Book Review: Kiss by Ted Dekker & Erin Healy

Kiss
By Ted Dekker & Erin Healy
336 pages
Suspense/Mystery
Published by Thomas Nelson 2009

Kiss is the latest book by Ted Dekker. He co-wrote it with Erin Healy. Unlike Dekker’s collaboration with Frank Peretti in House. I was not able to easily identify who wrote what. The writing was much more seamless.

From the Thomas Nelson Product Page:

Sometimes dying with the truth is better than living with a lie.

After a car accident puts Shauna McAllister in a coma and wipes out six months of her memory, she returns to her childhood home to recover, but her arrival is fraught with confusion. Her estranged father, a senator bidding on the White House, and her abusive stepmother blame Shauna for the tragedy, which has left her beloved brother severely brain damaged.

Leaning on Wayne Spade, a forgotten but hopeful lover who stays by her side, Shauna tries to sort out what happened that night by jarring her memory to life. Instead, she acquires a mysterious mental ability that will either lead her to truth or get her killed by the people trying to hide it. In this blind game of cat and mouse that stares even the darkest memories in the face, Shauna is sure of only one thing: if she remembers, she dies.

There is a good mystery surrounding Shauna. Why she can’t remember is just as important as what she can’t remember. Can she trust the man who says he loves her? What about the reporter that has gone into hiding? Will she ever gain the approval of her father? As she seeks the answers to these questions, she finds that she has developed a special kiss. She uses this ability to find out what happened. She doesn’t always use it wisely either.

I only had one problem with the story. I think it would have been better to have her father run for governor or senator instead of president of the USA. The security and media attention surrounding a presidential candidate and his family are intense. I think that many of the things that Shauna found out would have been discovered by the media or opposing party before her father would have gotten the nomination.

I think that this is Ted Dekker’s best stand-alone story. It reminds me of Blink which is on my all-time favorite list. I look forward to Dekker and Healy’s next book, Burn, which is due out in January 2010.

If you would like to read the first two chapters of this book, you can visit the official books site: http://www.thelostkiss.com/.

Rating: 4.9 out of 5 stars