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Spreading Their Wings
Runaway Artist follows a young artist who witnesses a violent crime behind a Beverly Hills gallery where she is interning, and her sketches become the only evidence, putting her own life in danger. What inspired the idea of an artist who can reconstruct a crime scene through drawings?
The experts say, “write what you know.” Because I’ve been a professional artist for over 40 years, the subject made perfect sense to tackle. Brooke reacts to stimuli the way I might if faced with her predicament, and if I were her age. We artists see the world in color and details.
Brooke is both brave and uncertain at times. How did you approach writing her emotional journey?
I love writing about females in their early twenties who are on the cusp of spreading their wings. Brooke is old enough to know a lot, but young enough to make mistakes. And the average reader has been there at one point in their life, so they can relate…and, hopefully, even cheer on the heroine.
The book touches on courage, independence, and trusting your instincts. Were those themes intentional from the beginning?
Yes, totally intentional. I treated Brooke as if she’d just joined the military by pulling her away from the life she had previously known, then throwing her into a place far from her comfort zone. She would either fold up into a ball or have to dig deep to find that inner confidence we all need if we are to survive. Fortunately, she has a sister who is strong and capable, so she has an example to follow.
Could you imagine returning to Wildridge or these characters in future stories?
Possibly. I really like the setting, which is patterned after a mountain community near me. I can imagine Brooke and Conner marrying and eventually enjoying their HEA, but prior to that, I’d have to invent a villain. Brooke might even become a police sketch artist and… Who knows?
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Days later, clues finally emerge, turning the alleged murder into a reality. Brooke must face a decision—risk the killer returning to silence her…or disappear into thin air. Can she remain hidden until an arrest is made? Or will evil find her first?
Runaway Artist
Runaway Artist by Sheila Hansberger is a romantic suspense thriller set between Beverly Hills polish and a mountain town that plays by different rules. Brooke Arnelletta, a young artist interning at Robelloff’s Fine Art Gallery, gets pulled into a violent crime and an art theft that no one seems to fully believe at first. Her strange gift is that she can “see” what happened when she draws it, and her sketches become a kind of evidence trail for Detective Lawson. When the pressure spikes, Brooke bolts to her family’s cabin in Wildridge, expecting a quiet hideout, and instead finds survival problems, suspicious locals, and the uneasy feeling that danger has followed her up the mountain.
What I liked right away is how the book uses art as more than a personality trait. Brooke doesn’t just “love art.” She thinks in images, notices small visual details, and that becomes the engine of the mystery. There’s also a nice tension in watching someone used to comfort and structure get shoved into uncertainty. Hansberger keeps the stakes personal, not abstract. Brooke is scared, defensive, and sometimes stubborn, and it reads like a real young adult trying to sound brave while privately spiraling. I also appreciated the way the gallery world is painted. It feels glossy, but not magical. Even early on, the alley behind the gallery is dark and vandalized, and the book quietly tells you, “This pretty world has blind spots.”
The author’s choices give the book momentum. Short chapters, quick turns, and a steady drip of trouble that keeps pushing Brooke from one decision to the next. Sometimes Brooke’s choices made me wince, the kind of “please do not do that” feeling you get watching a thriller protagonist walk toward the basement door. That worked for me because the book seems aware of it. Brooke is learning, sometimes the hard way, what it means to be independent. And the Wildridge sections brought a warmth I didn’t expect. There’s a community texture to the mountain town, plus a grounded, slow-burn romantic thread that sneaks up on her, especially once Conner becomes more than the competent guy behind the hardware store counter.
By the end, it left me with that satisfying mix this genre does best: danger contained, life reassembled, and a main character who feels a little more solid in her own skin. The epilogue lands on a simple, human note, and a small romantic gesture that fits the title in a sweet, earned way. If you like romantic suspense where the thriller plot keeps moving but the relationships still matter, you’ll have a good time here. I’d especially recommend it to readers who enjoy fish-out-of-water stories, small-town dynamics, and mysteries that use a character’s craft as a believable tool.
Pages: 322 | ASIN : B0FMGY5ZV6
