Featured Fiction! Shades of Truth by Sandra Orchard

MISSION: HIDDEN IDENTITY

Big city detective Ethan Reed is working deep undercover at a Christian youth detention center. The kind of place he spent some harrowing time in as a kid. Ethan’s mission: ferret out who’s recruiting resident teens for a drug ring. He expects help from the lovely, devoted director of Hope Manor. But Kim Corbett won’t tell Ethan anything— even when she’s threatened and attacked. When Ethan discovers what Kim is protecting, his guarded heart opens just a bit wider. Enough to make this the most dangerous assignment of his career.

Book 2 in series, Undercover Cops:
 Fighting for justice puts their lives—and hearts—on the line.

Excerpt:

Kim’s expression hardened. “I was thinking about the damage that rumors of a hit and run by a former resident would do to the manor. I don’t expect you to understand, Ethan. You’ve only been here a day. You couldn’t possibly care about the manor’s survival the way I do.”

The woman was as loyal and compassionate as they came. How could he have suspected her of trying to protect a drug dealer?

“I’m sorry, Kim. I was out of line. Believe me, I want to help you.” More importantly, he wanted to get her out of here before the police connected her—or him—to the shooting. The last thing he needed was a cop unraveling his cover. “Come, on, I’ll drive you home.”

In the meantime, he needed descriptions of the kids vandalizing Kim’s car, because chances were good one of them shot Blake, or had seen who did. And Ethan needed to talk to them before the wrong cop got to them. Or Kim.

Witnesses in this case had a bad habit of showing up dead.

Why I wrote the book:

I introduced Kim Corbett, the heroine of this novel, in Deep Cover as the friend of that book’s heroine. While I was revising that book, a young woman from our church shared her experiences working at a Christian youth detention center. I was enthralled by her passion for the youth, and her sincere insistence that she learned far more from them than she was teaching them. That very night I decided Kim would work at a youth detention center.

A year later I began Kim’s story. I decided the hero would work undercover at the facility and be haunted by an action in his past that had landed him in a similar facility. Unlike Kim, the hero has a negative attitude about their ability to rehabilitate the youth, even though he was once where they are. Moreover, succeeding in his mission will destroy everything Kim is working for.

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