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Location: United States

Member Since: June 02, 2013

Gene Raymond

The Ghosts of Fort Ord on June 12, 2013

Every professional author knows that to write a good novel he or she must accomplish two things. First, the story must be a complex one — to satisfy readers who now demand much more than just a casual killing of time — and second, it must be told simply enough for the complexity to work its magic. In The Ghosts of Fort Ord, Karen Truesdell Riehl has satisfied those requirements and then some, as she tells the story of Olivia and Michael Bauer from their first meeting to the birth of their twin sons. At first glance they are an ordinary couple with ordinary children. At least that's what they seem to be, but with a surehanded use of foreshadowing, Ms. Riehl lets us see just enough of the Bauers to wonder. There will be no "spoiler alerts" in this review, so suffice it to say that when Michael's job takes them to what used to be Fort Ord, on the Monterey Peninsula, the word "ordinary" soon becomes part of their past. Ms. Riehl does a masterful job of building the suspense to a point where we don't really want to see what's coming but we are truly unable to stop looking. Her narrative ability and true to life dialogue make the characters come alive, so much so that at the end of the book I couldn't stop thinking about them and how they will manage to handle what's left of their lives. I enjoyed this book immensely and hope that Ms. Riehl is already working on her next one.