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WORK TITLE: When She’s Gone
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY: Austin
STATE: TX
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Married; children: two.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Family law attorney, writer.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Former family law attorney Jane Palmer is a full-time writer living in Austin, Texas. Palmer launched her adventure thriller debut series in 2016 with When She’s Gone. The story follows Russian-born Ara Zuyev, who is hoping for a fresh start in New York City after a fiasco of a police raid during her time as a cop in Texas. She gets a job as a bodyguard for the powerful billionaire Oliver Boone. One night, her charge, Boone’s sixteen-year-old stepdaughter, Samantha Harper, is kidnapped at a restaurant while under Ara’s watch and whisked away in a van. Boone then uses his wealth to hire authoritative FBI agent Luke Patrick to help find Samantha. Patrick initially suspects Ara is the kidnapper, after it has been shown that she was lax in following basic security procedures.
After Ara clears her name, she has to work with Patrick to find Samantha. That won’t be easy, as Patrick believes Ara is hiding something, and it doesn’t help that she had been conspicuously absent during most of the kidnapping event. Ara is hiding something, but it has more to do with her mysterious past than nefarious aims on Boone’s stepdaughter. Ara and Patrick need each other; she needs his investigative expertise, and he needs her inside knowledge of the billionaire’s family workings. The kidnappers have asked for millions in ransom.
The case becomes more complicated when Ara and Patrick realize that this isn’t a simple kidnapping case. Samantha is a spoiled-brat troublemaker who was likely in on the “kidnapping” with her secretive boyfriend as payback to her stepfather and to bilk Boone out of his millions. But the plan backfires tragically. Ara and Patrick’s investigation brings them into the criminal world of art forgery and the Russian mafia. The stakes get more desperate as the bodies start piling up.
“The tension mounts as the kidnappers’ deadline approaches. Readers will hope Ara and Luke return in a sequel,” stated a writer in Publishers Weekly. In a review at her blog, Inside Dog, Kathy Martin found the story entertaining and the pacing nimble, noting that “events and revelations build the excitement as Ara and Luke rush to put the clues together.” A Kirkus Reviews contributor was somewhat less impressed and summed up the book as “a straightforward, fast-paced series kickoff in which character development is limited to whatever qualities most directly drive the plot.” Online at Night Owl Reviews, a writer praised the characters and plot, deeming the book “adventurous, full of frustration, doubt and anger.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, September 15, 2016, review of When She’s Gone.
Publishers Weekly, September 12, 2016, review of When She’s Gone, p. 35.
ONLINE
Crooked Lane, http://www.crookedlanebooks.com/ (July 1, 2017), author profile and summary of When She’s Gone.
Inside Dog, http://inside-dog.blogspot.com/ (November 4, 2016), Kathy Martin, review of When She’s Gone.
Night Owl Reviews, https://suspense.nightowlreviews.com (January 1, 2017), review of When She’s Gone.
Jane Palmer worked for several years as a family law attorney before becoming a full-time author and stay-at-home mom. She currently lives in Austin, TX with her husband and two children.
Jane Palmer: WHEN SHE'S GONE
Kirkus Reviews.
(Sept. 15, 2016):
COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Jane Palmer WHEN SHE'S GONE Crooked Lane (Adult Fiction) 25.99 11, 15 ISBN: 978-1-62953-774-0
Is the mysterious past of a wealthy family’s bodyguard behind the kidnapping of their teenage daughter?Bodyguard Ara Zuyev brooks
no interference in running the security team for the Boone family. Employees follow her directions, no questions asked. But she’s
thrown off guard when her role switches from protector to detective after her teenage charge, Sam Harper, goes missing. The daughter of Holly
and the stepdaughter of billionaire Oliver Boone, Sam is a budding troublemaker, and interspersed chapters show that her kidnapping is actually
her own plot to defraud Oliver out of millions. But Ara doesn’t know that. Neither does Luke Patrick, the FBI agent dispatched to
investigate Sam’s disappearance. Given Ara’s role as bodyguard and her coincidental absence at the time of Sam’s
abduction, Luke’s suspicions immediately fix on her as his prime suspect. It doesn’t help that there’s so little
information available about Ara’s past, though she claims there’s nothing worth knowing and certainly no connection to Sam.
Meanwhile, Sam’s plan to get revenge against Oliver takes a dangerous turn when one of her co-conspirators turns actual kidnapper,
trading Sam to threatening men who may not release her even if the ransom’s paid. Sam’s safety seems completely reliant on
Ara’s ability to use what she knows about Sam’s life to connect the dots and convince Luke to investigate her hunches rather
than Ara’s own background. A straightforward, fast-paced series kickoff in which character development is limited to whatever qualities
most directly drive the plot.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Jane Palmer: WHEN SHE'S GONE." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Sept. 2016. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA463216017&it=r&asid=949ff5e6ea680dca6c452c733031079e. Accessed 12 June
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A463216017
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6/12/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1497297367531 2/2
When She's Gone
Publishers Weekly.
263.37 (Sept. 12, 2016): p35.
COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
When She's Gone
Jane Palmer. Crooked Lane, $25.99 (304p) ISBN 978-1-62953-774-0
A misstep as a cop in Texas prompts Ara Zuyev, the heroine of Palmer's action-packed debut, to get a fresh start in New York City as a
bodyguard. Wealthy business magnate Oliver Boone hires Ara to provide security for his wife, Holly Harper, and his 17-year-old stepdaughter,
Sam. After dinner at a posh Manhattan restaurant, Holly tells Ara to go outside and text their driver. While Ara is reluctantly away from her
charge, a masked man grabs Sam, pushes her out a back exit, and throws her into a van. When the family receives a ransom letter with a 48-hour
deadline, Oliver brings in an FBI team headed by Luke Patrick. Luke considers Ara a possible suspect after speaking to her former police
commander in Texas. Despite his distrust, Luke needs to rely on Ara, because of her knowledge of Sam. As the kidnappers' plan spins out of
control, the search for Sam draws Luke and Ara into a world populated by art forgeries and criminals. The tension mounts as the kidnappers'
deadline approaches. Readers will hope Ara and Luke return in a sequel. Agent: Beth Campbell, BookEnds. (Nov.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"When She's Gone." Publishers Weekly, 12 Sept. 2016, p. 35. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA464046236&it=r&asid=f8553ea7165646a2e4aa2bf17463fa8a. Accessed 12 June
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A464046236
When She's Gone
The title was the first thing that caught my attention and then I read the cover and was hooked. "When She’s Gone" is a fast paced book that kept me on my toes. Right when you think you know what’s going on it changes. Ara is awesome but she has some demons as well and it doesn't help that one of her charges has been taken from her. Luke is a pain in the ass but as I continued to read and got to know him he became a little more bearable. His distrust of Ara was kind of aggravating but I understood it given the situation. When they have to work together to figure out who’s got Samantha is when shit gets real.
Samantha is a free spirit who is just tired of having her every move watched and really has a problem with her stepfather. I’m not giving away any spoilers but she’s quite creative. I loved reading every bit of this book. It was adventurous, full of frustration, doubt and anger. It made me feel so many things and root for the main characters. Jane Palmer did an amazing job on this story and I highly recommend it.
When She's Gone
Author: Jane Palmer
Publication: Crooked Lane Books (November 8, 2016)
My Thoughts: WHEN SHE'S GONE was an entertaining thriller. Ara Zuyev is a former police officer who is now a bodyguard for a wealthy family. When her charge - seventeen-year-old Sam - is abducted from a restaurant, she has to use all of her talents to get her back. Her employer calls in the FBI - Luke Patrick and his team.
Luke's first suspect is Ara. Ara is a woman of secrets. She left her police job under a cloud after a fiasco of a police raid. She is also keeping secrets about her past in Russia. But Ara isn't the only suspect. Was Sam's secret boyfriend involved? Did it have something to do with the art gallery that Sam and her mother visited the evening she was kidnapped? Is a mysterious Russian criminal involved?
The pace of this story is fast. Events and revelations build the excitement as Ara and Luke rush to put the clues together so that they can rescue Sam before the deadline. I enjoyed this one very much and had to keep reading to find out what was going on.
Fans of fast-paced mysteries will enjoy this one.