Salvation by Noelle Adams

About the book

Salvation is a new adult book by Noelle Adams. The book was published on Kindle on 20^th February and it is 262 pages long. I received an ebook for review through NetGalley.

Synopsis

Diana isn’t much different from any other girl. She lives in the city working in her dream job and enjoys what she does. Nothing about her stood out and nothing should have made her a target. But, her dad is extremely wealthy and one day she finds herself being kidnapped on the street, being forced into the trunk of a car and waking up in a strange room in a house owned by an Albanian gang.

There is someone else in the room with her but unfortunately, is unable to save her before the gang rape her and leave her. Diana is left to deal with the consequences of the kidnapping with very little hope of ever getting back to normal.

What I thought

Noelle Adams doesn’t mess around with getting right into this book. We barely get to meet protagonist Diana before she’s whisked away in a car by an Albanian gang and hidden away somewhere. As much as I liked the beginning, as it was exciting and tense, I wished that we’d gotten to know Diana a little better at least. Before the kidnapping, she stated that she was a certain type of person but we never got to know her like that which was unfortunate and a bit disappointing.

During her kidnapping, Diana meets Gideon, the other person in the room with her. Quickly he states that he’s not part of the gang, although her certainly looks like one but instead he’s an undercover cop who got caught. He knows what the gang are likely to do to Diana and warns her. I didn’t really know what to make of Gideon at first but he quickly proves that he really does want to help and takes quite a lot before realising he can’t actually help the situation or save Diana from what is about to happen.

After the kidnapping and rape, Diana is a complete mess. She can’t cope with life and finds it far too hard to go back to work and her old apartment. This is where she starts talking about how much she’s changed but as we didn’t get to know the old Diana, it is hard to tell just how much everything had an impact on her. However, although we don’t get to know the old Diana, we get to know the new and changed Diana really well. The kidnapping and rape had such a massive effect on her life and that was clear to see. She couldn’t cope. Didn’t want to cope.

Although the majority of the plot focuses on Diana and what she is going through, I was much more interested in Gideon. He certainly didn’t have it easy after everything that happened and he constantly beats himself up for not being able to save Diana from the gang. He had such a hard time forgiving himself for what happened to her and desperately wanted to make up for that. While it did come across as trying to fix her at times, he was only doing what he thought was right but you could also see how much he actually cared about her too.

There is no clear time frame in Salvation and I would have liked to have known what the timescale was over the course of the plot. I could never tell how long had passed from one thing to another and certainly not from the beginning to the end. It was hard to believe some of the things that happened as it could have been a couple of weeks since the kidnapping or it could have been months. However, over however long the book is set, both Diana and Gideon change a hell of a lot and it was great to see such good character development.

Salvation is a pretty tough read at times as it deals with some really serious issues but it is also an emotional and intense read. I really enjoyed this one even with the problems.