Girl on the Run by Daryl Wood Gerber is her first suspense novel. Publisher: Chucklin, Inc., April 2016

When a fairytale fantasy night becomes a nightmare, Chessa Paxton must run for her life…but will the truth set her free?

Chessa Paxton, an event planner in Lake Tahoe, celebrates a successful night at the Happily Ever After Ball, but her dream quickly becomes a nightmare when she wakes up beside the body of her dead husband. Nauseous and confused, feeling as if she’s been drugged, she can’t explain to the sheriff why her princess costume is bloodied. With her father already a convicted murderer, she feels invisible shackles ratcheting onto her wrists and ankles. She runs! But she can’t escape vivid flashes of memory: a massacre in a meadow; men and women in fairy tale costumes; Snow White’s dead body shielding her from bullets.

Though Chessa is a former costumer and a master of disguise, she quickly learns that hiding while trying to prove herself innocent is the most difficult task imaginable. Especially when the sheriff wants to throw her in jail and the real killer wants to silence her forever.

What happens when you wake up next to your husband who is dead and you become the prime suspect? You run and during that run you look for clues that points to the real killer. What happens next is an intriguing mystery that the author pulled off with great success.

This fast-paced and action-packed drama grabbed my attention immediately as the author wove a suspenseful tale where nothing is as it seems. Throw in a few surprising twists and turns and this drama kept me riveted to the pages as I had to know how this will all end. I love how this story kept changing directions keeping me on alert as to what was going to happen next and I loved how everything came to that point where all I could say was “whoa,” I did not see that coming. The parallel movements and byplay of Chessa and Marcus was great junction that enhanced the telling of this tale. This is a terrific read and great foray into the suspense genre for the author.