Dark Storm [Paperback]

What drew me to this book was mainly the cover, but also the synopsis. I liked the mix of contemporary with a slight bit of paranormal and was interested in where the story might go. My journey with this book was very different from ordinary, but not exactly in a good way. After having read the first 30 pages I was so amazed by it that I was tempted to run and tell everyone I know about it and make them read it. I read further, discovered something and experienced the main part of the novel to be pretty disappointing.

First, though, I want to talk about why I loved the book in the beginning. The author had this great talent of jumping right into the story without overwhelming the reader. Really, I started this book five minutes before I had to get out of the bus and by the time I threw it into my backpack to get up, I was already completely into the story and couldn't wait to continue reading. This fast pacedness leads the reader through the whole book, so on the one hand this is a huge plus.

On the other hand, this plus became smaller for me with every page. What made me dread this book after a while was mainly the absolutely stiff dialogue. Usually, I don't even pay much attention to dialogue and I don't think I've ever mentioned it in any of my reviews, but I found the way the characters talked to each other just straight up annoying. I felt like they started a conversation, told each other the story of their lives although they had known the other person for no longer than two minutes and then they were like "bye" and Ellie literally ran anywhere. She was running to so many places, never stayed anywhere for long and when she did, the author turned to summarising everything that happened so as if she just wanted to get it over with.

Another thing that really annoyed me was how simple everything the author wanted to happen just happened. Ellie got to know people in this book, they became friends and that was the end of it. They had barely ever talked, but Ellie told everyone immediately how she felt about the loss of her mother. Somehow, though she doesn't seem to be able to talk about that - or anything other than food - with her grandparents.
Same with the love interest, Harry the ghost. Ellie falling in love with him is a fact not a process. You turn the page and from one moment to the other she just goes on and on how she can't live without him. By the way, the fact that he is a ghost does not seem to be a problem at all. She's not turned off by it or scared or finds it weird or anything. She just goes with it.

The only thing I continued liking a LOT was the general plot of the novel. Just how everything happened and how Ellie developed throughout the novel was totally reasonable and there were some things in the story I just didn't expect at all.

To put it in a nutshell, I was turned off by this book pretty fast and almost considered not finishing it. I'm afraid I can't even say I'd recommend it to anyone. Except maybe, if someone doesn't care much about language and storytelling but only about the plot, because as I said before that was what I liked very much. Overall, a disappointing read for me.

(Source: I borrowed a copy of this book.)
18-year-old Ellie is staying with her grandparents for the summer, in a small coastal town in the UK. Her mother died 18 months ago and her father has gone on holiday to the US with his new girlfriend who Ellie doesn't like.
On her first day in town she goes into a second-hand book store, and finds an old model theatre which she buys for only £5. That night she smells a strange scent in her room, and finds a message written to her in her journal. The message turns out to be from Harry - a 19-year-old boy who played Mercutio in a showing of `Romeo and Juliet' at the small theatre in the town in 1896.
Ellie has signed up to do a show in the exactly same theatre as part of a youth theatre project, and when she is at the theatre begins to be able to see and talk to the mysterious Harry.
How did Harry die though? Why can't he remember his death? Why is he still hanging around the old theatre? And is Ellie really falling in love with a ghost?

This was an enjoyable read, but did have its flaws. There was some mystery as to who Harry was, and why he was still around, and Ellie made a point of trying to puzzle together information from over 100 years ago.
I have to say I don't really see why she fell in love with him though. I mean, Yes - he told her she was beautiful, and Yes - she liked that nobody else knew about him, but I really didn't get why she was supposedly in love with him. If anything he was a little abrupt with her at times and even tried to convince her that SHE was the ghost, not him!
I also thought that the way that Harry died turned out to be a bit silly, and I still don't really get why Ellie went on the witch hunt she went on, trying to find out more about Harry's family. Sure there was some mystery there, but I personally would not go all the way to Paris, on the off chance that my ghost boyfriend's sister's granddaughter might possibly know something about her great-uncle's death, who died years before she was even thought of, never mind born.
There was a side storyline about Ellie's new friends (who weren't ghosts), and their love lives, but I found that a bit shallow really. Ellie's new best friend claimed to have feelings for her best friend Alex, who seemed obviously into Ellie (damn love triangle), and then said new best friend is suddenly dating someone else!
I have to say that I think this is the poorest book I have read by this author, I have loved her other books such as `Century', 'Heretic', `Sacrifice', and `The Amethyst Child', but this just fell really short.
Overall; an interesting contemporary YA, but not up to the author's usual high standards.
6.5 out of 10.