Review: Spindrift by Amy Rae Durreson

Author: Amy Rae Durreson

Length: 200 Pages

Category: Paranormal, Mystery/Suspense

At a Glance: While Spindrift took a little more time to hook me than is usual for this author, all was well that ended well, and I couldn’t help but love the way both of the romantic storylines resolved.

Reviewed By: Lisa

Blurb: When lonely artist Siôn Ruston retreats to the seaside village of Rosewick Bay, Yorkshire, to recover from a suicide attempt, he doesn’t expect to encounter any ghosts, let alone the one who appears in his bedroom every morning at dawn. He also doesn’t expect to meet his ghost’s gorgeous, flirty descendant working at the local museum… and the village pub, and as a lifeboat volunteer. But Mattie’s great-great-grandfather isn’t the only specter in Rosewick Bay, and as Siôn and Mattie investigate an ill-fated love affair from a bygone era, they begin a romance of their own, one that will hopefully escape the tragedy Mattie’s ancestor suffered.

But the ghosts aren’t the only ones with secrets, and the things Siôn and Mattie are keeping from each other threaten to tear them apart. And all the while, the dead are biding their time, because the curse of Rosewick Bay has never been broken. If the ghosts are seen on the streets, local tradition foretells a man will drown before the summer’s end.

Review: Spindrift is my second foray into Amy Rae Durreson’s brand of ghost story, and I must say that overall, it was another intense and suspenseful trip into the supernatural. The way the author plays the dual plots off of each other in this novel—the historical relationship that makes up the paranormal aspect of the story, and the present day relationship that grows between Siôn and Mattie—not only added some great contrasts within the storyline but offered more than its fair share of empathy pains too.

Comparing this novel to the author’s A Frost of Cares, I have to say that Spindrift didn’t reel me in at quite the same speed that Frost did—the barren sort of gothic horror setting and the friction between that book’s protagonists went a long way there—but as I got into the meat of this particular story, the pace picked up as well as the emotional investment that came along with the unravelling of the forbidden romance between Matthew Jopling and Joshua Haymer, Spindrift’s doomed lovers. Theirs is a tragic romance which plays contrast to the contemporary relationship between Siôn and Mattie and adds a poignant undertone to the Then versus Now storyline. It’s a stark reminder that while things are currently far from perfect, the way that Matthew and Joshua were forced to live and love in 1907 is nothing less than a tragedy in itself.

Which, is what then adds some great tension to the romance between Matthew Jopling’s great-great-grandson, who happens to be Mattie, and Siôn, the newest resident of the haunted Spindrift Cottage. There’s a sort of doppelganger effect at play here in the history of the ghosts and the two men who might end up nothing less than history repeating itself, and once the paranormal encounters evolved from simply macabre to outright life threatening for them, that’s the moment this story took off in an adrenaline pumping way.

A May/September age difference and some serious baggage throw more obstacles into the road to romance for Mattie and Siôn, so the conflict between them goes beyond the supernatural and owes a lot to the secrets they’re keeping from each other. Mattie’s extroverted cheek and Siôn’s more subdued and staid personality also throw in a nice opposites attract element to the story. And, when Spindrift’s dramatic arc hit maximum tension levels, Amy Rae Durreson delivered, and I was nothing if not invested in the way it all played out.

While Spindrift took a little more time to hook me than is usual for this author, all was well that ended well, and I couldn’t help but love the way both of the romantic storylines resolved.

TNA_Signature_Lisa

You can buy Spindrift here:
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