September 8 - October 3, 2025 Virtual Book Tour
SYNOPSIS
A rescue team searches for a missing young girl and suspects all is not as it seems in this high-stakes romantic suspense novel from the author of Lethal Standoff and Facing the Enemy
When wilderness survival expert Therese Palmer receives a frantic phone call from former colleague Professor Rurik Ivanov, she is shocked by the news that his young daughter, Alina, is missing—and that Rurik wants Therese’s help finding her. She’s sure Rurik hasn’t given her the whole story . . . especially since he refuses to report the kidnapping to the police. Yet with a child’s life hanging in the balance, Therese can’t turn down this mission. She knows the clock is ticking and she can’t do this alone.
Therese reaches out to Texas Ranger Blane Gardner, whom she met seven months ago during one of her training courses in wilderness survival skills. Blane’s specialized training and background with the Crisis Negotiation Unit make him uniquely prepared for this search-and-rescue mission. He agrees to help Therese and to accept Rurik’s terms to keep Alina’s disappearance quiet, and as the two begin working together, Therese is determined the spark growing between them won’t distract from their mission to save Alina.
Traversing deep into the desert of Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Alina’s last known location, Therese and Blane struggle to separate truth from lies within the mix of intel they’re receiving. As they close in on answers that suggest the involvement of Russian organized crime and a high-profile international assassination attempt, they must fight to rescue Alina before she becomes an innocent casualty of a much bigger plot—no matter the risk to their own lives
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Check out the Canyon of Deceit Trailer:
Plus, Canyon of Deceit includes two original songs written by the heroine, Therese—one from her childhood and one that captures the depth of her love and transformation as an adult. These heartfelt lyrics come to life in custom-recorded tracks that reflect the emotion and spirit of the novel.
Click here to listen and step deeper into Therese’s world.
HALL WAYS REVIEW: It
takes a talented storyteller to so fully immerse a reader in her book that all
else completely fades away. In Canyon of Deceit, author DiAnn Mills transports
readers into the wilds of the Guadalupe Mountains and beyond in this
pulse-pounding, action-packed thriller. (Author bonus points: the setting she managed to remove me from was lounging under a palm tree on a pristine Maui beach. What sea
turtles and sparkling waters? Impressive reading escape.)
“The weather matched my mood. The more we learned, the more it rained disillusion.”
In
Canyon of Deceit, events quickly escalate, and Mills doesn’t shy away
from describing the violence that comes with these kinds of shady characters
and the organizations that fund them – and the organizations that fight them.
Some of the scenes are intense, but they are never gratuitous and always increase
the reader’s heartrate and page-turning pace.
“My mind clicked like a photographer’s lens, sealing incredible views into my life’s album.”
I’ve
read several of Mills’s books, and her gift for writing richly detailed descriptions
and realistic, complex characters always shines. In Canyon of Deceit, the
nuances of Guadalupe Mountains National Park pop to life on the pages, as
readers explore its rugged splendor that’s both devastatingly beautiful and
deadly. A few chapters later, we’re dodging bullets in dodgy dive bars where
the ick-factor is palpable. And we’re seeing it all through the eyes of our
main characters, Therese and Blane.
Chapters
are told mostly from our MCs’ alternating points of view, so we get good
insight into how these people tick. But Mills does something interesting in Canyon
of Deceit by providing backgrounds of some of the unscrupulous characters. So, readers may feel sympathy and maybe even
relief that there is a reason for their evil. It forces thought about the
ages-old nature versus nurture argument.
“Had God shown up to walk with me into the hereafter, one with more misery than I’d ever known?”
There
is another character in this book, and it is faith. Not a character named
Faith, but faith in the one sovereign God. In Canyon of Deceit, the
faith journey of both main characters is front and center, which surprised me. It ventured out
of the comfort zone of my own faith practice with the witnessing, instantly becoming
a believer, and crediting God for the placement of a deadly bullet. My
experience with the Christian fiction category in the past several years,
including some of Mills’s other titles, is that the faith element is subtle: a thoughtful
thread that complements the story without taking center stage -- and that’s my preference. But that’s not to say that plenty of other readers won’t enjoy the religious
aspect exactly as it’s done in this book.
“Did I want to get stuck in a quicksand of crimes?”
Careful
readers may pick up on small clues and bits of foreshadowing that Mills carefully
sprinkles throughout Canyon of Deceit. If so, one might figure out a
thing or two before the spectacular resolution reveals all the answers. But never fear! In Canyon of Deceit, there are so many shifts and twists, the
pleasure is in the journey getting to the fantabulous resolution. Readers will finally let out the breaths they've been holding and miraculously, despite the body count, feel hopeful.
I read an ARC of the book, so I assume the final copy will be edited clean as a whistle, as all Mills's books have been. I recommend Canyon of Deceit for readers who want all the suspense and
pacing of a high-stakes thriller but without the profanity, steamy scenes, and doom and gloom
endings to bog it down.
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| Beach read bliss! |
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Connect with DiAnn online for behind-the-scenes glimpses, writing tips, and lively discussions:
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