Death Be Not Proud The Secret of the Journal #2 by C.F. Dunn

ISBN: 978-1-78264-034-9
$14.99 | Paperback Lion Fiction

About the book:  Following the vicious attack by a psychotic colleague, and reeling from the suspicion that Matthew Lynes is not all that he seems, Professor Emma D'Eresby flees her college teaching position in Maine to her hometown in England--taking the mysterious seventeenth--century journal she stole from the college's archives with her.

Broken physically and emotionally, Emma drifts until, fearing for their daughter's sanity, her parents invite a family friend to assess her. In the course of their conversation, Emma discovers that he spoke to Matthew over thirty years before.

This finally spurs her into action and soon, when she finds what certainly must be a reference to Matthew in the journal, she begins to understand Matthew's profound secret.

This second installment in The Secret of the Journal from British author C. F. Dunn. Mixing suspense, romance, and the supernatural, Death Be Not Proud explores the profound moral implications of a life seemingly invulnerable to time.

My thoughts:  When I read book one in The Secret of the Journal series, Mortal Fire, I found it a very unusual read the conclusion of which simply left the reader hanging for resolution but anxious to read on. Here in Death Be Not Proud we begin to see a light in the tunnel.

The author, C.F. Dunn, does a very good job of crafting her story and creating characters. The visuals created with words help the reader to grasp where they are, what is happening, and all the people involved. I find the premise of Matthew's unique qualities hard to ingest and daunting to the rational mind. Hopefully in the next installment in the series, we will see some reasoning behind his unique qualities - though surely they will be the creation of a very active imagination.

I know that "love can be blind" (and no, that is not a quote from this book), but Emma seems blind to the fact that she is placing her trust in someone whose very existence should not be.  I think that somehow in the end we will find that her own family the D'Eresby's, including the grandmother of which, seems to "know" something about what is going on connected with Matthew. So book three should give up more secrets that are hidden from plain view and not only in the journal.

DISCLOSURE: I received a complimentary copy of Death Be Not Proud from Kregel on behalf of Lion Hudson in exchange for my honest review. No compensation was received for this review.