by Ronda PauleySeries: The Mayan Tattoo TrilogyAction & Adventure
Book Overview
Action/adventure thriller. A riveting story of human sex trafficking from the viewpoints of two teenage girls. Maria is unwittingly caught up and sold into the horrible underground world of sex slavery, crime, and corruption. A sting operation runs into serious problems, leaving one person badly injured and another one abducted. It's risky and high stakes. Witnesses to the crimes simply disappear.
Abbi, 16, peels away layer after horrible layer by hacking into a computer in a desperate and dangerous attempt to help in the rescue of her mother who is missing.
Look at what readers are saying:
*That is a wonderful book! I especially loved the characters and that telecommunication between the mother and daughter.—B. Henshaw
*It is a great read. She is an awesome author.—L. McComis
*I am happy to report that I just finished reading
BIOGRAPHY I enjoy a really good suspenseful novel--especially a thriller, something filled with suspense. Writing them is even more fun! My favorite ever: Frenchman's Creek by Daphne du Maurier. If you enjoy a good thriller too, maybe something more modern along the line of Stieg Larrson, then you might enjoy the books of The Mayan Tattoo Trilogy. Trapped in the Mayan Tattoo (Book 1) opens with a young woman who is being sex trafficked, but scenes are not overly graphic (as they might be with a Stieg Larrson thriller). Still, it may cause an uneasy sleep. And then the scene switches to Abbi who is trying to make sense of what has happened to her parents. Told from multiple points of view, the reading can be tricky but the reader should eventually be able to piece together unexposed pieces of the puzzle. A fair amount of paranormal activity highlights each book but does not dominate them. To make it suitable for PG-13, a Carolyn Keene approach is used. (Imagine if Lizbeth Salander and Nancy Drew got together and then magically had a weird daughter--that would be Abbi!)
Enjoy, starting with Trapped in the Mayan Tattoo (Book 1) since it sets the stage and you'll get a firm footing from the beginning. The first book will help the reader establish old and new relationships and a devastating incident that happened--one that throws two families into the throes in their desperate attempts to fight organized crime, kidnapping, sex trafficking, and corruption. Understanding Trapped is imperative before beginning to read Caught in the Acadian Connection (Book 2). The third book, Shattered by the Heat, exposes some truths but leaves enough up to the reader's interpretation to make it intriguing even at the end.
The fiction is edgy, dealing with today's real pressing issues and are written for the young adult or older reader--not for children! Corruption, human sex trafficking, and deceit run throughout this trilogy. The reader often has to rely on memory to construct the meaning. Interestingly, at least three people have notified me that the first book opened their eyes to human trafficking and they were successful in averting situations so that a young person was not trapped.
The writing wasn't easy. I wanted something that had teeth in it. Not just fluff. And, more importantly, it had to be highly entertaining. Getting that balance proved challenging. Human sex trafficking is hard to detect. It's almost invisible. I am exposing some of the trends that real criminals are using to make LOTS of money at the expense of the young people they exploit.
I am married to an amazing man and have two children. With their help, encouragement, and support, I'm playing out my lifelong dream (since I was 5) of living in a log house and writing compelling fiction, particularly thrillers. For non-nerdy fun I enjoy our family adventures or romping around on our small farm with its poultry and Christmas trees, and having quiet chats by the fire on cold days. And reading. Of course. Reading. But that's as nerdy as writing.
