Fiction Addict

Genre: Suspense

Publisher: Zondervan

Publication Date: June 2009

Jake Chism’s Review:

Kaycee Raye is scared of…well…everything. All of her life she has struggled with paranoia and irrational fears, something she believes was passed down from her troubled mother. Kaycee has found a way to deal with the fear by writing a column that has taken on a life of its own and has turned Kaycee into a household name. Up until now the column has been both fun and therapeutic as she has found a way to connect with readers who share many of the same fears and experiences. Unfortunately for Kaycee, someone out there is watching her and waiting for just the right moment to unleash the greatest fear she has ever known.

To say that Brandilyn Collins is prolific would be an understatement. You would think that a writer who cranks out a novel every few months would sooner or later hit the wall and lose their edge. It’s bound to happen right? Guess again. If Collins has proven anything to me it’s that she is not only a master of her craft, but there literally seems to be no end to the depth of her talent.

Exposure has many of the elements that we have come to expect from Collins: intensity, tension, high-caliber suspense, and engaging mystery. It’s all there and once again works well. We are also treated to a unique story telling device that really propels the narrative along. While I figured out the twist early on, never did the story lose steam in my mind. Collins knows how to grab readers early on and she never gives us a moment to even consider letting go.

Where Brandilyn Collins always excels is her ability to bring us strong spiritual insight through what her characters experience. Many fans will be able to relate and sympathize with Kaycee’s struggles in this story and will be moved by her journey to overcome. Collins once again delivers a pulse pounding story that will have you on the edge of your seat and will leave you desperate for more.

Tim George’s Review:

Willmore, Kentucky is the home of two fine institutions: Asbury College and Seminary and Bradilyn Collins. The first is dedicated to training men and women in the Wesleyan tradition and the other to scaring us witless and then pointing us back to the only One who can truly overcome evil. With Exposure, Collins carries us to a new level of psychological suspense as we follow the personal struggle of one woman with her greatest enemy: fear.

Kaycee Raye writes a column for the Willmore newspaper in which she shares her ongoing struggle with countless phobias. Though the column has helped many with their own hidden fears it has labeled Kaycee as somewhat of a crack-pot with the local police. That, and her numerous calls reporting dangers that, as far as they can tell, only exist in Kaycee’s mind. When the young daughter of a friend turns up missing, Kaycee finds herself on a collision course with her own fears and something so dark and hidden neither she nor you will figure it out until the very end.

Collins follows a great tradition of Hitchcock and Koontz in allowing the reader to paint the picture of evil without doing it for them. It doesn’t take decapitations and gallons of gore to leave one wondering if they forgot to lock the door before they went to bed. Well crafted words and a creative mind can do that job quite nicely. Consider this scene from Exposure and draw your own conclusions …

Finally she rolled over and lay still, spent. Her eyes fixed upon the far wall, unseeing.

Something shifted inside her.

At the center of her soul where hope used to live, a black dot appeared. Deeper. Eating toward the outside. The hopes that had guided Lorraine’s life began to crumble into the pit and disappear … falling until the darkness swallowed them up …

From the bottom of that black hole she felt the throb of a new suffocating spirit.

Fear.

(Don’t miss our interview with Brandilyn Collins).