Book Review: Dark Waters

Posted by tmycann on May 30th, 2012 in Review | 0 comments

Here again, my love of Twitter introduced me to a new (to me) author: @TheShannonMayer. She is fun and friendly there, and shares lots of interesting links. She’s been pretty prolific over the past year or so, though the majority of her work deals in zombies–something I’m not particularly keen on. Then she decided to take advantage of some of the freebie promos Amazon offers, and gave this one, based on Celtic legends, away for a few days. It’s hard for me to pass up free reads, or anything based on the Celtic legacy, so I went to look at her product page.

There wasn’t much of a blurb, but it was just enough for me to decide to take Mayer up on her offer:

Two sisters, one of them kidnapped + Two gorgeous men.
+ A legendary prophecy =
Monsters, magic, deception and sensuality.
Be prepared to dive into Dark Waters!

She’s giving it away again today and tomorrow as part of the KA Books Free Par-Tay, so I’d recommend you grab your chance to snatch up the engaging tale to try out something new.

The story explores the intricate interweave of family and fairy tale, and while the heroine seems to be one of the type who remains clueless and questioning for long enough for the reader to want to shake her, ultimately she proves her strength. To give you a sense of her state of mind, here’s how she tries to reconcile fact and fiction early on:

“A shark was it?” he said, a patronizing look on his face. I had the sudden urge to slap him. “It wasn’t a shark, it was…” I paused. I didn’t really know what the two monsters were; I had no name for them. And how was I to explain what I saw? They would blame my crazy descriptions on the fear and my past experiences. Or even my family history. Maybe Grandpa wasn’t as crazy as we’d thought. Or maybe I was about to join him at the Pavillion.

“It wasn’t a shark,” I said again, sticking to the one part I knew for sure.

There’s something frustrating to me about a person who spends so much time questioning their own sanity, though the author does a good job pointing out how the fraught relationship between Quinn, her mother, and her grandfather, and the toll their emotional abuse has taken on her. I’m also not a great fan of love triangles, but the one Mayer builds between Luke, Bres, and Quinn is compelling. As is the way she uncovers the layers that make Quinn’s mother one of the more unlikable characters I’ve read.

For those of you interested in a modern take on Celtic legends or a fast-paced adventure, this is a fun one to explore. It’s not the best-edited book I’ve read, but it offers interesting escapism that whips you through the story and does actually leave you wondering where Quinn will end up next.