Title: Shadows In The Mind’s Eye
Author: Janyre Tromp
Genre: Historical, Mystery, Suspense, WWII
“Tromp weaves a complex historical tale incorporating love, suspense, hurt, and healing—all the elements that keep the pages turning.”
~ Julie Cantrell, New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author of Perennials
Charlotte Anne Mattas longs to turn back the clock. Before her husband, Sam, went to serve his country in the war, he was the man everyone could rely on—responsible, intelligent, and loving. But the person who’s come back to their family farm is very different from the protector Annie remembers. Sam’s experience in the Pacific theater has left him broken in ways no one can understand—but that everyone is learning to fear.
Tongues start wagging after Sam nearly kills his own brother. Now when he claims to have seen men on the mountain when no one else has seen them, Annie isn’t the only one questioning his sanity and her safety. If there were criminals haunting the hills, there should be evidence beyond his claims. Is he really seeing what he says, or is his war-tortured mind conjuring ghosts?
Annie desperately wants to believe her husband. But between his irrational choices and his nightmares leaking into the daytime, she’s terrified he’s going mad. Can she trust God to heal Sam’s mental wounds—or will sticking by him mean keeping her marriage at the cost of her own life?
Debut novelist Janyre Tromp delivers a deliciously eerie, Hitchcockian story filled with love and suspense. Readers of psychological thrillers and historical fiction by Jaime Jo Wright and Sarah Sundin will add Tromp to their favorite authors list.
About Shadows In The Mind’s Eye Author Janyre Tromp
Janyre Tromp (pronounced Jan-ear) is a historical suspense novelist who loves spinning tales that, at their core, hunt for beauty, even when it isn’t pretty. She’s the author of Shadows in the Mind’s Eye and coauthor of It’s a Wonderful Christmas.
A firm believer in the power of an entertaining story, Tromp is also a book editor and published children’s book author. She lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan with her husband, two kids, two crazy cats, and a slightly eccentric Shetland Sheepdog.
You can find her on Facebook (@JanyreTromp), Instagram (@JaynreTromp), Twitter (@JanyreTromp), and her website, www.JanyreTromp.com where you can download a free copy of her novella, Wide Open.
My Thoughts on Shadows in the Mind’s Eye
I absolutely love historical fiction books. So, when I saw a new one coming out by a debut author everyone was raving about, I knew I needed to read it.
Janyre Tromp has such a way with words, and she easily brings your emotions into the story. It was nostalgic, heart wrenching, and captured me from the first chapter.
I enjoyed getting to see the different point of view from the different characters. I believe that it is one of the reasons I was very invested in the storyline. I loved the pacing and how we got to know the characters throughout the book. Their pattern of speech was a bit different (and I have lived a good portion of my life in the Arkansas “hills”) but it added a subtle difference to the way the characters’ interacted and gave them unique voices.
The choices Annie and Sam have to make are hard, yet so very simplistic at the same time. It really was a story about coming home and I really enjoyed reading about their journey.
“Life shifted back, and I took the first real breath I’d had in three long years. Sam was home, and everything would be okay now.”
– Janyre Tromp, Shadows in the Mind’s Eye
That quote really shows the eloquent emotional depth to Shadows in the Mind’s Eye and it touched me in ways I can’t even express.
For me Shadows in the Mind’s Eye was a story that was nostalgic, heart wrenching, and captured me from the first chapter.
* There was no use of profanity in this book, there are a few flash backs to war, and violence is used in some of the characters actions and as this IS a novel about a WWII veteran coming home after war with PTSD that is to be expected.
**I volunteered to read this book in return for my honest feedback. The thought and opinions expressed within are my own.
Oh my goodness! I’m so glad you saw Sam’s prayers as prayers and not profanity. I was completely caught off guard by folks that saw it that way. I’m forever talking to God and it didn’t occur to me that others would see that as taking the Lord’s name in vain!
Ha well, I think that says something about them. Since it is a Christian fiction book I always assume that the characters are talking to God rather than cursing Him 🙂