Book Tour - Wiser Than Serpents

I've joined the blog book tour circuit. Today's review is Wiser Than Serpents by Susan May Warren.
I apologize for not meeting my July 11 deadline for this review. I had written today's date as the deadline. Re-read that brain fried post below for more details.

Using her knowledge of the Russian culture, Warren writes a griping fictional mystery about the non-fictional and gruesome world of human trafficking. The story is told from the perspective of the rescuers and not the victims and is steeped in fact. IT is one of those books that can be read in several hours, but leaves your thinking for days.

On a scale from 1-5, I give it 4 Naz's, because the subject matter is important, the writing style is engaging, and the characters are interesting.




About The Author

Susan May Warren is an award-winning, best-selling author of novels and novellas. She won an ACRW/ACFW Book of the Year award in the suspense.romance category in 2003 and 2004, and a 2006 Inspirational Reader's Choice Award. After serving for eight years with her husband and four children as missionaries in Far East Russia, she now writes full-time while her husband runs a hotel on Lake Superior in northern Minnesota. To learn more about Susan visit. www.susanmaywarren.com

Behind the Pages -An important message from Susan May Warren from her Web Site.

I’ll never forget the day my friend Olga and I had tea, and she told me her 19 year old daughter was headed to Japan to “waitress.” She’d gotten a job with a travel agency, and was thrilled to be working in international sales, as Olga put it. I couldn’t deny the fear that stole through me. Waitress? International Sales? I had friends who worked with a government NGO raising awareness of the human trafficking epidemic growing in Russia and I couldn’t shake the feeling that Olga’s daughter was being sucked into the vortex of this dark world – and I told her as much. Olga dismissed it, and her daughter did go to Japan. Last time I checked in with Olga, before we left to go stateside, she hadn’t yet returned. I don’t know if Olga even knew where she was. The memory still leaves me shaken and prompts me to pray for Olga and her daughter.

It was this memory, and the fact that there are 27 million people around the globe held as slaves today – more thank 80% of them women and children, and up to 50% minors – that compelled me to write a story with this element in it. Wiser than Serpents is a continuation of the Mission:Russia series, a thriller about Yanna, whose sister is snatched through a Russian dating service, and disappears. Yanna enlists the help of Delta Force Captain, David Curtiss to find and rescue her. Readers who’ve read, “In Sheep’s Clothing” and “Sands of Time” will recognize Yanna as the tech expert, and David as the solid Christian of the group.

Honestly, the research for this book made me physically ill, and I had friends praying for me, against the darkness and evil inherent in this subject. Thankfully, the book is written from the point of views of the rescuers, not the victims, and offers hope and empowerment, instead of feelings of helplessness. It raises awareness without lowering the standards of Christian fiction.

However, the world is real, and the need to get involved is great. I so greatly admire people who take their beliefs and put action to them –hence why a portion of the proceeds of Wiser than Serpents is going to help the International Justice Mission, (www.ijm.org), an organization dedicated to rescuing victims and fighting the scourge of slavery. Thank you IJM and so many others who work to make a real difference in our world!