Walking Away plunges you into the misty Blue Ridge Mountains, where danger and hope walk side by side. In the quiet town of Sylva, an unfamiliar woman arrives carrying secrets she wonât share and scars she can barely hide. Haunted and vigilant, she prays this close-knit community might offer the safety sheâs been desperate to find.
Sheriff Burke Scottâs instincts are as sharp as everâand when his K-9 partner, Rosie, senses something amiss with the townâs newest arrival, Burke refuses to ignore the signs. The stranger flinches at headlights. She tenses at every shadow. And when a mysterious black SUV begins prowling her dead-end road, itâs clear trouble is closing in fast.
As tension escalates, Burke must decide if he can protect her from a threat that seems to have no limitsâand she must decide whether she can trust him enough to let down her guard before itâs too late.
Walking Away plunges you into the misty Blue Ridge Mountains, where danger and hope walk side by side. In the quiet town of Sylva, an unfamiliar woman arrives carrying secrets she wonât share and scars she can barely hide. Haunted and vigilant, she prays this close-knit community might offer the safety sheâs been desperate to find.
Sheriff Burke Scottâs instincts are as sharp as everâand when his K-9 partner, Rosie, senses something amiss with the townâs newest arrival, Burke refuses to ignore the signs. The stranger flinches at headlights. She tenses at every shadow. And when a mysterious black SUV begins prowling her dead-end road, itâs clear trouble is closing in fast.
As tension escalates, Burke must decide if he can protect her from a threat that seems to have no limitsâand she must decide whether she can trust him enough to let down her guard before itâs too late.
Darcy
Darcy never ignored her instinctsâuntil tonight.
The campground lay under an unsettling stillness as twilight fell. Hours earlier, it had pulsed with laughter and dance-offs to a retro playlist blasting from a Bluetooth speaker. Now, an eerie calm hovered over the pond, the sun sinking behind the ragged mountains.
An owlâs cry broke the quietâlonely, hollow, a warning drifting through the trees. Even the cicadas had gone silent, their absence pressing in around her. The ripples on the water seemed uneasy, shivering in the fading light.
She curled into the Adirondack chair, pressing her knees to her chest, fingertips tingling as goosebumps trailed up her arms. Almost without thinking, her fingers brushed the Glock .380 tucked in her belt bag.
Traveling alone had sounded adventurous when sheâd mapped her route, but her best friendâs voice echoed: Never ignore your instincts, Darcy. If something feels wrong, it probably is.
A deep voice cut through the quiet. âBeautiful here, huh?â
She jumped, her foot catching on the uneven ground. Whoever he was, heâd come too close without a sound. âYes, it is,â she managed.
âIâm sorry I startled you.â His tone was casual, but his eyes lingered too long. âDidnât mean to interruptâyou looked deep in thought.â
âI was,â she said, steadying her voice.
âJoe Hastings.â He extended a massive, callused hand.
âDarcy.â Her hand felt small inside his.
âJust Darcy?â His gaze probed.
She smiled thinly. âYes. Just Darcy.â
At least six-two and broad-shouldered, Joe wore flannel and jeans that didnât match the campgroundâs cheerful vibe. Cigarette smoke clung to him, though he wasnât holding one.
âAre you staying here?â she asked, glancing past him. Across the pond, an old pickup sat with rust-eaten fenders, travel stickers plastered across the tailgate, its dome light glowing faintlyâas if the door hadnât latched.
He nodded toward his camper. âHow about you?â
âYes,â she said lightly. âBut Iâm leaving in the morning.â
âShame.â His gaze drifted over her and lingered too long. He didnât move. âWhere to next?â
Darcy tightened her grip on her bag strap. âOh, just bouncing around. Havenât decided yet.â The lie slid easily. She tilted her chin toward the trees. âLooks like rain. Better button things up before it hits.â
Joe squinted, then gave a slow nod that didnât feel like agreement.
She moved quickly to her Airstream Bambi at Camp Spot 3, grateful sheâd selected a pull-through for a swift exit. A final sweep of the pond revealed Joe was gone. Yet nerves prickledâshe couldnât shake the sense of being watched.
She yanked the blackout shades down. The night vanished. The click of the locks wrapped the Airstream around her like a cocoonâneat, bright, hers alone. Yet the thin aluminum walls felt fragile; one hard shove, and theyâd give. This was her first week on the road, her first time relying entirely on herself.
Sheâd already seen every kind of travelerâfamilies around fires, women solo, friends laughing into the dark. But Joe Hastings cast a different kind of shadow.
She folded jeans, snapped shut the makeup bag. Toothbrush, cap on, lined up by the sink. Each task a silent countdown to dawn.
The Glock rested on the ledge beside the bed.
When she stepped out to fold the table and crank in the awning, she paused at the threshold, scanning left, then right. The night pressed close. She forced herself outside anyway.
A sharp snap.
She went still. âJoe!â she blurted. âYou scared the life out of me.â
He lifted his hands in mock surrender, a half-smile on his lips. âSorry. Wanted to see if you wanted a steak.â
âNo, thanks.â Her words snapped out, lips barely moving as she retreated a step.
âOkay then. Have a good evening.â He lingered under the awning light before turning away. âIf you need me tonight,â he said, âjust yell real loud.â
Darcy forced a polite smile, though her thoughts snapped, Yeah, Joe. I need you to leave me alone.
Back inside, she checked the locks twice.
Later, as she tried to sleep, the awning creaked in an uneasy wind, its canvas flapping like distant footsteps circling the trailer.
She told herself it was nothing.
Then a shadow moved across the window shade.
She froze, every nerve straining.
A faint sound followed: the door handle. Testing.
Darcy gasped, air trapped in her lungs. The handle jiggled once.
âHello?â she called softly.
It jiggled again.
âJoe,â she whispered.
Nothing.
âJoe?â
The silence stretched until her skin prickled. Then, soft and mocking through the door: âJust making sure youâre locked up tight.â
Cold spread through her limbs, her focus tunneling on the sound. She tightened her grip on the gun.
The trailer shuddered as footsteps retreated into the darkâslow, deliberate, as if he wanted her to hear every one.
When silence finally returned, it wasnât relief she felt. It was the certainty heâd be back.
She sank onto the edge of the bed, the Glock in her hand. She just sat there, the trailer gone quiet around her.
Was this right? The answer was yes. But yes didnât make the loneliness easier.
The tears came quietly, slipping down before she could stop them.
It would all be better when she got thereâthe place her grandmother had called home.
She didnât know what waited for her thereâonly that it was the one place she believed in.
Escaping a physically abusive marriage, Caitlin disappears without a trace with the help of her best friend. Her husband, Jason, is wealthy, influential, and well-connected, so attempts by the police to hold him accountable have failed to yield any results. Adopting a new identity, Caitlin creates a new life for herself in a new state, but she knows that it won't be long before her ex discovers where she is hiding and comes after her.
Walking Away by Lesa Renae is a blend of romantic suspense and domestic thriller. At the risk of revealing a minor spoiler, one of my favorite aspects of the book is that at first, the story is told in a dual timeline, portraying Caitlin prior to her escape and after she has settled under her new identity in alternating chapters. I found this to be unique, and it was an engaging way to explain the history behind her disappearance while building up the setting and introducing pivotal characters.
Told in third person from multiple points of view, the reader experiences the story from the perspective of Caitlin, her friends, and even Jason and his associates. Unfortunately, I felt that the frequent shifts in perspective limited my ability to connect with the main characters on an emotional level. Furthermore, sub-sections were titled with character names, presumably to identify that a section was meant to be told from a certain character's point of view, but then multiple people's perspectives would appear in those sections, rendering the titling pointless. Readers can discern who is the focus of each chapter or section based on context clues, so I found this to be both distracting and frustrating.
Overall, I enjoyed the plot and writing style. The ending sets up the plot of the next book in the Vanishing series, and I look forward to continuing the series to find out how the next "vanishing" is resolved and follow the lives of the characters I met in Walking Away. This book would make a great beach read and would be enjoyed by adult audiences who enjoy redemptive domestic thrillers with a romantic subplot.