AnnaLund2011

This story had me, hook, line, and sinker, from the get-go. It is angsty, and the timeline was a bit jumbled for me before I got the hang of it.

Ash was a beautifully sad character, and I love it when there is a side-character that really steps up and does a human effort to save someone who is drowning. That’s what being a real human being is about, for me, so full kudos to Ellie for being the friend that she is. We could all take lessons from her.

Pete, who is a paramedic, is fantastically flawed but beautiful and steady. His Italian mother Maggie had me howling with laughter. He pissed me off, real bad, though.

Yes, I loved this story, but it has flaws.

I’m not a great fan of first person narration, and especially not when it switches back and forth between the main characters. Which it does in this story, and quite a lot. I find it jarring and it throws me out of the story. Hell, sometimes it even threw me out of the world of this story.

I was fine with it all, anyway, somehow, right up until the last chapter and epilogue, where everything suddenly became rushed, and then cut off, almost in mid-sentence.

Yes, there is a book #2, and yes, I have it and I’m going to read it tonight. But it irks me, because a story isn’t done until it is done. It’s not a question of arriving at X number of words achieved, now stop writing. This book could have done with another chapter, or, it could have not brought up the part about the girl in the drawings at the end.

It felt like it was mostly done to pull me in, to make me get the next book. And, yeah, it worked. But it leaves a taste in my mouth that I’m not sure I like. Which is sad, because this is a beautiful book.

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I was given an ARC of this book for free from the publisher, Dreamspinner Press.

A positive review was neither expected nor promised in return.