got me hooked was how the teens, Danny and Elizabeth's brother got involved in trying to locate her.

Amy McFadden did a wonderful job narrating Captain Mariola and Elizabeth. Both had distinguished voices and it was a great listen.

The hostage opens up with an exhilarating scene. Elizabeth is kidnapped and the first chapter is from her point of view while she struggles to assess her situation. Elizabeth is the daughter of a wealthy family but at only age 15 is probably the smartest person in every room. The way she is written you can tell she is not the cliche daughter of a rich family, she is more than that.

Captain Delia Merloa has a backlog of work, along with the responsibilities of being a parent when the kidnapping case comes to her. At first, the FBI takes the lead which is a relief to Delia while she focuses on other work and aspects of her life. Delia is a strong and interesting character but when she takes a step back and the FBI takes the lead, I started to lose some focus on the story. The book is called The Hostage, Elizabeth is kidnapped. This should be the focus but sadly some of the other police work and drama overshadow the kidnapping. Especially when we go a few chapters in a row without even mentioning it.

I really liked both Elizabeth and Delia as characters and I enjoyed the kidnapping story that was here. I almost feel this would be much better off as a short story rather than a novel. The other parts of the story were interesting on their own merits but I just wanted to get back to the real issue, which was the kidnapping.

Even with my complaints, the base story, the strong characters, and excellent descriptions make this a book I would recommend.

The Hostage
A.F. Carter
The setting for this tale is Baxter, a small town with economic woes. Like many depressed areas Baxter has a lot of meth labs and Captain Delia Merola is determined to locate and destroy them all. She issued a warning to all the dealers; she is coming for them. Delia spends her days busting meth labs and arresting drug dealers; she is a single mom to her fourteen-year-old son., Danny There is hope for this depressed town a Nissan car plant is planning to build in the area bringing a much-needed boost to the area’s economy. The owner of the construction company in charge of the project and his family are in town for the duration of the construction. When the family’s fifteen-year-old daughter is abducted, the FBI are called in; their advice for the family is pay the ransom and wait for them to return Elizabeth. The family turns to Delia and the Baxter police department for help. Whoever kidnapped Elizabeth had a well thought out plan; they ar e obviously highly experienced. Elizabeth was kidnapped by a professional kidnapping ring. The kidnappers didn’t know Elizabeth; she is extremely smart. Most fifteen-year-olds would be panicked but Elizabeth was working on a plan on how to get a cryptic message to her family. While the kidnappers assured Elizabeth, they would release her as soon as the ransom she knew there were no guarantees.
This tale kept me on the edge of my seat. It is realistic and electrifying. The tale is told from two points of view Delia and Elizabeth’s. Author A.F. Carter does an excellent job of setting the stage for this story. The main characters, Delia and Elizabeth are well developed; they are both passionate, tough and very intelligent. I enjoyed this story and highly recommend it.

When 15 year old Elizabeth, daughter of a rich family, is kidnapped, Captain Delia already has a lot to deal with. A new plant is coming to town, and she needs to clean up the town to make it a safer place. Her boss tells her to let the FBI deal with the abduction, but Elizabeth's family insists that she's brought in to make things move faster.
This gritty mystery is told in dual POV, Delia's and Elizabeth's, two strong female protagonists, which I loved. The narration had a great flow. I preferred the kidnapping case to the rest of the plot, but all in all, an exciting read.
I received an advance review copy for free and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I liked this much more than I thought I would. It was terrific! I loved the narrator.

When the book started, I didn't think I could read another story about a rich brat or an uber rich family... or a kidnapping, but to my surprise I enjoyed the book and neither the kidnapping nor the rich family played center stage. I especially enjoyed the dual narrators and their different stories (I enjoyed reading about the life of the cop most).

I did get tired of hearing about the Nissan factory (is the authoring being paid by Nissan) and I thought the "captor" was far more chatty/confessional than would actually happen in real life. Otherwise, great characters, compelling story. It did take me a few chapters to get into it, but once I did I was eager to keep listening.

Do I like gritty mysteries now?

“A new Nissan plant is coming to the depressed Rust Belt town of Baxter, and Captain Delia Merola has been busy cleaning up the crime-addled city ever since the deal was announced. But when the 15-year-old daughter of the lead bidder on the construction project—a wealthy out-of-towner—suddenly disappears, and it becomes clear that a professional kidnapping ring may be responsible, Delia realizes that the factory’s influx of cash could bring with it an entirely new sort of danger, never before considered in this working class milieu.”

I’m not generally a glutton for murder mysteries, because of all the, well, MURDER. This one, though, may have changed my mind.

The characters were well-drawn. Delia and Elizabeth are both complex but mostly likeable characters. Delia – Police Chief. Mom. Lesbian. Both hard and soft. Elizabeth – Teen. Privileged. Brilliant. Focused. Brat.

The story was well-paced, in depth, but not tedious. Tense, but not stressful. Gritty, but not gory.

I hope this is turned into a series, because I’d definitely line up to read more about Delia, Danny, Cade, and The Dink.

8/10

Thanks to NetGalley, RB Media, and HighBridge Audio for this thoroughly enjoyable ARC.

Nicely paced and lots of underlying tension. Enjoyed the uniqueness of the characters, especially Delia. Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to listen to this audiobook