REVIEW: FIRE MOUNTAIN by Dana Mentink

Hi, Marji Laine here. 

I have been a fan of Dana Mentink since I first met her through Suspense Sisters almost a decade ago. Some of her books are on my all-time favorites list. So I was so excited to review Fire Mountain.

I was a sophomore in high school in 1980, the year that Mt. St. Helens erupted. The before version of the mountain was considered the Mt. Fuji of the US because of it's perfectly shaped top and almost perfect symmetry to its shape. I vividly recall the months of warnings over Mount St. Helens, the weeks of evacuation, and the days when we held our breaths until the lady finally blew her top. I remember looking at before and after images, seeing what was left of towns, lakes, forests, and the profile of the mountain itself. A third of its top had disappeared, leaving a gaping crater and 230 square miles of destruction.

Reading this story was like walking the ridges of Mount St. Helens in its final days. I can honestly say, I felt like I was experiencing the same apprehension and panic right along with Kit and Cullen.

Settings are my thing. In fact, I wrote a Suspense Sisters post about settings just last Friday, HERE. So this story falls right into line with one of my sweet spots. The mountain, the ridges, the roads, even the gullies and blackberry bushes, become so visible, so real. All by itself, this wavering Mount Ember gives a percussion to the suspense with periodic tremors, fissures, and other issues from underground activity.

This is the framework where Dana Mentink places her long-hauling female truck driver, Kit Garrido. And then adds a couple of people who seem to be evil incarnate bent on finding her in order to destroy someone or something.

This story begins with riveting intensity: Cold and ice-pick pain bored into Kit Garrido’s temples. Her limbs were leaden, her body a deadweight in the driver’s seat of her big rig. Grit coated her tongue and teeth. She tasted blood. Try as she might, she couldn’t reach out to unbuckle her seat belt. Panic bubbled up inside her.

See what I mean? Fire Mountain had my shoulders tensing before I finished the first paragraph. And Mentink is a master of pacing, giving the reader just enough time to breathe before the next unexpected happens. And between the baddies and the mountain, there are plenty of options for those unexpecteds!

If you’re familiar with my suspense ranking post from a couple of months back (You can see it HERE), you’ll understand when I set this as a 9 or 10 on the intensity spectrum. This ranking is purely a scale for how intense the suspense is. I don’t rank how well I like books. If I’m reviewing it at all, it has high merit!

And this one certainly fits that category. Every word—every sentence—seemed to have impressive intentionality - I might even call it precision - that blows my mind. The setting, as I mentioned, is a masterpiece. The characters have broken histories with building understanding of their redemption throughout the story. Memorable indeed. And the plot stays at an amped up level throughout the entire book. Kudos to Dana Mentink for yet another thrilling success!

Here's a little more about the book:

Fire rains from above as they fight to discover the truth and stay alive.

In the shadow of a threatening volcano, long-haul trucker Kit Garrido wakes up in her crashed big rig, unable to recall what happened or why she's suddenly in possession of someone's baby. Fiercely independent, she has to admit that perhaps this time she could use a little help.

As the threat of eruption grows, former cop Cullen Landry refuses to leave his cabin in the evacuation area, which is why he's the only one left who can help Kit escape the crumpled cab of her truck. He doesn't want to get tangled up in the mystery of the beautiful woman with an abandoned infant, but when he sees the bullet hole in the windshield and the bloody handprint on the interior, he realizes that he's in this thing, like it or not.

When two armed men with ill intent approach, the race is on to stay alive, discover the truth, and find the baby's missing mother--all while a deadly mountain rains fire from above.

This nail-biting clean romantic suspense will appeal to readers of Lynn H. Blackburn, Nancy Mehl, and Susan May Warren. Packed with thrilling twists and themes of natural disasters, an amnesia trope, and an abandoned baby.

Our own Suspense Sister, Mary Alford, says about this book: "A flawless suspense with characters that will have readers turning pages. I couldn't put it down."

I echo that – listening to the entire thing over the course of two thrilling days, only putting it down when I absolutely had to! Read this one. Suspense fans will LOVE it!

You can find it on Amazon and Audible HERE!