Azalea Bluff

By: Dennis Hetzel, Ed Galloway

Narrated by: Cecilia Bowen

Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins

Publisher's summary

When a strange object lands on a high school football field, a young journalist investigates and vanishes without a trace, propelling Azalea Bluff into a speculative sci-fi mystery that's as relevant as today's headlines.

Olivia Claven lives in the North Carolina beach community of Azalea Bluff. She's trying to regroup from a flood-tide of setbacks. Michael Starling, the love of her life, died in a mysterious accident. Saddled with debt like many millennials, she moved back to her parents' house after losing multiple media jobs. Now, the local news website she runs could fail at any time. Then she gets a tip that could turn things around.

Authorities have sealed the area around the crash and cut off communications, but she can sneak through murky swampland without being seen. She gasps as she views the odd, bell-shaped object that sits near the 50-yard line. As she moves closer, she vanishes without a trace, triggering a relentless and dangerous search by her father, Jim Claven, to find answers as his daughter fights madness in captivity. He's blocked by the local sheriff, an ambitious politician with his own agenda, and secretive federal agencies as he gets closer to Michael Starling's secrets and mysteries from the closing days of World War II.

©2021 Dennis R Hetzel (P)2021 Dennis R Hetzel

Critic reviews

"Azalea Bluff transcends genres - part science fiction, part action and adventure. Hetzel keeps you guessing until the last, breathtaking page." (Don Bentley, New York Times best-selling author of the Matt Drake and Tom Clancy/Jack Ryan Jr. thrillers)

"Hetzel conjures Nazis, aliens, lost secrets and found heroes in stitching a tapestry over a doomsday landscape, reminiscent of Ray Bradbury at his best and reading like an episode of The X-Files." (Jon Land, USA Today best-selling author of The Rising)

Azalea Bluff provides much to think about

I always enjoy reading a book that uses the locations where I have lived . The author did a great job capturing the small town feel of Brunswick County, His depiction of the characters both local and transplanted were very authentic.

I found the subject of Nazi scientific secret research very interesting. I had such little knowledge about this subject prior to reading the book that I plan to learn more about it.

There were many twists and turns that I did not see coming. For me, reading a book that I can predict usually turns out to be a disappointment. They only situation I knew was coming was the situation regarding Michael’s death. I am being very vague because I don’t want to spoil anything for future readers.

The ending left me feeling sad and I found myself thinking about a sequel so we might perhaps see a happier ending for the characters.

I enjoyed the book and would recommend it.