A book with monumental characters and a daring plot, Poison Heartbeats is another compelling installment in the Heartbeats series by Temple Emmet Williams. With an international setting, featuring powerful historical, cultural, and religious elements, this book is about one of the realities that everyone dreads: terrorism. The author carefully steps away from the mainstream pattern of featuring terrorism as a phenomenon involving guns and bombs. This time, the threat is against the one vital element that everyone needs for survival: clean and potable water. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has conceived a plan to plunge the US into a state of terror by poisoning its waters, starting with the northwestern Virginia’s Jackson River. But who are the key players in this deadly game and how can they be stopped?

Readers are introduced to twins born in war-torn Nuristan, Afghanistan, a boy and a girl, and their response to their first-hand experience of war becomes one of the key elements that drive the plot. While one joins the jihadists and fights fanatically for a jihadist cause that can pose great danger to millions of people, the other, the girl, ends up falling in love with a very important person in the US Security Department. There are many twists and surprises in this story and the title aptly describes the experience that many readers will have while reading. Temple Emmet Williams writes beautifully and offers powerful political commentaries and excellently explores the psychology of a fanatic. Poison Heartbeats is a hard-to-put down story that is as believable as it’s unsettling. It’s hard not to think about it happening in some corner of the world.

Poison Heartbeats by Temple Emmet Williams is the second novel in the Heartbeats series, a surprisingly compelling work that features terrorism and the insanity that accompanies it with a clarity that is quite forensic. And readers get acquainted with very compelling characters as well. The Islamic organization ISIL, synonymous with ISIS, is about to unleash terror in a form never imagined before. This time, it is not about suicide bombers, but a systematic poisoning of the wells in the US, and the target is the Jackson River in northwestern Virginia. If they succeed, many will die from touching or drinking the water. What could follow is undeniably clear: paranoia, panic, and fear. Who can stop them?

There is something very moving and intimate about this book that one finds it hard to read without feeling a hastened heartbeat or goosebumps. The setting is international and the story offers glimpses of some part of Afghanistan ravaged by war. Now, it is interesting to watch a pair of twins living two diametrically opposing lifestyles: a terrorist warrior and an American girl who falls in love with a very important person in the Security Sector. How their destinies intersect is a riddle the author allows readers to mull over.

Poison Heartbeats deals with themes that are current and crucial, and it comes across as a powerful warning to the threat that fanaticism can pose to society. Globally, there is an outcry of war against terrorism, and this book carries a message that will create a sense of awareness in many readers. Temple Emmet Williams is a great storyteller and he has the gift of making readers get lost in the trail of his characters and the twists in his plot. One of the best books I have read on terrorism.

What if the water that supports the lives of millions of people in the US was poisoned? How would it feel to know that water isn’t safe to drink anymore? How would people react? And what does the destiny of a pair of twin kids from Afghanistan have to do with all this? Such are questions that people hardly think about, but since 9/11 people have thought about terrorism and security has doubled in malls and many public places. But the Islamic State of Iraq in the Levant plans to strike the United States, and this time, no one will know where or how the attack will come about. Their plan is very simple: to poison the Jackson River. The jihadists are most certain of claiming as many lives as possible and putting the rest of the US into a state of panic. Who can stop them? Poison Heartbeats by Temple Emmet Williams is a thriller that will keep readers turning the pages, nonstop!

Temple Emmet Williams paints a very grim and powerful political and religious landscape in this new installment in the Heartbeats series, a story that features characters as memorable as they are interesting to watch. The author makes brilliant use of suspense by offering compelling subplots with the lives of the twin kids from Afghanistan whose destinies will blow the minds of readers. The writing is tight, laced with descriptions of the general climate of war in Afghanistan, and reflections on politics and the fanatical side of religion. The plot couldn’t be enhanced any more; fast-paced and complex, with very interesting characters. Poison Heartbeats is a wonderful read for lovers of thrillers and crime fiction. Great writing, great plot, great characters.

Poison Heartbeats by Temple Emmet Williams is a tale of love, embezzlement, and terrorism. The story begins in war-torn Afghanistan just prior to the fall of Communism, with the vicious Russian Commander Chabachenko murdering his wife, before turning the weapon on his 8-year-old daughter. The child escapes death and is adopted by CIA agent Red, who saved her. She is taken to live in the U.S. by Red, leaving her twin brother behind. Years later the loss of their mother has hardened both siblings to any emotional attachment. The little girl, now known as Holly, is a fearless bodyguard, and her brother, Ahmed, has risen in the ranks of ISIS as a leading terrorist. Holly meets Mac, the Director of Homeland Security, and together they form an unlikely relationship. Meanwhile, Ahmed has arrived in the U.S. and sets out on his mission to poison the U.S. water supply. What follows will force Holly to choose between the love of her long-lost twin and the lives of thousands.

Poison Heartbeats by Temple Emmet Williams will take you on a gripping journey of a terrorist plot and forbidden love. The plots were excellently researched, structured, and detailed. The characters of Holly and Ahmed were realistic and not clichéd at all. The relationship Holly shared with Mac was also believable and, as a reader, I wanted them to find happiness together. The suspense and tension throughout made this book a real page-turner. The author has managed to weave so many cliff-hangers into this story and the sub-plots were to an equally high standard. This is a must-read for lovers of romance, thriller or suspense novels. This book is absolutely captivating and the climactic ending was flawless.