I didn’t enjoy this book. I really wanted to. I mean, what was not to enjoy? Orcas, escape from an abusive husband, women standing together, ghostly activity. And all set in a beautiful location in Washington state. All of these details made me think I’d absolutely love this book. But I didn’t.

It started out with so much promise. The first line made me really happy. It is a fabulous description, and I thought I was in for a real treat. Unfortunately, the first line was as good as it got..

This is the story of Alex, a woman who has run away from her abusive husband. She has come to Copper Cove to work for a couple of months archiving the work of a marine biologist, Maggie. Maggie has been working for years to track the orca pods in the water around Copper Cove. While there, Alex meets Emmie, a woman whose story we are also told. Emmie is able to feel animals’ pain and to communicate with them. She also sees pain in people, and she sees the pain in Alex. But they don’t really communicate a lot until the end.

And that’s it really. The POVs switch, mostly, from Alex to Emmie, but they do jump around a bit with other characters. My main criticism, though, is that the author kind of skims over the top of everything. She doesn’t go into much detail, and when she does dig a bit deeper, it doesn’t pull me in. Usually, I find it easy to get lost in characters’ emotions, but I just didn’t with this book. I didn’t feel like the author really sunk her teeth into the subject. It was more about what happened than how the characters felt.

I know people will disagree with this. Most of the reviews I read about it were positive. But, for me, it just didn’t work.

I don’t really know. I guess the parts of the books with orcas in it work well. So, if you like that kind of thing, you might enjoy this book.

The orcas. I admit, I had a lump in my throat at the end.

The author’s writing style. I thought the editing could have been better, too. I wanted to learn much more about the characters. Emmie, considered locally to be a witch due to her extreme empathy with animals, could have been such an interesting character. But she just … wasn’t.

Read something I know I will enjoy.

Frustrated.

Elizabeth Hall. Apparently, she has published a few books. I’m not tempted to check any of them out, though.

It feels very amateurish. It doesn’t really hook you. Not completely. If you want to read about orcas, I’m sure there are better books to read.

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Created Feb 03, 2024 at 4:26am • Submit your own review...