A young woman seeks refuge and anonymity in a small mountain town as she gets entangled in multiple homicide cases in Lewis’ debut suspense novel.

A 29-year-old accounting executive has been framed for the murder of Michael Leeds, a junior accountant at her Chicago firm, as well as the crime of embezzlement. She knows the identity of the real culprit—her former boss, Stephen Bender—but false evidence has been planted that implicates her, so her only option, she feels, is to flee. With $10,000 in cash and a new false identity (“Kim Jackson”), she drives west,settling in Montrose, a small, rural mountain town in Colorado. She takes a job at a grocery store and tries to keep a low profile but finds it difficult; soon, she feels compelled to join the women’s softball team and volunteer at a nursing home. When the dead body of Emily Riley, a recently disappeared teenager, turns up, everyone is horrified, and the police have no leads in their murder investigation. Curious, Kim starts to do her own sleuthing, convinced that if she can solve Emily’s murder, she’ll figure out a way to prove her own innocence. What follows is a bracing whodunit that involves several town residents and forces Kim to wonder if catching the killer is worth blowing her cover. This is the first installment in Lewis’ Colorado Skies series, and it unfolds at a brisk, action-packed clip with enough suspense to satisfy thriller fans. Although most readers will likely solve the mystery long before Kim puts the pieces together, they’ll stick with the story thanks to Lewis’ engaging characters. The most compelling figure is Kim herself, whose struggles to preserve her anonymity and avoid human relationships give the book emotional depth; she comes off as far more than just a crack amateur sleuth. The conclusion leaves the door for potentially exciting sequels.

A multilayered thriller with a sympathetic protagonist.

Debut author Lewis, a performance poet and actor, recounts her journey from self-hate to self-love, set against the supernatural backdrop of reconnecting to her abusive husband following his death.

After her boyfriend broke up with her when she was about to graduate from Berkeley, 23-year-old Lewis, a white woman from New Orleans, was open to a new adventure—and a new man. She decided to go out on a date with Truth Lewis, a sexy, muscular, tattooed black man with a mysterious past. He had children from a previous relationship and claimed to have served in the Army and to have worked on covert assignments for the government. Lewis was hooked: Instead of taking only a year off before going to grad school as planned, she moved with Truth back to her hometown. The couple lived in relative poverty at first but became affluent as successful entrepreneurs running porn sites during the early days of the Internet. They eventually got married, but the relationship was on a downward spiral nearly from the start. Truth wasn’t all he seemed and was soon physically abusing Lewis on a regular basis. His sudden death from an unusual heart condition set Lewis free from the abuse, but she was left a widow at 27. Relieved but still grieving, Lewis then encountered Truth in her dreams and in sessions with mediums, which helped her make peace with her own demons (which included a history of self-cutting and overeating) and embark on a new life as an actor, wife and mother in California. From the start, Lewis draws readers into her story, acknowledging her own flaws and desires while providing a surprisingly compassionate depiction of the troubled Truth. The author’s depiction of Truth’s return after death is left rather hazy, leaving readers wanting more. Similarly, Lewis provides scant detail about her subsequent acting career, her second marriage (in her bio, she lists that she now lives only with a daughter) and her stint in a mental hospital prior to meeting Truth. Still, Lewis has crafted a compelling tale that will resonate with anyone seeking to reconcile and move on from his or her past.

A raw, heartfelt memoir of one woman’s spiritual evolution.