A Discovering Diamonds review of Storms Gather Between Us by Clare Flynn

"The two main characters and all the rest of the cast were well-written, and although this is the second book of a series it sat easily as a stand-alone read. "

AMAZON UK
AMAZON US 
AMAZON CA


Romance / Fictional Saga
1930s
Zanzibar / England

"Life can change in the matter of a moment...Since escaping his family’s notoriety in Australia Will Kidd has spent a decade sailing the seas, never looking back. Content to live the life of a wanderer, everything changes in a single moment when he comes face to face with a ghost from his past on a cloudy beach in Liverpool. The daughter of an abusive zealot, every step of Hannah Dawson's life has been laid out for her...until she meets Will by chance and is set on a new path. Their love is forbidden and forces on all sides divide them, but their bond is undeniable. Now, they will have to fight against all the odds to escape the chains of their histories and find their way back to one another."

The subtitle for this novel is: "A compelling saga of love, strife and the power of determination." This was a story of a young man, Will, who has a past that he has to deal with and was, therefore, a most intriguing character, and Hannah, a young woman dominated by her obsessively zealous father. The two main characters and all the rest of the cast were well-written, and although this is the second book of a series it sat easily as a stand-alone read. 

I did find the opening chapter to be slightly hard to get into as it centred on backstory, a sort of 'Previously' summery and some of the novel was a little 'dark' in places: Hannah's misery, Will's troubled past haunting him - but unpleasant things happen to real people, (life isn't always a 'box of chocolates') and I very soon found myself rooting for the two of them to rise above their troubles. 

Possibly, some of the plot was coincidence driven - but coincidences also do happen in life, unexpected 'out of the blue' things do pop up which set in motion a chain reaction, which in turn leads from one unexpected event to another, and which can drive people to take the plunge and do something they would not have normally even thought of, let alone pursue. 

So yes, I did find it compelling. Very much so.

© Mary Chapple

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