07/24/2023
Check out this incredible review on Betty Vaughn's Bear Tracks.
Dear Betty,
I completed reading BEAR TRACKS this past week and thought it would be fun to let you know why/how!
First of all, your plot dynamics are so well thought out that it is a joy to observe how smoothly (and threateningly!) the plot moves from one crisis to another, but never in a grim, gray manner; in one case, as the leadership team of POTUS, Dianna, and their attendants needs to move from the White House out to their transportation to Wilmington, NC, for some necessary R & R, they dress in outlandish disguises, entertaining the reader as well as the tourists visiting the President’s home—and escaping scot-free! So, in that turn of the plot, you bring in staging, costuming, and humor on a grand scale—something totally NEW to camouflage the dangers on every side! Plot is a key skill of yours, and the reader admires it wherever it takes him/her! Brava!
Yet your writing also appears to smoothly guide us to intermittent scenes of love and kind repartee between the married couple in the story, Quint and Lila, lowering the stress & natural anxiety that “enters in” at intervals of threat and possible loss of life among those the married partners are asked to protect. Thus, unlike many, many other novels, the scenes relieved by talk and affection between a married couple serve to relieve the gathered tensions of threats on every hand, and what a fine relief it is, too—just in time, often! So Betty, hooray to you for your rare ability to know when to change the dynamics of the story with a “soft and thoughtful” scene between the two principals, then ramp up tension, secrecy, and anxiety again just when the reader is rested and ready for some fighting to the death!
Keep writing, now! Exercise your gifts and abilities again to entertain with refreshing plots in humor, sheer danger, and moments of repartee—and many thanks for sharing your lively BEAR TRACKS with this ready reader!
With best regards and many thanks,
Linda Hobson
Dr. Linda Hobson is an emeritus professor of Literature from UNC
Bear Tracks (Quint Cord Novel)
