Christian suspense
Author Brandilyn Collins’ Kanner Lake series has local connection along with element of faith, hope
Call it creative license.
Brandilyn Collins got rid of the mountains between Spirit Lake and Priest River and dropped a body of water and a community there: Kanner Lake, a town much like Spirit Lake – population 1,700 – only with a higher murder rate.
“Kanner Lake is fictional,” Collins said, “but everything around it – the roads, the towns – are real.”
Local readers of the Christian suspense novelist’s four book series, set in Kanner Lake, will be familiar with many of the places mentioned.
In one, a car chase leads into Spokane. A downtown Coeur d’Alene gift shop – Simple Pleasures – gets a mention. The town of Kanner Lake is west of the nonfiction Spirit Lake Cutoff Road.
Collins, who has actually trademarked the phrases “Seatbelt Suspense” and “Don’t forget to breathe,” splits her time between California and North Idaho. During a recent booksigning at Spirit Lake Books and Coffee, Collins talked about the Kanner Lake series – including her most recent release, “Amber Morn.”
The novel begins with a group of bloggers taken hostage at Kanner Lake’s Java Joint coffee shop.
Like Collins’ other novels, she said “Amber Morn” has a fast start.
Sometimes – not always, though – her books have a body count by the end of the first chapter. Every chapter has a hook on the end.
All are “Christian novels,” she said.
Some ask Collins how she can write murder into a Christian novel.
“It’s not the Christian fiction you heard of 10 years ago,” she said. Though the books “are not heavy on Christian content,” Collins said there’s an element of hope and faith in each.
She promises readers will get their fix for suspense and mystery without sex scenes and four-letter words.
Former Coeur d’Alene Library Director Julie Meier was first introduced to Collins’ writing through the author’s Bradleyville series of women’s fiction.
“That’s before I started killing people full time,” Collins says.
Meier, an avid reader, said she didn’t realize at first that Collins had a local connection. She’s become a fan, impressed by the way Collins develops characters throughout the series.
At the booksigning, Meier was considering buying the Kanner Lake series for her granddaughter.
The series is a big hit with part-time Spirit Lake resident Jeannie Dilley and her friends.
Dilley was prompted to read Collins’ books after hearing about the author’s testimony of healing through faith and prayer. Collins writes at length on her Web site www.brandilyncollins.com about how she believes prayer healed her from debilitating Lyme disease.
“Once you pick up the book you don’t want to put it down,” Dilley said. She shared the books with all her neighbors.
Though Collins isn’t planning any more books in the Kanner Lake series – she’s beginning to do standalone novels instead – the author of 19 novels said she could easily return to North Idaho in future novels.
She describes it as “just about the closest you can get to heaven on this earth.”
Just steer clear of Kanner Lake.