“Healing Skye” by Janet Ferguson

Janet Ferguson approaches her craft with realism and professionalism, a combination that closes gaps in her storyline, develops believable characters and grows the story on pace. Her plot offers just enough predictability to keep the reader on track without spoiling the surprises. The research is solid and personal. In the opening chapter of “Healing Skye,” the abuse Ferguson’s protagonist suffered is in the past, but the pain and fear are still raw, which Ferguson highlights with Skye’s psychological separation from the human race. A rare and dangerous beginning, but Ferguson not only pulls that off well, she also demonstrates the healing process throughout the book with Skye’s reluctant pursuit of relationships with people, in particular widower Pete and his young daughter, Olivia, who are not without their own past and pain. Her players are flawed and not without fear, even to the end, but what they each are afraid of changes from beginning to end. It’s well done, perhaps because Ferguson isn’t an amateur and didn’t skip steps in a rush to get the book to market. “Healing Skye” is the sixth book in her Coastal Heart series, which follows the five-book Southern Hearts collection. This story is a Maggie Award finalist and a finalist for the Faith, Hope, Love Readers Choice Award. The author knows how to self-publish right, not taking shortcuts. She hired a Christian fiction editor and then a proofreader after making a research trip to Dauphin Island and spending time in the study of her characters’ particular pasts, the stigmas associated with them and the fears that live long after the events are physically over. She also felt comfortable sending the book to critique partners, who helped her see where her characters acted – well – out of character, or she’d made assumptions that might have left her readers behind. And she’s open to God’s lead for her in this ministry of writing. It was never her intention to self-publish, but when an agent she trusted encouraged her toward that end, she let the spirit lead her. Though each book in the Coastal Hearts series stands alone, Ferguson weaves into the next with just enough words to encourage the reader to look beyond just one book. Inspiring.