Review: A Heart-Warming Read
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 10, 2013
Lucy Oliver warms the heart in her debut novel, Winter Storms.Synopsis (written by the author):Two years ago Carly Roberts split from her lover, Daniel Edwards, after he caused a terrible sailing accident that cost her both the use of her right leg and her Olympic dreams. Unable to watch his climb to double Olympic success, she stayed in the Cornish village they grew up in, while he travelled the world.Racked with guilt, knowing he destroyed her future, Daniel has finally returned home to make amends. But he didn't expect to fall in love with her again.Carly has her own life now and it doesn't include him. She can't forgive him for the catastrophic injuries that changed her life. While the storms of a Cornish winter lash their village home, can Daniel persuade her to give him a second chance?What are the benefits of reading Winter Storms?The character-building. I cannot say enough about the complexity of Oliver's characters. So often in mass market fiction, we see repeated types: the aloof billionaire, the sacrificial female, the dark-hearted vampire, the sassy vixen. Carly and Daniel are nearly flesh and bone so detailed is Oliver's characterization. They're people: a mix of the heartache, the selfishness, the need for self-preservation, the need for love that we all have. Character emotion and motivation, storyline development, even the dialogue created realism. I felt like I knew these people, and because I knew them, I ached for them and all their troubles. I worried in the final scenes if fate would continue to test them and had to stop reading to gather courage.The heroine, Carly. Although she is very different from most romance heroines, I adored her. She was not bubbly, or sex kittenish, or a wonderful nurturer... she was none of those stereotypes. Instead, she was scarred, a little bit embittered, a little bit angry, a whole lot unwilling to risk herself in love. And her anger toward the hero wasn't a sassy affectation. It was honest-to-goodness my-life-was-ripped-from-me anger. She had a real dark side--like most of the adults I know. Life is hard, and we all bear scars, and that's a truth that Oliver shows with all of her characters, especially Carly. But, despite Carly's edgy nature, I really like her. She is resilient, determined, loving to her friends and family, hopeful about her career, motivated to support causes and to better herself.The setting and sub-plotting. In some novels, setting and sub-plotting are little better than page-fillers, but in Oliver's hands, these side elements have a true life of their own. While the focus of the novel is on the development of the romance between Carly and Daniel, Oliver weaves a world around them that is full of verve and interest. The sea. The storms. The community's need for a new lifeboat. The future of Daniel and Carly's careers. All of this concerned me. I didn't have a single moment where I wanted to skim or wished Oliver had edited something out. Nothing in this book is tangential or unnecessary.The suspense. Although this novel was not a mystery or suspense story, Oliver's tale involves life-and-death issues: sea storms and the hard life of fishing communities. The ocean is not all sunny beaches and smooth sailing. These people spend their life on the sea because they have to, and it comes with costs. Even Carly, who loves sailing and competing, relied on her sailing as her profession. It was never a hobby. After her sailing injury, she runs an upscale boutique, but she has never forgotten the danger of the water, so she spends most of the book raising funds to replace the town's aged lifeboat. Oliver uses this time to subtly warn us of the dangers of the sea; then, in the final chapters, when Carly's loved ones are out in a storm, the book becomes almost impossible to read. With Oliver's realistic look at people and life, you know this writer won't give you a fake and glossy happily ever after, so you turn each page cautiously. With even more suspense than "suspense novels," Oliver's novel is engaging and touching in ways so few novels ever are. I highly recommend this author and can't wait to see what other tales will follow this incredibly successful debut.Disclaimer: An ARC copy was provided, but no money was taken.