Unveiled

Terri Blackstock has delivered a number of best selling series including Restoration, Cape Refuge, Northpoint 911, and Suncoast Chronicles. Over the past few months she has stepped away from that formula to offer two excellent stand-alone novels in a row. First, in Double Minds, Blackstock carried us into the world of the Christian recording industry. Now, Intervention opens up a world every parent fears and too many have experienced.

Barbara Covington is a widow doing her best to raise two teenage children without their father. After years of fighting to save her daughter from her own destructive drug habit, Barbara calls in an interventionist from a high priced drug rehab center in Atlanta. What begins as a mother’s fears and prayers for her daughter’s rehabilitation in a distant city transforms into an unbelievable nightmare when the interventionist is found murdered and Emily, her daughter, missing.

This is the story of one woman’s determination to find her daughter and prove her innocence. Whatever the cost. At every step I asked myself, what would I do as a parent to save my child in a similar situation? Be careful before you answer. What we learn from Barbara and Emily is that no family crisis occurs at some convenient time in some easily solved manner. Well meaning people sometimes offer the tritest words of, what they mistakenly think is encouragement. Sometimes it feels as though no one understands and that the heavens have grown silent – for both parent and child.

The characters are people struggling with their faith in the crucible of extraordinary circumstances. Knowing that the author has personally worked in ministries to women just like Emily only makes the story more compelling. Intervention is an intensely personal and spiritual novel; one that quite possibly will garner the label of “preachy” by some. As far as this reviewer is concerned it is a message that needs to be heard by all parents and their children. We are all works in progress in need of the ultimate Interventionist. Thank you, Terri, for reminding us of that truth.

Intervention by Terri Blackstock
Reviewed by Tim George
Genre: Suspense
Publisher: Zondervan
Publication Date: September 2009