Two Weeks In: What Readers Are Saying About Fatal Turn Of The Tide

Reviews reach an independent author like postcards reach a house that has been quiet for a while: one at a time, unannounced, and read far more often than they strictly deserve. A few have begun to appear for Fatal Turn of the Tide. I have read each of them more times than I will admit to here, and it seemed more useful to share what they say than to glow about them privately.

The Sea Made It Onto the Page

Sarah wrote that she could almost feel the cold and smell the briny sea air, which is exactly the effect I was hoping for when I wrote Brightcombe's weather into the book. Cajetan, reviewing separately, called the settings vivid and essential to the story. That is the job I wanted them to do, and it is a relief to hear that a reader felt the place doing it.

Paula Gets the Credit

Cajetan described Paula as competent and steady, someone who gets to the answer by thinking calmly, with no theatrics involved. He singled out her handling of a high-profile wedding, with all its social tension and staff difficulties, as one of the pleasures of the book. A writer is always hoping a lead character will be liked, and it is a particular relief when the qualities that get noticed are the ones you worked hardest to give her.

Sarah mentioned something I had not expected anyone to remark on. She appreciated that the protagonist is a happily married woman with a supportive husband and a stable family life. I will confess that I had never thought of Paula's contentment as a selling point. Crime fiction tends to assume that a detective needs a wreck of a personal life, and I have been quietly resisting that assumption for three books. A settled home turns out to be restful to read about, which seems obvious now that someone has said it.

A Gentle Book, Accurately Described

Another review is shorter and more summary-minded. It places the book firmly in cosy territory, low on violence and high on community texture, and observes that the mystery is solved through patience and empathy, with no interrogation-room pressure. That is a fair description, and a deliberate one. Anyone hunting for grit will have better luck with The Forgotten Corpse, which lives in a darker corner of my writing.

Starting Anywhere

A later book in a series carries a specific worry, which is that a newcomer will feel they have walked into a dinner party where everyone else already knows each other. Sarah reports that the book refers to earlier characters and incidents and carries a running backstory, yet reading the series in order is not essential to enjoying it. I had hoped for exactly that and could never test it myself, since I have never read my own books for the first time.

She also said that some of the descriptions were almost lyrical, and that she found herself turning them over in her head to savour the wording. I have thought about that sentence more than any other this week. Writers claim to be above praise for individual sentences, and we are not.

What Early Reviews Can and Cannot Tell Me

Every review so far has been kind, and I am aware of how that sounds. The sample is small, and the readers who write early reviews tend to be the ones who enjoyed the book most. I would be a poor judge of my own work if I let a pleasant fortnight settle the question.

So the invitation I made after my last launch still stands. If you have read Fatal Turn of the Tide, I would like to know where you were in the story when you worked things out, whether the mystery held its shape, and whether any clue was about as subtle as a road sign. A review on Amazon helps other readers find the book, and I am equally glad to hear from you directly.

Fatal Turn of the Tide is available now.