Final Touch; The Rayne Tour

The final book in the Rayne Tour trilogy, Final Touch begins with Shaley on her parents' wedding day, anticipating the three of them finally becoming a family. It's been about a year since the last book took place, and it's mentioned that during this time, both Shaley and her parents have accepted God and become Christians. But that's not the focus in this book; instead, the momentous day turns scary as Shaley finds herself kidnapped, beaten, and whisked away to parts unknown but her former stalker. Though he calls himself Joshua now and claims to be a prophet of God, Shaley's fear multiplies when she realizes that his intention is to isolate her and make her his "wife".



Final Touch moves around among viewpoints, including those of Shaley (whose voice is very clear and believable), her mother Rayne, her friend Brittany, and one of the SWAT team members sent in to rescue Shaley. As the kidnapping lengthens into days, it is easy to see Shaley's fear, but her determination not to become a victim is satisfying. There are some coincidences, but life is often like that. More disturbing is the work Shaley puts into making her situation known that is left hanging because nothing comes of it. Maybe life is also like that, but on hindsight, it seems like quite a bit of filler. And ultimately, that's what the entire book seemed to me...filler.



It's not that there isn't a lot of excitement and there were sections when I was eagerly turning the page to find out what would happen next. It's just that the addition of the extra viewpoints didn't really move the story along well, and I felt at times that the author was looking for ways to extend an already short story. There really wasn't a need for this book at all since Shaley's parents' story had already come to a close, though I will say it was generally well written. I just came away with the feeling that this was an addition that was a last minute decision. I'm certainly not saying this is a bad book, but probably an unnecessary one.Perhaps I would have received the book better if the timeline of Shaley's life had moved forward a bit more and it seemed less like this was just an effort to extend the series beyond the first two books. I did appreciate, however, that the author chose not to hit the reader over the head with overt examples of Christianity and instead took a highly believable, soft approach that fit with the storyline. I liked it, just didn't love it.

~taminator40