Between this and With This Curse, I'm putting Amanda DeWees on my auto-buy list. Both novels were fantastic contemporary offerings in the gothic historical romance genre, and there just aren't enough of those out there.Sea of Secrets, like With This Curse, manages to be suspenseful while still maintaining the sort of grounded, deliberate pace that I prefer in historicals. The characters are fantastic and mostly three-dimensional (again as in With This Curse, the villain is pretty singularly villainous, but I'm okay with that). The literary parallels work well - the story stands solidly on its own without them, but they add an interesting dimension for anyone who catches them. Sea of Secrets by Amanda Dewees is a historical romance/mystery story. It follows a girl named Oriel who is plagued to live a life with her evil father after the death of her mother (as an infant) and her beloved brother Lionel. She goes to live with her mothers side of the family when her father disowns her and finds herself in a new sort of drama. Will her life ever sort itself out? I really enjoyed this book! I felt that the cover was captaviating as well as the story itself. I just couldn't get enough of it. From page one to the very last page I felt as if I were there with the characters feeling what they felt and finding suspisions of my own. I have read three other books by this author and enjoyed them all very much. She is an excellent story teller and I can't wait to read more from her.
For a complete review check out the next issue of InD'Tale online magazine!
—anlicious
It's fabulous! Great voice, Gothic feel, and compelling characters.
—Evelyn
gothic romance, murder mystery, twists and turns.
—caranie
Gothic remix of Victoria Holt with Hamlet.
—ludi16
Not bad. Very predictable.
—JSObryant
