Rating: 
Summary: exhilarating romantic suspense
Review: In 1977 St. Louis Sam and Maggie Cochrane live the American dream, loving each other and their little girl. However, Maggie seeks something extra beyond being a loving wife and mother so she attends classes at the community college. There she meets Soloman and his cult of followers The People of Joy. She runs away with six year old Jade to join Soloman's followers. Two years later she is dead from an overdose and Jade is sold to pediophiles.Over the next two decades a lonely Sam becomes a successful businessman, but finds no sign of his family until friends on vacation see a portrait of Maggie. They inform Sam who asks his friend former cop Luke Kelly to investigate. Luke learns Maggie is dead, but tracks down Jade in New Orleans. He brings Jade and her companion Raphael to meet Sam. As Raphael is dying from AIDS due to his days as a child prostitute, Jade and Luke fall in love while Sam tries to become a father to his beloved adult daughter. However, someone learns of Jade's return and is worried that his career may end if the scandal of his using her as a child hooker surfaces. OUT OF THE DARK is an exhilarating romantic suspense tale that emphasizes the family drama over the intrigue. The story line is at a superb level of quality when Sam and Jade meets and when Luke tries to reach out to his beloved. When a hired killer enters the plot, the character study takes an unnecessary back seat. Still fans of the human drama will appreciate Jade's Mount Everest climb OUT OF THE DARK. Harriet Klausner
Rating: 
Summary: great book
Review: it was great but i dunno about you guys but i was more inlove with rafael than with luke with as inlove that one can be to a fictional character? :(
Rating: 
Summary: Pass on this one, there are better Sala books out there!
Review: Maggie Cochrane steals away in the night with her young daughter, Jade, to join the cult known as the People of Joy. Within two years Maggie is dead and Jade is being used as a child prostitute by the leader of the group, Soloman. Her father, Sam, has never stopped looking for her and completely by a fluke he finds out where she is and he sends his friend, Luke, to find her. Luke brings Jade and her companion Rafe back to St. Louis and instead of a happy homecoming, a killer learns of her return and plots his revenge... I've been a long-time fan of this author and I really wanted to enjoy this book, but I couldn't. I don't have a problem with the subject matter rather my issues with this book stem from the improbable romance and poor research that was completed. The romance between Jade and Luke felt forced. How can a man fall in love with a woman he doesn't know, whom he has barely spoken to and she can't stand to be touched? He can't. They have no shared experiences nor common ground yet he's falling in love with her within a day of meeting her? Second - the research is off the mark with regards to police procedures. SWAT teams do not allow street officers to enter a house with them. That is a really good way for a street officer to get killed as they don't train with the SWAT team. Also - when called to the house of a dangerous person, street officers don't pull up and make themselves known as this book portrays. They park down the street and come in on foot under some sort of cover. I had numerous other problems such as the tone felt 'preachy' with regards to religion and some of Jade's motivations are unclear and consequently she comes off as wishy-washy at times. I'd recommend you skip this book and pick up some of Sala's older work such as Chance McCall or Jackson Rule (writing as Dinah McCall)
Rating:
Summary: Shocking but great
Review: My favorite Sharon Sala book so far. I cried and cried at the end. It's terrible to think that these kind of abusers really existand that mothers can have so little sense.
Rating:
Summary: confused by confusion
Review: Normally I don't pay much attention to reviews because they are, after all, someone's honest opinion and as a writer, I will be the first person to allow it to be said, whether it's positive or negative regarding my work. But I happened to notice that two or three of the last reviews posted kept mentioning something about the date of the Vietnam War having been over by 1977 and that I referred to it as ongoing. I'm sorry, but I beg to differ. The phrase I used was "The country HAD BEEN at war for years..." Not WAS. Never did I infer or refer to it still being active. As to my illiteracy, my mother, grandmother, and 9 memembers of my immediate family, who are or were teachers, (I chose to write books, not teach from them) would certainly take exception with that. I learned to read when I was four and it is still my favorite pastime.
I will not defend the subject matter of the story to someone who was offended, for it is a dark subject and I never intended it to be anything else but despicable. What I take to heart and to my bed each night, are the prayers for the MANY readers who's lives mirrored my heroine's life at one level or another, and who've contacted me. It was written for them. They were the true victims and they were not offended - they were both moved and thankful that I dealt with such an ugly subject (one that had happened to them in varying degrees) with sensitivity and honesty. As a writer, I ask for nothing more.
Rating:
Summary: Tear Jerker
Review: Out Of The Dark by Sharon Sala is a compeling story that had me glued to my seat from beginning to end! Forget what the jerk from Salisbury Maine had to say about this super book, buy it and judge for youself, you won't be disappointed!
Rating:
Summary: From beginning to end I was glued to my seat!
Review: Out Of The Dark by Sharon Sala is a compeling story that had me glued to my seat from beginning to end! Forget what the jerk from Salisbury Maine had to say about this super book, buy it and judge for youself, you won't be disappointed!
Rating: 
Summary: Don't miss this read
Review: Sharon Sala is on my Must-Read list.I love this book...top-notch romantic suspense with great characters that moved me to tears.I couldn't put it down.
Rating:
Summary: Light on romance and suspense
Review: Sharon Sala's new romantic suspense is light on both romance and suspense, but two of her characters stand out with amazing depth. Jade, the lead of the story, and Raphael, her friend, share a convincing, complex relationship, built by the bonds of their past. If the lead character of Luke Kelly had been as carefully drawn as Raphael, and if his interaction with Jade has been as deep, it might be believable that the two end up together. As it is, her healing happens much too quickly to be believable, and there's so little substance to Luke that one wonders what she possibly sees in him. Their relationship is improbable, at best. By page 142, Luke is falling in love with Jade, despite hardly knowing her. So far, she's been alternately clingy and prickly--not much of a basis for a relationship. At this point in the book, she can't even stand for him to touch her, so what makes his heart pitter-patter for her? Despite its flaws, this book has memorable sections. Ms. Sala confronts head-on a topic one doesn't generally find in women's fiction. She handles child sexual abuse, lingering fear, and trying to heal all with grace, class, and sensitivity. Some passages of the book made me teary-eyed. I'd say this book might have been better as a straight suspense, rather than augmenting it with a romance, but that side of the plot falls flat too. The villains are predictable, the tension is non-existent, and the threads are woven together with too much coincidence to be plausible. One thing that really bothered me was the scenes where Luke confronts the antagonists. Regardless of his past as a cop, no police station would have let him interrogate the men. All in all, this is an average read, but lacking some of the componenents that would make it a fantastic book. Sadly, Ms. Sala seems to have joined the assembly line of authors producing romantic suspense, simply because it's popular, and not because it showcases her talent. Look for her older books if you want to see her shine.
Rating:
Summary: Loved it!
Review: This book was beautifully written, and although the ending was a little drawn out, it was well worth it. The trajic history of the characters is heartbreaking and I thought it was very realistic the way the characters acted. It was sad and happy both and the complex relationships were wonderful to see develop. I definitely recommend this book!
| 
