Thursday, May 29, 2014

Dark Tide

Dark Tide, by Elizabeth Haynes
Series? No
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
Date: March 12, 2013 (first published March 2012 in the UK as Revenge of the Tide)
How did I get this book? free Advanced Reader's Copy from the publisher via Shelf Awareness for my honest review
My Rating: 3 of 5 stars
GoodReads | AuthorPublisher

Having heard such great things about Elizabeth Haynes, I was so excited when I won an ARC of this book from a Shelf Awareness giveaway last year. Yet, for some inexplicable reason, I repeatedly passed it over and only finally got around to reading it during Bout of Books. I love a good thriller, but must admit I don't read them all that frequently. A desire to find out what happens and solve the mystery kept me flipping the pages, but unfortunately the book as a whole didn't quite live up to expectations.

My main gripe is that the main character Genevieve came across as one big cliche. There was a Bout of Books challenge where I had to re-title my current read and my entry was "Regular gal/pole dancer gets in over her head in thriller Dark Tide & reminds me of every crime show in existence." The idea of a woman with a *normal* job and a mostly *normal* life trying to make some extra cash on the side and getting caught in the middle of something she never bargained for sounds a bit like an episode of Castle to me. I love Castle and all, but I guess I was expecting something more original.

The story flips back and forth between the present and when Genevieve was first working at an exclusive gentlemen's club. It was interesting to see how past events led up to and contributed to the mystery, but after a while it started to get a bit annoying. Genevieve (who is narrating) already has a lot of information about what has happened and is only slowly revealing it to the reader. I find a story much more suspenseful when the reader discovers things at the same time as the narrator, apparently. Obviously she doesn't know everything, but a lot of the mystery is finding out what happened in the past and Genevieve already knows that part of the story -- the reader just has to get it out of her. There is also a bit of a love story thrown in that I didn't find very believeable which was unfortunate. I don't object to mixing romance with my thrillers, but this one didn't seem to have much of a foundation.

Despite these complaints, I really don't think this is a bad book. This was Haynes' second novel, and I've heard nothing but good things about her first Into the Darkest Corner, so I'm hoping this was just a bit of a sophomore slump. Into the Darkest Corner is supposedly a very intense read and I think that was definitely lacking here.

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Reading Challenges:
New to Me
Review Pile
My Kind of Mystery
Lucky No. 14
Clean Sweep ARC

12 comments:

  1. I'll be curious to see what you think of Into the Darkest Corner if you get around to it.

    (Also, I know it's not the actual title, but I'm going to have Kelly Clarkson's "Dark Side" stuck in my head all day now.)

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    1. That one is definitely still on my list -- mostly because of your review!

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  2. We all know you participate a ton of challenges, but I didn't expect you'd be able to knock into like 5 challenges with one book! :) Was that intentional when you decided in challenges in the beginning of the year? Makes sense though because for example chunkster challenge overlaps with like every other book in my case :)

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    1. It happens more than you would think! So many different challenges could apply to any kind of book (review pile, chunkster, lucky no. 14, new to me, etc., etc.) and then maybe one genre-type challenge on top of those. It was fairly intentional -- I definitely wouldn't have joined so many if there wasn't overlap! But with the increased number of books I've been reading this year, I'm having trouble keeping track and linking everything up! I think I will be cutting back on challenges for next year and just focusing on a few I most care about.

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  3. This sounds interesting, I am always looking for some good stand-alones!
    Missie @ A Flurry of Ponderings

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    1. I also love a good stand-alone -- too many series these days!

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  4. Both author and book are new to me - honestly, I really need to branch out more. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this one, I love a mystery! I find the unravelling to be best when both reader and narrator are learning at the same time, however there are some exceptions to that for me.

    Differing UK and US titles is something that is starting to bug me though.. I just see no need and sometimes confusion because a book could sound similar to something I've read and then a day or so later I'm like, hey, that is what I read. As I say, unnecessary confusion really, surely we can't be that different of audiences.

    :-)
    Bits & Bobs

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    1. I'm not sure this is the best Haynes book to start with, but I'm definitely intrigued by her other books. I hope you get a chance to check her out!

      The US/UK title thing seems really weird to me too. I try to make a note of it when I am aware of it, but I think it might happen more often than I realize. The thing I really have trouble with though is release dates for different countries -- I never know if a book is releasing at the same time in the UK or not!

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  5. Hmm... I might have a look at her first book then but I'm not so sure this one is for me!

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    1. I definitely recommend giving her first book a try instead -- even though I haven't read it yet, it sounds like a much better example of her writing, based on reviews from bloggers I trust :)

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  6. Here's hoping you like her other book more! I hadn't heard of it before but I think I understand what you mean by it seeming too much like a film. (I think it's easy to wonder, sometimes, if maybe the author had films in mind when they wrote.)

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I'd love to hear what you think :)