Burning Candles

by Sue Star, Bill Beatty

She left an abusing lover behind. He was very dead. She fled to Brazil to be safe in a country where she didn't even know the language. Safe thanks to a quickie marriage to a man she knows nothing about. Safe in a world with cults preying on young girls. Safe with those cults and the burning candles in their windows.

282 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 19, 2019

About the author

Sue Star writes mysteries about families in chaos. Murder in the Dojo introduces Nell Letterly, amateur sleuth and single mom who teaches martial arts despite the opinions of her teenage daughter, sophisticated sister-in-law, and crotchety dad. Their misadventures continue in Murder with Altitude, Murder for a Cash Crop, and Murder by Moose, soon to be released from D.M. Kreg Publishing. With Bill Beatty, she’s also written Dancing for the General, a mystery set in exotic Turkey of 1957. Collections of mystery stories include Trophy Hunting, Organized Death, and Trouble in a Politically Correct Town, featuring Nell’s world. As Rebecca Williamson, she’s written suspense with a touch of romance in The Drowning of Chittenden.

Reviews

[Thomas Jr. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Burning Candles was an interesting read, reminiscent of a 1940s noir film. Set in 1959, it's the story of a woman who's made the USA too hot to hold her, and by happenstance has met a Brazilian policeman who's fallen for her. He marries her and takes her to his country, where she finds she's now part of a very influential family. So her troubles are over. Not! Now she must deal with the isolation she feels in a foreign country, integrating herself into a new family, and worrying about whether her enemies from the US have traced her to her new home. To further complicate things, her husband is trying to track down a rogue abortionist with ties to an arcane cult, who's killing his patients.
I dropped a star because the story is slow in parts, and there's repetition of things we already know. But overall, Burning Candles gives us a glimpse into an unfamiliar culture while the sympathetic protagonist unravels a complex mystery.