Winter Tides

Rating:
Summary: A ghost story looking for a ghost
Review: Blaylock has improved his storytelling skills over the years in leaps and bounds, making subtle changes to his style in nearly every novel. Not every thing he does succeeds absolutely but you have to give credit to the guy for trying. Here he attempts a spooky ghost story of revenge but as it turns out the ghost is hardly necessary at all . . . which maybe was the point. Fifteen years ago, Dave Quinn attempted to save twin girls from drowning . . . one didn't make it and he still feels guilty about it. Working for an eccentric old man (the closest Blaylock comes to one of his classic character stereotypes) and being constantly creeped out by the boss' son Edmund he eventually runs into Anne, who turns out to be the girl he managed to save, it was her sister Elinor who died that night. From there the tale becomes a story of gradually escalating obsessing, told mostly from the POV of Edmund, who is truly probably the sickest character Blaylock has ever written, I had to wonder about the author's mental state since he seemed to so perfectly capture the effortless madness of Edmund, how even the most depraved act makes perfect sense to his twisted mind. The kicker is that the ghost of Elinor is supposed to be pushing Edmund to do the things he does, inspiring him and whatnot but Elinor really never develops anything resembling a presence, besides moving stuff around and causing ghostly footsteps and appearing as misty human shapes in the air . . . there's not much else she does . . . fortunately when Blaylock keeps the focus on Edmund and his rather strange passions, life stays interesting and the suspense is nicely done even if toward the end it tends to dissolve into standard "We must stop the villain" stuff complete with cliched, "Let me explain my plan so that you have a chance to stop me" . . . fortunately Dave and Anne are fun characters and you do root for them to get together (even if little is done with it) . . . Dave Quinn is one of the more rounded characters to come down the Blaylock pipeline in a while and remains interesting on his own, especially since he does actively forward the plot, often times Blaylock protagonist let stuff happen to them for a while before they start reacting. All of these are minor flaws, while reading this pages literally flew and I finished this way faster than I thought I would . . . as a psychological study on sickness it's great, as a ghost story, well it's no Night Relics but you can't knock every one completely out of the park, can you? Any Blaylock fan can't go wrong here though.

Rating:
Summary: It's not a ghost story.
Review: Don't be mislead by the cover of this book or its synopsis. This book isn't a creepy ghost story. It's a boring romance with a pathetic villan. The characters are flat and unrealistic (not to mention the plot). The best thing about this book was the first chapter. Too bad Blaylock couldn't keep the rest of the story up to that par.

Rating:
Summary: Not what I expected
Review: _Winter Tides_ disappointed me, but I suppose I must put the blame on the publisher rather than the author. Mainly I was miffed because the blurb on the back promised something totally different from what was actually in the book. The blurb spoke of a man named Dave, and his relationship with the girl he had saved from drowning years before, and with the ghost of her sister whom he failed to save. What I got was a novel about a psychopath named Edmund, who wasn't even mentioned on the cover.

Dave and the sisters were there, all right, but they were dealt with shallowly. Even when the story was being told from Dave or Anne's point of view, the author never really went deeply into what they were thinking or feeling, just their physical actions. Elinor, the ghost sister, gets even shorter shrift, and mainly seems to be a plot device. The romance between Dave and Anne is skimmed over, and both of their feelings for Elinor are summed up in a few sentences here and there. The only intricate characterization in the book is that of Edmund, a true loony who thinks torturing people is a fine art form. Blaylock does a good job of depicting him, but I wasn't expecting a psychopath story, I don't really like psychopath stories, they're just not my thing. I was led to expect a ghost story and a love story.

If you like novels about psychopaths and serial killers, go ahead and buy this--it's well done if you like that sort of thing. Blaylock's subtlety and restraint leave the worst bits to the imagination, thereby creating a more palpable terror. Just don't buy this if you're looking for a dark fantasy or a romance.