Book Review - Left For Dead by Deborah Rogers

Amazon UK

Title: Left For Dead

Author: Deborah Rogers

Format reviewed: Ebook

Source: Author supplied review copy

Publisher: Lawson Publishing

Publication Date: 21st August 2016

Rating: 5 Stars

Amelia Kellaway is ecstatic. The thirty-something lawyer has quit her job and turned her back on the suffocating corporate world of a New York law firm to embark on a three month solo trek of the California Coastal Trail. But as Amelia sets out on her big adventure, things take a sinister turn when she's kidnapped by a stranger and taken deep into the wilderness. 

A fast-paced read, this chilling novella delivers a heart-pounding conclusion that you won’t see coming.

I really wasn't sure if a psychological thriller would work at novella length, given I only ever seem to find full length novel versions, but if Left For Dead is anything to go by it works incredibly well. Due to the shorter length of the book, I think the pacing was ramped up to the levels that I love in books, fast paced, with a sense of danger at all times. 

Amelia was looking forward to her big adventure, but before it even starts, she ends up on a larger adventure than she would have ever expected, after being kidnapped and then left for dead. In the wilderness of America, Amelia is in a race against time, and wild animals to do everything she can to survive and somehow find safety. 

I read the whole story in about 2 hours flat, barely pausing for breath. I didn't want to be interrupted, I was just hooked on the story. The descriptions of the various conditions and situations Amelia was in, were a mix of horrifying and vivid, you could really see what has happening as it was happening, and I must say I did have a soft spot for a certain wild animal during the book. 

This is a fairly intense story, and I just can't help but wonder just what the motivation behind the kidnapping was, or generally a bit more about the villain, but other than that, I found this to be a thrilling book, and is a book that will keep you hooked from cover to cover. 

Thank you to Deborah Rogers for this review copy. This was my honest opinion. 

Guest Post - Never Give Up by Deborah Rogers

One dreary, winter’s evening, I was walking home from my equally dreary job, the wind ripping through me like a blade, when I heard a siren above the rush hour traffic. Up ahead on the over-bridge was a middle-aged man, lying on his back, shirt open, pale belly rippling like tofu as a medic pumped his chest. The medic was sweating despite the chill. It was from the rib-cracking effort he was putting in. People had gathered along the curb to watch. Behind me someone said the medic had been at it for over forty minutes. There was no sign he was giving up any time soon. But the man on the footpath was a goner. You could just tell. “I believe it was a heart attack,” an older woman in a green parka said. “He simply dropped like a stone.” I stayed a few minutes longer to watch the medic’s valiant efforts. I hoped that one day someone would work that hard to save someone I loved, or maybe even me. Not wanting to picture the family at the supper table wondering where Dad was, I walked on before I saw the final outcome. My next day’s search of the newspapers found no sign of what happened to the man. I told myself that no news was good news and that he must have lived after all.

I like to think that lessons are everywhere and that night on the over-bridge got me thinking. There’s value in fighting way past the point when most people give up. So often we are told to simply go with the flow, to not swim against the current, to be grateful for what we have now. To hell with that. Every meaningful thing in my life I’ve had to fight for – keeping my baby at sixteen, the two university degrees that probably took me too long to complete, my little house by the beach, my (finally) burgeoning career as a writer. None of this would have seen the light of day had I not fought tooth and nail for it. Things change when you fight, when you never give up. The universe rewards action, not always immediately, maybe not even after countless fall-down-and-get-back-up-again''s. But eventually. Always. So fight for what you want – your marriage, your rights, someone else's rights, your life, a promise made. Don’t take no for an answer. No matter how terrible the odds, fight for what you want, fight until you’ve got nothing left. Be the medic on the over-bridge.

About Deborah Rogers

Deborah Rogers is a New Zealand born writer. She spent a good proportion of her formative years in South East Asia, where her father worked for the Hong Kong government. After a rather checkered education, which included dropping out of high school at sixteen, she eventually graduated from the University of Canterbury with degrees in Sociology and Law. Her short fiction has been published in local journals, and shortlisted for several major competitions, including the Commonwealth Writers Short Story Prize and the Katherine Mansfield Premier Award. 


Deborah's debut psychological thriller, The Devil's Wire, is out now.

http://www.deborahrogersauthor.com

Thanks Deborah for that interesting guest post. It has been a pleasure to host you at Rachel's Random Reads.