REVIEW: Untraceable by S.R. Johannes

Genre: Young Adult Suspense/Thriller

Release Date: November 2011, Coleman & Stott

Format: eBook (Kindle)

Source: Purchased from Amazon.com

16-year-old Grace has lived in the Smokies all her life, patrolling with her forest ranger father who taught her about wildlife, tracking, and wilderness survival.

When her dad goes missing on a routine patrol, Grace refuses to believe he’s dead and fights the town authorities, tribal officials, and nature to find him.

One day, while out tracking clues, Grace is rescued from danger by Mo, a hot guy with an intoxicating accent and a secret. As her feelings between him and her ex-boyfriend get muddled, Grace travels deep into the wilderness to escape and find her father.

Along the way, Grace learns terrible secrets that sever relationships and lives. Soon she’s enmeshed in a web of conspiracy, deception, and murder. And it’s going to take a lot more than a compass and a motorcycle (named Lucifer) for this kick-butting heroine to save everything she loves.

MY THOUGHTS
If you've been keeping up with my posts recently, then you may already know that I picked up this book because I'm going to an event this weekend featuring several Indie authors and I wanted to at least read one book by each of the authors in attendance on the day that I'm going. Untraceable by S.R. Johannes was the last book I had to read in this quest and I am so excited for this event on Sunday!

I was intrigued when I found out this book is set in the mountains of North Carolina, because I have been visiting that area my whole life on vacations every year. However, I will admit that Untraceable didn't really grab me until about a third of the way in, despite the fact that I was enjoying the author's writing style. It just didn't feel like there was a lot going on for awhile. Grace was a difficult character to warm up to initially and it just felt like her fight to find her dad was almost a lost cause. I couldn't figure out how the story would ever get moving, much less be resolved. Thank goodness for the arrival on the scene of Mo, though even then I wasn't completely hooked, but my interest was definitely piqued.

Finally events start to really get rolling and before I knew it, I was completely sucked in and could not put the book down until I finished it. There was some heart-pounding, scary action in a good third or more of the latter part of the book with plenty of great twists and turns, many of which I didn't see coming! Though a bit of a cliffhanger, thankfully Johannes throws us a bone at the end and we aren't left totally hanging. Of course, the second book is already out so it's not like I'm waiting months to read it, but sometimes it's nice to get some resolution before moving on to the next phase of the story. Given that Untraceable started off slow for me and there were a couple of minor grammatical errors, I had to deduct a star from my rating, but other than that, I loved this book and can't wait to read Uncontrollable and other titles by S.R. Johannes!


Read this book...
- if you like contemporary YA fiction that is NOT paranormal YA
- if you enjoy suspense/thriller novels
- if you are looking for a new indie author to try

**This is my first book towards the #TakeControl March 2013 TBR Challenge.