Wildwood Creek by Lisa Wingate

From the publisher:
Allie Kirkland has always heard the call of her father's unfinished destiny. When she's offered a production assistant's job on a docudrama filming in the hills near Moses Lake, Texas, the dream of following in her director-father's footsteps suddenly seems within reach. The reenactment of the legendary frontier settlement of Wildwood is a first step into the film industry. A summer on set in the wilderness is a small price to pay for a dream. 

But in 1861, the real Wildwood held dangerous realities. Town founder Harland Delavan held helpless residents, including young Irish schoolteacher Bonnie Rose, in an iron grip. Mysterious disappearances led to myths and legends still retold in the region's folk songs. Eventually, the entire site was found abandoned.
 
When filming begins, strange connections surface between Allie and the teacher who disappeared over a century ago, and everyone in Wildwood--including Blake Fulton, Allie's handsome neighbor on the film set--seems to be hiding secrets. Allie doesn't know whom she can trust. If she can't find the answers in time, history may repeat itself...with the most unthinkable results.

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This novel is a mystery.  The reader will want to know what is going to happen from the very beginning.  Lisa Wingate captures your attention from the first pages of this novel.  Even without reading the back of the book the reader can easily tell that this book is going to be a mystery the needs the reader to keep reading to figure it out.

The book moves back and forth between Allie, in present day, and Bonnie Rose in 1861.  I found that I wanted more details about Bonnie Rose and her life.  Just the story of Bonnie Rose alone could have been a novel and I felt that the dark parts of Wildwood weren't really shown, but rather told.  I also felt that Allie's story was kind of a whirlwind near the end.  I wanted to really connect to both Allie and Bonnie Rose but felt that in splitting the story both characters came up lacking.  And not only Allie and Bonnie Rose but Blake, James, and the other important supporting characters.

This is a Christian novel but little was mentioned about God or any of the characters' relationship with Him.  I felt this could have been more developed.

I received this book from Bethany Publishing in exchange for my honest review.