By Shelley Bates
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Shelley has a B.A. in Creative Writing from the University of California at Santa Cruz and an M.A. in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University in Pennsylvania. She sold her master's thesis to a major commercial publisher after she graduated in 2002, and it subsequently became a double finalist in the 2004 National Readers Choice Awards.
Grounds to Believe, her debut novel from Steeple Hill Books and the first book in her Elect Trilogy, won the 2005 RITA Award for Best Inspirational Novel of the Year from the Romance Writers of America. The second book in the trilogy, Pocketful of Pearls, became a RITA Award finalist the following year.
Between books, Shelley enjoys playing the piano and Celtic harp, making historical costumes, and spoiling her flock of rescue chickens rotten.
The Elect Trilogy
(Based on 2x2 Experience):
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(2004, reprinted 2007)
Product Description:
Ever since a cult took his daughter, police investigator Ross Malcolm's mission has been to protect children.
So when a secretive sect is suspected of child endangerment, he's on the job, seeking evidence from the latest victim's aunt, Julia McNeill.
Though taught to fear outsiders, Julia risks everything to help Ross. But her actions unleash a dangerous chain of events. Now Ross must save not one but three lives from the evil that threatens them.…
Review:
The topic of cults and toxic churches is very appropriate in these days when many churches deviate from the Bible and follow man-made rules. Julia's church talks "church speak" but doesn't act as Jesus would, and the members ultimately care only about themselves while professing to be sacrificing the world for God. There is no room for grace, no service for others. It is all appearance, not Christ's love.
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(2005)
Product Description:
At a crossroads in his life, college professor Matthew Nicholas goes wandering. Penniless and malnourished, he comes to the back step of a remote ranch house, where a reserved young woman, Dinah Traynell, feeds him, then hires him as a handyman. Matthew soon finds himself drawn into Dinah's awful story: for years, she's been the mistress of a self-annointed, monstrously smug prophet. She can hardly imagine life outside the cult, but Matthew opens her eyes, and together they overcome their unhappy histories in this affecting story that rips away hypocrisy and replaces it with trust.
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(2006)
Product Description:
Bates (Pocketful of Pearls) sets this inspirational chick lit mystery in a small Washington town, in the middle of a sort of Christian cult. Amid myriad other strictures, the Elect only wear black and believe that only people who follow their very narrow Way will be saved. Claire Montoya grew up in the Elect, but her staid and quiet world is beginning to change, since the Shepherd (or pastor) of her church is on trial for rape.
Luke Fisher, a new, dynamic (and conveniently young and single) evangelist steps in, modernizing things and raising lots of money. When Claire goes to work for Luke at a radio station, it seems things couldn't be better. But police investigator Ray Harper throws confusion into every area of Claire's life.
Why is she so attracted to Ray, when he's clearly not saved or Elect? Why does he suspect someone in Hamilton Falls of committing fraud? And most importantly, why does he seem to better understand the ways of God, when Claire's been studying them all her life? Bates keeps this light story moving. The plot is somewhat predictable but enjoyable, and if there's a (compulsory) conversion, readers will appreciate that things are a little topsy-turvy, with spiritual insights coming from unexpected places.
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(2007)
Product Description:
When a 14-year-old girl dies in a mysterious drowning accident quickly ruled a homicide, the small town of Glendale and its tight-knit Christian community are thrown into chaos. Laurie Hale, the respected leader of the local women's Bible study group, is not only the woman who found the body but also the mother of Anna Hale-one of the prime suspects in the case. As the town rumor mill kicks into high gear, Laurie's confidence in her daughter's innocence begins to crumble. Waves of guilt threaten to take Laurie under, but "She had to trust her daughter. She had to. Otherwise their family would splinter and fall apart." As Laurie's worst fears about Anna seem to become a reality, the narrative begins to take on a soap opera feel, with Bates (A Sounding Brass) coming down heavy on the teen drama and corresponding parental angst. Though the setting, plot and characters may feel familiar to the mystery genre, readers will likely get swept up in Bates's story anyway, wanting to know just as badly as Laurie and company: who really killed Miranda Peizer?
