I can never be sure what an author is thinking when preparing to write a story but, whatever was going through Linda S. Glaz' mind when she sat down to write, Fear is Louder than Words, is the stuff which gives birth to my favorite types of stories.

I enjoy stories which include Christian themes, romance, mystery and suspense; this book has it all, without preaching to the reader in any shape or form.

Rochelle Cassidy has a backstory; her family was killed in an auto accident when she was a little girl. She grows up to become a radio talk show host who isn't afraid to voice her thoughts - which earns her a few enemies along the way, one even desperate enough to try to kill her.

Saved from an uncertain fate by hockey player, Ed McGrath, Rochelle begins to feel more comfortable when he's around and tries to push him away. She has been burned in the relationship department before and is also worried about Ed hanging around out of a sense of obligation.

As the story unfolds, Rochelle sinks her teeth into a story which seems refreshing at first, at the cutting edge of technology, until two events make her question whether everything is as it seems.

By the end of the story, certain connections are made and questions are answered. Even so, in my mind one question remains: was the suicide by one character really a suicide, or was it murder? The words spoken just before the death cause me to believe the latter.

Fear is Louder than Words is a story about love and romance, about finding justice. However, it also deals with the subject of forgiveness as Rochelle struggles to forgive her attacker, who has become her stalker, even as fear echoes throughout the corridors of her mind.

I applaud the author for tackling the subject in such a way, showing through the picture she has painted with her words that forgiveness is, indeed, a painful and time-consuming process - that it doesn't always happen as instantly as we would like. It requires work, dedication and perseverance to see it through because it is so easy to give up, yet the end result then would be a life lived with bitterness and regret.

I will definitely read other books by this author, hoping for an equally remarkable story. I literally lived and breathed this story until I finished reading the last page. Truth be told, it still weighs heavily on my mind.

Linda S. Glaz' Fear is Louder than Words is definitely one of my top picks for 2016. If you would like to learn more about the book, visit its page on Amazon.