This 360 page novel was sent to me by Allen & Unwin prior to it’s release on February 1st 2017, in exchange for an honest review. I am very grateful to have been chosen to review this book.

Heyo Bookaholics!

Last Monday, I did not post a review, but today I am posting one of my most controversial and opinionated reviews yet.

I have many mixed emotions about this book with many stronger ones developing within the last 30 pages of this novel, where it really started to pick up and provide a certain sense of enlightenment as to where the story had been leading.

Goodreads Summary:

Their love knows no limits – but the further you go, the more dangers there are. Love becomes obsession and lust becomes control. A riveting thriller in the tradition of Girl on the Train andBefore I Go to Sleep.

… fear swam beneath her, baring its teeth, telling her lies …

World-famous freediver Storm Hisray hits Grace Cain like a bolt from the blue. Instantly smitten, she abandons her life in the city to follow him to his idyllic Pacific island. There he teaches Grace the ways of the deep, and she learns to sink to unimaginable depths on one single breath. As their world narrows to the two of them, she learns, too, the exquisite pleasures of her body – but also that Storm hides as many secrets as the sea.

As he pushes Grace further and further beyond her limits – both in and out of the water – her resistance grows, but so does Storm’s need to control her. With a secret of her own to protect, Grace starts to realise that she is in deeper and more dangerous water than she has ever imagined possible.

Brilliant, mesmerising, incendiary and haunting, Storm and Grace explores the dazzling thrill of the deep, and the terrors that lie in its shadows.

Review

Storm and Grace is a novel-like work of fiction that is deeply haunting, gripping and an all over bone chilling experience.

From the beginning of the novel, I didn’t like or connect to the main protagonist, Grace. She started off vary naive and didn’t seem to develop throughout the course of the novel, though towards the end I felt like there was some revelation inside Grace, or something happening behind the scenes of the book and I was an outsider looking in. But that could’ve just been a feeling. Though one thing for certain is that Grace was very naive and it frustrated me to the core! She let Storm take full advantage of her even when it was clear that something was wrong.

I kept on reading though I started to question the reason why I was reding this in the first place. It was weird because I’ve never had that question before, it’s usually been because I liked the storyline or something captured me; but I soon came to the realisation that the real question was not “Why am I reading this?”, but “Why was this book written?”.
I began to feel put off, because I’ve never had to question the reason behind a book, or what the true meaning of a book was; it usually just was.

The aforementioned darkness truly came at the end, when I finally discovered what was actually happening seemingly behind the scenes of the novel. I believe there wasn’t enough foreshadowing from the start and the untying of closed ends at the conclusion of the novel really put my mind in a spin, and maybe this is a good technique though I feel like the issue whatever it was should not have been finalised twice.

The story is told in third person and often times hard to keep track of what the narrators are describing, though I finally understood who the narrators were at the end of the novel after having them flit around the world like another layer of story to focus on.

Though saying this, no character was useless or wasted, even the characters mentioned and left behind, still found their way of coming back, being an influence on Grace’s thoughts and actions.

Alot of the drama happened too close to the end which made the first half of the book too hard to read as it was slow burning and very character driven, when the last say 30 pages became more plot driven turning deeply dark and haunting

Rating

I gave this novel a 3 star rating on goodreads. In all fareness it was difficult to rate this book as it had wonderful writing, though I was undure where the story was going, what the ‘problem’ was to the story as it just seemed like she was wrriting about a day in the life of storm and grace, with no real destination.

Overall, reading this book was an experience that I do not regret and has opened my eyes to a new writing style as well as my heart to a lot of emotions, and my mind to caution.

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Stay Happy, Healthy, and have a Lovely Week!!

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Thank You so much for reading! I hope to see you all back here on Wednesday 🙂

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