Spotlight: Conduit by Angie Martin

My Rating: 5 of 5 Stars

Release Date: March 5th 2014

Publisher: Indie World Publishing & Author Services

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About the Book:

How do you hide from a killer when he’s in your mind?

Emily Monroe conceals her psychic gift from the world, but her abilities are much too strong to keep hidden from an equally gifted killer. A savvy private investigator, she discreetly uses her psychic prowess to solve cases. When the police ask her to assist on a new case, she soon learns the killer they seek is not only psychic, but is targeting her.

The killer wants more than to invade her mind; he wants her. Believing they are destined for each other, he uses his victims as conduits to communicate with her, and she hears their screams while they are tortured. She opens her mind to help the victims, but it gives him a portal that he uses to lure her to him. With the killer taking over her mind, she must somehow stop him before she becomes his next victim.

Excerpt:

Robin remembered his earlier words. The man believed she served a purpose. She did not know what he intended for her, except it would result in her death. Yet if he was only going to kill her, he would have already squeezed the life out of her. The serrated edge of the knife warned her death would not come that easily. “I want you to scream her name,” the man said, his voice as calm as when she heard it coming from the backseat of her Kia. He released her throat and his fingers found the bottom of her shirt. He exposed her abdomen like a patient lover, and the knife moved out of her sight. The cold steel kissed her bare skin and she sucked her stomach away from the sharp edge. The man’s lips moved against her cheek as he spoke, death whispering in tandem with his hushed tone. “Scream Emily’s name. Scream it as loud as you can. When she hears you, I’ll make the pain stop.”

My Thoughts:

There is so much I loved about Conduit, that I don't even know where to start! I was lucky enough to have attended the Facebook release party for this book a couple of months ago and it immediately drew my attention. I'm a big fan of mystery/thriller type books, and movies too, but it seems there just aren't very many that have caught my attention as of late. Conduit, I knew just from the synopsis was a bit different than what I've read before, so I honestly couldn't wait to start reading it.

Emily is a young woman who, together with her best friend Cassie, owns a P.I. company. They work everything from cases with elderly women who suspect their husbands of affairs, to figuring out whether or not someone's faking injuries for workman's comp. Sometimes, though, they work cases with the local police department, where Cassie's uncle(who's like an uncle to Emily) is a detective. He makes the difficult decision to call them on the serial killer case he's working, around the same time that Emily starts getting some pretty mysterious messages, including writing against her will. That is only the beginning. As the murders progress, the messages she receives get stronger and stronger and it is soon made evident that the killer is after Emily herself, and it doesn't look like anything is going to get in his way.

Emily is such an amazing character. She's one of my absolute favorites, as y'all know how much I like strong, intelligent female leads. She is headstrong, and doesn't back down easily. Although she is the main character in this book, I have to give props to the side characters. The book would not be the same with Lionel, Barbara, Shawn, Cassie, Jake and the others. They were all so well developed and the interactions between them were carefully and intricately written that at times I might as well have been a psychic myself, listening in on real life conversations. One thing I really loved about this book is that even though there are some pretty intense situations, the author didn't feel the need to use not-so-nice words every few sentences. All I'm saying is, Angie Martin wrote this amazing book and didn't need to drop the f-bomb like she has to meet a quota to get her point across. It's oddly refreshing and I wish more authors in the genre would follow in her footsteps.

Then there was David. Our serial killer. It was so scary at times being in his mind. The book was so well written that even though it switches the point of views quite often, as is a big part of this genre lately, Angie Martin managed to craft Conduit so seamlessly that the chapters would end perfectly enough to flow right on into the next character's head.

I read Conduit mostly on a lazy afternoon where I didn't really have any other plans. My dad was gone fishing, brother off playing video games and my mom and I in the living room reading. This book kept me so much on the edge of my seat that if my mom would go to speak with me, I would literally jump I was so deeply into the story. I am so happy there is going to be another book in this series, because I honestly cannot wait to delve into Emily's world again. For fans of thriller and mystery novels, with just the right dash of the paranormal, I highly recommend this book to pretty much everyone! Conduit is definitely going on my mental Shelf of Awesomeness. It's one that I will be rereading many, many times. When considering your next thriller, I'd definitely say go with this one. I sincerely doubt you'll regret it!

About Angie Martin:

Angie Martin is a lifelong writer and firmly believes that words flow through her veins. Her thriller with a paranormal twist, Conduit, was published for Kindle on March 5, 2014. In 2004, she published her first suspense novel, False Security. Since that time, False Security has been drastically re-written and the revised version is also available as an e-book for Kindle and Smashwords. She is hard at work on a horror short story, a poetry anthology, and the next Emily Monroe novel. Angie lives in California with her husband, their two beautiful cats, and their beloved dog. She has two sons who are off paving their own way in the world. She grew up in Wichita, Kansas, her hometown and where her books take place, and is still very much a Kansas girl at heart. A reader first, a writer second, Angie's favorites are Stephen King and Dean Koontz, but she reads a wide variety of books and loves to discover indie authors and books as well as write reviews of them . As a geek-extraordinaire, she loves comics and graphic novels, and also reviews those. Angie has studied criminal justice and behavior since high school, which she incorporates into her writing. If writing is her blood, then music is the air in her lungs. She has played piano since she was five, and loves writing music. A hard-core gamer, her go-to video games series are Resident Evil, Uncharted, The Walking Dead (Telltale Games), and Dead Space.