Stars: 2.5 out of 5
This book started with a bang, and I really liked the character of Beatrice and her genuine desire to help people. She is a compelling character and easy to like. Though I must admit that I couldn’t quite suspend my disbelief that dropping acid a couple of times would somehow unlock her latent ability to see other people’s ghosts. However, I was willing to let that slide because I liked Bea, and I wanted to see where this story would go. I wanted to see Bea conquer her ghosts and come triumphant on the other end of her ordeal.
I also loved the island and the nuns who run the ferry. Mother Maggie was a pleasure to read about, and I would have loved to hear more about her life and her very pale and washed-out ghosts. Unfortunately, we don’t get nearly enough of her in this story.
The descriptions of island life are also very calming. I wouldn’t have minded living in Bea’s cottage with the cows and the views of the tumultuous sea. So I was fully engaged with the story and read the first 50% of the book in one sitting. Then Anne arrived at the island, and the book went downhill from there.
See, the story shifted from being about Bea to being about Anne and her abusive and controlling husband. Bea was relegated to a side character who was there to build up Anne’s confidence and be a receptive ear for Anne to tell us her story. It would have worked hadn’t Anne been such a meh character. I understand what the author tried to do here – the battered wife who carries all the guilt about being in this situation in the first place and thinks it’s her fault. However, this is written a bit on the nose here. Her husband is a caricature of an abusive and controlling psychopath. He is so over-the-top evil that I couldn’t take him seriously as a character or as a threat to Bea and Anne. There are better books written about this topic. Heck, even Stephen King wrote a book about a battered wife who ran away from her abusive cop husband and managed to build a new life for herself, and that book was more compelling than Anne’s story.
So after the focus shifted to Anne, I slowly lost interest in the book. In fact, I put it down for a few weeks and only came back to it because I don’t like DNFing books unless I absolutely don’t jell with them. But I skimmed till the end more than I read, hitting the major plot points. And even then I can tell that the ending is very overwritten. It should have stopped several chapters before it did. In fact, it should have stopped after James left the island the second time. Everything else could have been summarized in a brief epilogue.
As it stands, this book had a lot of promise but ended up a disappointment for me, but I am willing to give it 2.5 stars because in the beginning I really thought I would love it.
PS: I received an advanced copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.