Reviewed by Dan
TITLE: Tempest
AUTHOR: Cari Z
PUBLISHER: Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
LENGTH: 294 Pages
RELEASE DATE: April 5, 2016
BLURB:
Love can change a soul. But can it save one life?
Colm Weathercliff is a simple fisherman with an uncanny—some might say preternatural—knack for his trade. He thought leaving his small village to take his father’s ashes to the capital city of Caithmor for a proper burial would be the grandest adventure of his life.
At first, all his hopes seem to be fulfilled. He finds a home where he’s accepted without question, the freedom to use his talent to its fullest effect, and love with Nichol, a man with a longing for the sea as powerful as Colm’s.
But Caithmor holds as many dangers as it does attractions. Colm’s greatest secret turns out to be a dark revelation that gets him and his family shunned—and changes everything he thought he knew about himself.
The truth—about his parentage, his gift, even his physical form—could poison his chance for love. And doom both him and Nichol to a gruesome, inescapable fate.
Warning: Contains graphic violence, explicit sex, and scenes of torture that may not be for the faint of heart. These mermen bear no resemblance to those you might have seen in a certain animated film.
REVIEW:
This was my first foray into a book by Cari Z, but it probably won’t be my last! I liked the characters and world building on this one.
We meet Colm Weathercliff shortly after his father has died in the remote mountain village they resided in for most of Colm’s life. Colm is different though. He came with his father when his father moved to the village. He is loved by his step-mother, and half siblings, but the local priest has it in for him because he doesn’t fit in within the guidelines of the farming community that he lives in. He has an affinity for water of all things, something that the people in his remote town avoid. When the priest refuses to allow Colm’s father’s ashes to be spread in the custom of the farming community, Colm is forced to leave his village and travel across the country to the capital city to seek help from relatives there in spreading the ashes at sea.
Along the way, Colm will undergo trials and tribulations on the journey, but once he gets to the city of Caithmor, life should be great. Colm will meet his relatives, including his hot “cousin” Nichol. It is a good thing they are actually his stepmother’s family or there might have been some incest going on! No spoilers on that though!
Things happen and life heads downhill fast when a certain drunk fisherman starts running his mouth in the wrong places. What will happen when Colm discovers that there are dark reasons why he doesn’t know either his father’s or his mother’s people? Who is he, or maybe the questions is…what is he?
Overall, I would say that I really liked the characters, but there was an annoying thing which happened more than once that kind of put me off, slightly. I read the book quite rapidly, so maybe it stood out to me more than if I had read it slowly, but there was an issue with some of the characters continuity. The issue was they disappeared and were never heard from again when Colm moved on to the next part of his story. I really wanted to know what happened to one of the characters from the traveling carnival for example, and I’m still wondering if it was who were led to guess it was in the cell below the cathedral!
I liked this story, but wish there had been more answers on some of the background characters. Even after the mention of Colm’s family history, for another example, it was just dropped. I think the author is a good writer, but I was left wishing for more. Even though I really enjoyed it, I’m going to have to call this one good/average. I think it could have been so much more…maybe as a couple of books with a lot more detail and follow-up, rather than one book with what, in my opinion, were missing pieces. I’m not sure if there will be a sequel, but if there were, I’d definitely read it!
RATING: 
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