Distant Echoes

A Christian romance is full of danger and lessons of forgiveness. The main character works with dolphins in Hawaii. She falls for a navy officer who has enlisted her help in trying to uncover threats to the base. You can't help but like her while getting to know the people surrounding them and their emotional baggage.

Colleen Coble is probably one of the best Christian fiction writers I've come across. She has created real, believable characters who don't seem like the two-dimensional caricatures I usually come across in these kinds of books. Reading about these fully realized characters and the well-plotted, suspenseful story were a treat for me, plus it's my favorite setting, Hawaii. I'm looking forward to reading the next book in the Aloha Reef series, which should be arriving at my library for me soon.

If you want to get away to Hawaii and enjoy the ocean and swim with the dolphins, then you will enjoy reading 'Distant Echoes'. If you like to solve a mystery with a little suspense and romance thrown in, then this series is one you will want to read. I enjoyed my time in and out of the water in Hawaii and especially enjoyed getting to know Nani, the dolphin.

The book begins with an explosion off the island of Kauai, when a missile testing goes extremely bad. Navy security officer , Jesse Matthews, will need to figure out what went wrong. He will need the help of Kaia, a dolphin researcher, who is working on a groundbreaking communication project with her beloved dolphins. These two don't exactly hit it off at first, but they will learn show more to lean on each other as danger seems to be lurking just around the corner. I liked the way this author did her research and was very interested in the research being done with the dolphins. Looking forward to reading book two in this series, 'Black Sands'. show less

I really enjoyed this book. Her writing style keeps the book moving. She gave a sense of the culture and atmosphere without slowing the action down for a lot of description. I really enjoyed the presence of the dolphins and their help in the solution. The romance development did not overwhelm the rest of the story and was believable. I also enjoyed the presence of faith without an obligatory conversion or overwhelming preachiness.

However, I am not sure the couple should have been ready to get married by the end of the book. They had just discovered their feelings and needed some serious courting outside of the dramatic situation. This is the first book of a trilogy, so she could have given the romance a little more time to develop.

I show more also think the story was a little too busy. She put in too many problems to solve, which didn't allow them all to get enough story time. This made spots feel a bit contrived. Especially at the end, where Kaia's forgiveness was forced to happen and Jesse's resolution really did not get story time.

Again, I want to say, even with the minor issues, this was a very good book. show less

Plot Summary: What happens, When & Where, Central Characters, Major Conflicts
Kaia loves her life in Hawaii and her work with dolphins--especially Nani. Nani even helps her rescue several people when an errant missle hits a pleasure boat. Unfortunately they weren't able to save her cousin Laban who owned the boat. Kaia then gets involved with Jesse, a navy security officer who is convinced recent security breaches at the base are connected to the missle mishap. He wants Kaia to patrol the waters with her dolphin. She reluctantly agrees and they are off on an adventure that involves a suspicious Hawaii secessionist group, Jesse's neice Heidi, a new boss who wants to turn the research facility into a theme park, and the reappearance of show more Kaia's mother, who abadoned her when she was a little girl. Oh, and a romance between Kaia and Jesse.


Style Characterisics: Pacing, clarity, structure, narrative devices, etc.
A lot going on, the suspense and the dolphin angle are very good. The characters are believable but not extremely well developed. The plot moves along at a good clip, though there are lots of tangents. The point of view shifts from character to character but there is no problem following the story. Some parts I found unbelievable--the ability of the search dog to track a character taken away in a car. The main characters go through a lot and I felt that the exploration of their emotional response was minimal. There is a good message about forgiveness and the Grandfather character is memorable. The romance seemed superficial as well.


How Good is it?
A good romantic suspense and escapist read, especially for the reader who loves animals and the culture of Hawaii. show less

FROM AUDIOBOOKS.COM It feels like paradise, but deadly secrets lie beneath the waves off the coast of Kauai. Sometimes Kaia Oana thinks her dolphins are more humane than humans. As a mammal intelligence researcher, Kaia has learned a thing or two about the goodness and intelligence of dolphins-and as a natural scientist in close proximity to weapons developers, she's learned a thing or two about humans as well. When a tourist catamaran explodes off the coast of the Hawaiian island of Kauai, Kaia and her trained dolphin, Nani, rush to aid the search and rescue effort. After hours of searching, an exhausted Kaia is pulled from the water by Lieutenant Commander Jesse Matthews of the U.S. Navy. Lieutenant Matthews is accustomed to following show more protocol-and a civilian-dolphin rescue is not typical operating procedure. But when his colleagues ignore the possibility that missile research had something to do with the sunken catamaran, Jesse recruits Kaia and her dolphin to help him conduct his own investigation. The olive-skinned mermaid had impressed him-in more ways than one. As their rogue investigation takes them into the waters surrounding the sunken boat-and their personal chemistry takes them into other uncharted territory-Kaia and Jesse discover that they have become targets themselves. Someone doesn't want them snooping around that wreckage . . . someone desperate enough to kill. show less

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