Beneath the Broken Oak by Lori Altebaumer

BENEATH THE BROKEN OAK
By Lori Altebaumer


Mystery / Romance
Publisher: One Thousand Hills Publishing
Pages: 400
Publication Date: February 22, 2025

 

SYNOPSIS

Trees don’t heal. They seal.

But Forester Jodee Trevaine isn’t a tree. The wounds of abandonment she’s spent years denying will be ripped open the night she witnesses a child’s abduction.

The hardscrabble West Texas town of El Hueso, where keeping secrets is what keeps you alive, is the last place one would expect to find healing.

Until her job brings her there for a dying tree. 

With new friends and the unexpected reacquaintance with the man she loved and left, Jodee has everything to gain—and just as much to lose—as she races against time to rescue the boy.

Could it be that her roots go deeper than she realized into the soil of EL Hueso?




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ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Award-winning novelist and Amazon Top New Release author Lori Altebaumer is a lifelong Texan whose family roots run deep in the Lone Star state.  Her writing bends the rules for modern Christian fiction, telling bold stories of good and evil in a broken world.












REVIEW

Beneath the Broken Oak is a heart-pounding journey that kept me on the edge of my seat for much of the book. From the very beginning, vivid descriptions pulled me into the action of the story. I listened tensely to the scrape of a shovel under a dark night sky, felt the sting of regret in a seedy truck stop parking lot, and endured the terror of a brutal attack.

As the author builds tension, she deftly introduces new characters into the fray, moving from viewpoint to viewpoint to reveal the full scope of the story. She puts her cast through their paces, especially the woman at the story’s center, Jodee Trevaine.

In addition, Altebaumer layers the story across two different timelines, carefully stitched like quilt pieces that are finally united at the climactic end. The dual timeline is reminiscent of Louis Sachar’s Holes, in which events at the same location earlier in history impact the present story.

There are glimpses of the mysterious—perhaps even the supernatural—men who show up to save characters from the brink of death, then disappear, and well-placed comments from strangers delivered at just the right moment. These elements kept me riveted to the story, searching intently for explanations.

The novel weaves faith and Christianity throughout with a light hand. Blue Sunday’s struggle to prove himself after newfound sobriety and Jodee’s struggle with her identity provide insight into their growing faith, and prayer factors into the lives of several characters.

The one critique I have of the novel is the author’s use of the congenital heart defect Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome. As someone with WPW, I noted that some of the key details about the condition were incorrect. It is rarely hereditary, and it is only lethal for 0.5 percent of untreated patients. Regardless of these inconsistencies, as a necessary plot device, it worked well.

I highly recommend Beneath the Broken Oak, especially for readers who enjoy a well-written thriller without profanity or explicit content. 

If you enjoyed this book, you might enjoy watching: Holes, Texas Cotton, True Detective Season One*

*Please note the ratings of these before viewing.


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Comments

  1. Terrific review! I’m sorry to hear about you having WPW, but it gave me a giggle because I thought the author surely said, “What are the chances?!” when she read your review. I agree she did a great job with bringing settings and actions to life via her rich descriptions.

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