Rachael Farrington is sitting on a riverbank when young Jason Beauvale wanders into her life. The two become inseparable, but Rachael’s mother is suspicious of the boy; he’s wealthy and, for reasons of her own, she has no trust for him and his kind. As the couple become closer, Jason shares a secret: Many years earlier he witnessed his father escape, badly injured, under a hail of bullets. He doesn’t know why it happened, or if his father survived, or why his mother then chose a life in hiding, refusing to speak much of him or their past lives again. These are mysteries that haunt the boy and which he aches to resolve. In an ironic twist, as the young couple battle against those determined to end their passionate relationship, they are confronted by the very forces that lurked in Jason’s past. In the turmoil that follows, loved ones soon face abduction, imprisonment and death, as an unscrupulous organization, known as The Syndicate, seeks to fulfill a long-outstanding resolution to which Jason unwittingly becomes the key. The fight for justice falls to Rachael, but with high-ranking police corruption working to defeat her, how can she alone bring The Syndicate down?
A debut thriller tells the story of a young couple in the 1960s whose romance inadvertently stirs up an unsavory past. The author forges riveting back stories ... also smart effervescent prose. A long but laudable tale that deftly blends a love story with all the goodies of crime fiction.
From the very beginning of Chapter 1, until I read the final sentence in Chapter 49, this amazing story held my interest. In my opinion, White Ashes has all the necessary ingredients that make a story great. It has romance, hatred, fear, lust, envy, happiness, distrust, suspicion, hope, etc. This suspense-filled story has all the power to keep the reader engaged until the very end and I, for one, hated to see "White Ashes" end.For me, the writing in every chapter of this manuscript was "believable and insightful. Having read literally thousands of books since the age of eight, I feel that White Ashes is nothing short of a "masterpiece" in that the author, John D. Moulton, really was well-prepared when he sat to write this book. I sincerely feel that this "timely, captivating" love story would make a wonderful movie! Kudos to Mr. Moulton, job well-done!Reviewed by: Martha Stevens-David
An impressively written and complex saga, White Ashes is an absorbingly entertaining read from beginning to end and showcases author John D. Moulton as an exceptionally gifted novelist. Very highly recommended for community library General Fiction collections."
