Saturday, October 27, 2018

Book Review: All the Breaking Waves

The cover promised "a gripping tale of long-buried secrets, the strength of forgiveness, and the healing power of returning home for good." Kerry Londsdale's novel, All the Breaking Waves, sounded like a redemption story. I'm a sucker for a good dose of redemption. Alas, I didn't end the story convinced it kept the promises.

Molly Brennan is an art history professor with an eight-year-old daughter who suffers from night terrors. These aren't your run-of-the-mill nightmares. No, Cassie can see into the future and each vision promises additional information about what is coming. I probably wouldn't have balked at that if the crux of the story hadn't centered on Cassie's premonition of her mother's death. This horrendous idea drives the protagonist to return to the home she fled and to confront a past mistake.

I continued reading because I wanted to see if they could counteract the vision by taking necessary steps. Still, throughout much of the book, I was hesitant to suspend my disbelief. If you thought you might die by drowning, you would get as far away from water as possible, yet Molly returns to her beach-front home. Moreover, how could a mother encourage further nightmares on her daughter simply so she can gain more information about the premonition? These details left me scratching my head in wonder. Indeed, they kept me from developing an interest in the main character. While the daughter was endearing, the mother never appealed.

Although I ended the book with a feeling of dissatisfaction, I still would be open to attempting this author's debut novel, Everything We Keep. Her debut garnered thousands of five star Amazon reviews. It sounds like a romantic suspense novel in a similar vein to Ghosted. One reviewer even tweeted the author to exclaim that every time she thought she knew what was going on, it pulled the rug out from under her. With all the buzz surrounding that first novel, I'd be willing to give it a go.

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