Bone Music by Christopher Rice

If there was anyone alive who had a better reason for not trusting than Charlotte Rowe, it would be hard to imagine.  She was kidnapped as an infant by a pair of serial killers who chose her mother and their next victim and brought her along.  They raised her as their own for seven years until the FBI discovered them and freed her.  Physically free, she was still imprisoned by other's expectations of her.  The press gave her the name of "The Burning Girl" as she accompanied the woman whenever she burned the clothes and belongings of the victims, although she never had any idea what was going on.  Everyone wanted to see her, to touch her, to know her.  She was a dream girl for marginal sociopaths everywhere who thought she would be their perfect partner. 

Her birth father, who one would think would be overjoyed to have his daughter returned to him, instead saw a chance to cash in.  He wrote a book about Charlotte's experiences and then took her on a speaking tour.  When she finally rebelled, she left to go live with her mother's mother and that grandmother supplied her with her first sense of normality in her life.  After her death, she changed her name and moved out to the desert to live alone always protected by her guns and security system.

But evil will not rest.  She gave one man her trust and he instead drugged her with an experimental drug under the guise of medication to let her sleep.  Instead it gave her superhuman strength and the ability to fight her way out of any situation.  When it proves successful, Charlotte is on the run again, this time from the man who gave it to her and the company that made it.  She runs back to her grandmother's house, where with the help of her grandmother's boyfriend and a deputy sheriff she knew in high school along with a hacker on the run, she decides this time to fight back.  Will Charlotte be successful?

Christopher Rice has made a name for himself in the thriller genre.  He is, of course, best known by some readers as the son of Anne Rice and has co-written with her.  This novel, the first in a series, shows his skill in setting a fast-paced story that grabs the reader and never lets go until the end.  Charlotte is a tough woman, created by a life that most can never imagine and she uses the situation to resolve many of the ghosts of her past.  This book is recommended for thriller readers.