""Pinky Swear" is another well-crafted story that will have readers on edge as we follow a mother desperately seeking her missing friend and her unborn child."

A baby’s on the way, but the mother goes missing…

Have you ever broken a promise? How about a pinky swear? Alexandra “Lexie” McNeil can’t have children of her own, to the point that it’s put a strain in her marriage. When her high school best friend, Mara Vennatta, shows up at her doorstep running away from an abusive relationship, it’s not long before she offers to become Lexie’s surrogate. It’s a perfect plan, Mara has been living with Lexie for a while now, and she’s young and healthy, and most important, willing to help her friend in need.

The story opens in Denver with a happy mother-to-be facing her most harrowing fear up to that point, shopping the supplies for the baby, from bottles to a crib. Then tragedy strikes four days before the baby’s due date as Mara is gone without warning. She even left behind the phone Lexie had gifted her. She fears that Mara’s ex may have found them, forcing Mara to run away again. Lexie is afraid for Mara, but also for her unborn child, which they had nicknamed Goose.

Following clues, Lexie goes to Philadelphia thinking she’ll find Mara there, only to discover that the adult Mara who had been living in her house during the past year is not the same person she knew back in school. In the city of Brotherly Love, Lexie meets people from Mara’s more recent past, both allies and feuds. Also learns that Mara is a person of interest to the city’s police department for an ongoing investigation they won’t share with her. This prompts another fear: was Mara hiding from the police instead of her husband? Lexie is confronted with the feeling that Mara may have lied to her and stolen her baby for nefarious purposes, but that’s so utterly against the version in her mind of the teenager Mara that Lexie goes out on a limb to find her friend and get straight answers, and of course, making sure Goose is born and brought home safe.

From nice house wife in Denver, Lexie becomes more of a mamma bear in her search, and she had to toughen up, because the characters she’s met along the way would eat her alive if she didn’t.

Mara and Lexie are two thirds of the triad of their high school clique. The third one is Cate, who killed herself during their senior year. We get to meet her through several backflashes sprinkled along the way. Cate’s story is both interesting and relevant to the current-day problem as Lexie uncovers what really happened that fateful day, and most important, the reasons why.

This reviewer knows better than making politically-charged comments, but the fact of Lexie worrying about Goose puts an end to the question of whether Lexie believes life starts at conception or at birth. The character’s belief couldn’t be more obvious.

Author Danielle Girard is already a best-selling author, and she is a pro when it comes to raising the stakes and adding tension in constant doses. "Pinky Swear" is another well-crafted story that will have readers on edge as we follow a mother desperately seeking her missing friend and her unborn child.

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