It’s not the first time Eric Hopkins and his girlfriend Rebekah have ended up on the wrong side of the law. Through a twist of fate, crime is actually what brought them together in the first place, but the trouble is, they’re on the good side of the law. They’ve been placed in the FBI’s Witness Protection program, but it’s not long before they find out that it was all a ruse, and they’re caught once again between two evil terrorist groups.

“The Counterfeit” is Robison Wells’ third novel and the sequel to his 2005 release, “Wake Me When It’s Over”, though Wells feels that readers don’t necessarily have to read the prequel to understand the plot of “The Counterfeit”. I think I might have to disagree – I’ve read ‘Wake Me When It’s Over”, but it was such a long time ago that I’d all but forgotten why Eric and Rebekah where in trouble in the first place, and Wells doesn’t do a fabulous job of keeping readers up to speed with the plot.

Still, I remembered his characters because he does a great job of keeping them real and believable – no flowery speech or phrases that “real” people wouldn’t say. Wells does a great job with introducing sarcasm into dangerous situations which keeps his books lighthearted and far from weighing the reader down with a heavy murder plot.

In this latest release, we follow Eric and Rebekah as they unknowingly run away from the law and into the hands of the bad guys. It’s a twisted plot, sometimes hard to follow, but it all comes down to finding out the truth, stopping world destruction, and falling in love (and what would an LDS novel be without a little romance?)

I like Wells’ style of writing, so I’m going to highly recommend “The Counterfeit”. But do yourself a favor and read “Wake Me When It’s Over” first.

You can find “The Counterfeit” at DeseretBook.com.