Events by Eventful
A spellbinding example of a writer at the top of her prose
By Kane X. Faucher
Scene Magazine
London's Entertainment, Arts and News Paper
November 8-21, 2007
Dylan Foster has elected of her own volition to follow the wending labyrinth of mysteries and intrigues surrounding the kidnapping of a young neighbourhood child. As the police turn up no substantive clues in fi nding the child, Dylan relies on a constellation of unlikely sources to aid her in the quest for truth. Chilling coincidences and the unsettling dreams of a six-year-old girl, Christine Zocci, lead Dylan on an epic and shadowy journey filled with bizarre twists and feints as she unravels an even deeper mystery. As opposed to other "whodunit" books of this genre, the tale is imbued with a more intensive psychological focus, involving haunting symbols and the paranormal connection between dreams and reality.
Melanie Wells employs sinuous, rolling description in this suspenseful drama. With a natural flair for dialogue, My Soul to Keep is a spellbinding example of a writer at the top of her prose, and an exemplary highlight that just may outshine her other offerings such as The Soul Hunter and When the Day of Evil Comes. As in her other two previous novels, Wells truly excels in writing characters of profound depth and in providing her readers with a mystifying and sinister atmosphere that truly compels. Moments of levity occur throughout to give the story a strong sense of pace and realism, allowing readers to catch their breath when the macabre richness of the tale becomes vertiginous. This interplay of shadow and light effectively make this book a kind of literary chiaroscuro, and will provide delight to those readers who wish to be swept up by the intriguing and sometimes shadowy details of the human mind.
"The Soul Hunter" Will Capture Your Imagination by Mike Parker Monday, 19 June 2006 (www.buddyhollywood.com)Dallas-based psychotherapist turned novelist, Melanie Wells, knows how to weave a tale of human frailty laced with demonic treachery around a backdrop of such mundane reality that you can’t help but be sucked into the story.The Soul Hunter is the second volume of her “Day of Evil†series, and it picks up a couple of years after psychology professor Dylan Foster’s initial encounter with the fallen angel blithely known as Peter Terry. As the story opens Dylan is primping and fluffing, getting ready for a hot date when she hears a thump at the door. Expecting her knight in shining armor, she discovers instead that a bloody ax has been left on her doorstep. Peter Terry, it seems, has returned with a vengeance.No shrinking violet who waits for the men in her life to fix all her problems, Dylan goes on the offensive. This may be spiritual warfare, but it’s being played out in the natural and Dylan has no intention of going down without a fight. Drawing on her research experience she tracks down the victim of the ax murderer, a sad and defiant young stripper named Drew Sturdivant. The deeper she digs into the young woman’s life, the more bizarre, and dangerous, the hunt becomes. Peter Terry’s fingerprints, if a demon has fingerprints, are all over this case.Ms. Wells has created an entirely believable universe where Good and Evil battle for the souls of men – believable because the incidences portrayed are all too real. We see them on the news. Sometimes we live them ourselves. But she also manages to inject a healthy dose of humor and pathos into the story, keeping it from spiraling down into an unwieldy mass of blind terror.Yeah, The Soul Hunter is scary. And funny. And intense. You might find yourself looking under your bed after you read it, but then you’ll laugh at yourself. After all, everyone knows monsters live in the closet.
Melanie Wells speaks on her novels, career and life.
When the Day of Evil Comes
Hotter than the Eyes of Hell...
School is back in session, but for psychology professor Dylan Foster, the promise of a new semester is dying in the heat of the late Texas summer. She is about to get a crash course in spiritual warfare — and a glimpse of her own small but significant role in a vast eternal conflict. But when the dust settles, will anything be left of her life as she knows it? First, there is the bizarre encounter with a ghastly pale stranger. Then her mother's engagement ring turns up — the same ring that was buried with her mother two years before.
Soon, Dylan's carefully ordered world is unraveling, one thread at a time. A former patient accuses her of impropriety, putting her career in jeopardy. A suicide plunges her deeper into shadow. Relationships with colleagues start to crumble. And then there are those flies in her house...
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A native of the Texas panhandle, Melanie Wells went to Southern Methodist University on a music scholarship (she's a fiddle player) and later completed graduate degrees at Our Lady of the Lake University and Dallas Theological Seminary. She has been in private practice as a therapist since 1992 and is the founder and director of LifeWorks counseling associates, a collaborative community of creative therapists, in Dallas, Texas. (www.wefixbrains.com) When the Day of Evil Comes is the first of a three-book series. She lives and writes in Dallas.