Flee the Night: Team Hope Series #1

By Susan May Warren

Description:

From Publishers Weekly
In this first installment of a three-book series featuring a search and rescue team, shaky writing undermines a promising premise. After years of aliases, international spy Lacey Galloway Montgomery holds the key to a return to personal stability in the Ex-6 encryption/decryption program she's developed. Lacey hopes it will revolutionize the National Security Agency and rehabilitate her reputation as a traitor who allegedly murdered her husband, John. The beautiful, widowed MIT Ph.D.'s heart, however, has always belonged to Jim Micah, the "Iceman," John's best high school buddy. Micah is about to come into her life again, along with his search and rescue team, to help recover Lacey's kidnapped daughter and deliver the Ex-6 safely into patriotic hands. However, Micah has his own set of problems, including keeping the torch he's always carried for Lacey hidden ("she'd gotten under his skin. Like a virus. Or an old football injury"). Reflects Micah: "A smart man would expunge her the second she started tunneling through the soft tissue of his emotions." The idea of a search and rescue team is intriguing, but the novel's pacing is slowed by characters' repetitive self-reflection, theology discussions and flashbacks to high school life. And the rich, specific details of Warren's scenes come at the price of occasional overwriting. (Mar.)
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Product Description
Ex-CIA operative Lacey Montgomery is a liar, a murderer, and a fugitive--or is she? Former Green Beret Jim Micah must either prove her innocence or bring her to justice. Too bad his heart won't stay out of the way. With a little girl's life and national secrets hanging in the balance, Jim and Lacey must trust God to help them flee the secrets of the night.

Why the author wrote this book:

Second chances. A fresh start. New beginnings. These words fragranced my mind as our family began a new life in America this year. We built our first house, started attending new schools and a new church. Suddenly we had a clean slate, free from the expectations and boundaries that had defined our lives as missionaries.

It was during these first steps that I came across Isaiah 61. It’s the same passage Jesus Christ quotes in Luke 4:18-19. “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Isaiah 61 continues with: “To bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.”

These verses intrigued me. Probably because leaving Russia felt in many ways like walking out of a dungeon. Yes, we’d loved ministry there. Yes, I’d chosen that life. But Russia can be a dark, oppressive place, where you have to search for light and hope. More than that, I felt boxed in by expectations, unable to envision a different future. As we settled into our new community, I felt able to take a free, full breath for the first time in years. Slowly the fear and tension began to slough off me, and I saw a change taking place in my heart and my countenance.

I began to dig through Isaiah 61, to study the meanings of the words, and salvation took on new shades. I’ve been a Christian for over two decades, but seeing from a new viewpoint the depth of the transformation Christ has performed in my life through the years overwhelmed me. You see, I’d been a girl longing to change the world. In doing so, however, I found myself in my own sort of “prison”.

Christ, however, is about changing me, through my world, as well as His Word. And in bringing me home, He’s opened a new chapter of understanding who He is. God cares not only for the lose masses, but for the needs of Susan May Warren and her family.

In many ways, I am walking free for the first time. It makes me long to become that “planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.”

Lacey is a woman who wanted to change the world. Because of that, she chose a man who embodied adventure. She found out that life wasn’t the world she’d dreamed of, despite the fact that God had used it to mold her into the woman she would someday be. Sadly, Lacey felt she’d walked so far away from God, there was no return. More than that, she felt imprisoned by her choices.

We often create prisons for ourselves through high expectations, idealism, even the belief that God can’t –or shouldn’t– redeem our poor choices.

The good news is that Christ came to set us free. He’s the author of fresh starts, and He changes us from the inside out– our situation, our attitudes, even our appearance. Complete transformation.

The more I think about it, the more it take my breath away

They cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress. He brought them out of darkness and the deepest gloom and broke away their chains. Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love (Psalm 107:13-15).

Thank you for reading Flee The Night. I look forward to sharing other Team Hope adventures with you. Most of all, I pray that you would find a fresh start today with the Savior who’s come to set you free.