Reviews

In the Waning Light by Loreth Anne White

karmandala's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

leahpatullo's review

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4.0

4.25 stars rounded down. Maybe I'm still on a Dark Lure hangover but this book didn't pull me in the same way others have. However, there was definitely a turning point when things really picked up and made the remainder easier to devour.

knightscrown's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Another brilliant book by Loreth Anne White. Great pacing, the time skips were well placed. The details in flashbacks were just enough to get you guessing about what actually happened to Sherry that day. Great introduction of characters and capturing the small town feel. Romance may have been a bit quick to rekindle but I didn’t mind. I definitely loved the ending, at first I didn’t think it was possible, but I’m so glad that it came full circle. Highly recommend, the audiobook narration was fantastic. 

daisy222de's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

jenstarkey's review against another edition

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4.0

Thank you to NetGalley and Montlake Romance for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. I appreciate it, as always!

I moved this week. The house is a shambles. My husband and I have been turning corners in the kitchen, unaware of where we put the knives, or the ground cinnamon, or the plates.

But still, I read. I had to. Loreth Anne White is quickly becoming one of my favourite mystery authors, and after A Dark Lure, I knew that In the Waning Light was at the top of my must-reads list.

This tale is captivating. It has one of my book kinks - a tragic past following the heroine into the future - immediately I was hooked. This book is unputdownable. It's the story of Meg Brogan, a true-crimes author who returns to her childhood home to write about her own sister's brutal murder. As a teen, Sherry Brogan was viciously raped and strangled. On that night, Meg was also hurt and almost died - but her memories have been washed away, like a footprint at high tide.

Upon her return, it becomes evident that the residents of Shelter Bay are unimpressed with Meg digging around in the past. Some violently so. As Meg peels the onion of her sister's murder, she also finds herself again - in love and life, reconnecting with her first boyfriend, Blake Sutton. Although the romance is lovely AND sexy (a rare thing), it's her relationship with Blake's son Noah that I found most touching. This young boy, so desperate for affection and grieving so intensely for his mother - he's heartrending, and Meg engages with him in such a way that tells the reader she is truly a good person. Brave, strong, compassionate and pretty badass.

I guessed who murdered Sherry mid-way through, but I did NOT guess the reasons behind it, nor the circumstances. It's a shocker, and it's brutal and upsetting and horrifying. Loreth Anne White is not afraid to go into the darkness, nor is she afraid to take you there with her. Her sense of place is astounding. It's one of her biggest talents as an author.

I would be remiss if I didn't point out some repetition in the phrasing and prose. When I was in creative writing class, my teacher told me that although she loved my poetry, she found I had a few favourite words and phrases, and fell back onto them time and time again. White does this often - with things like "bowels", "black and inky", "black and oily" and "chinkled". It's a little distracting - because the phrases are so raw and distinctive.

Overall, highly recommended. I cannot wait for the next mystery from White. She's truly talented and creates worlds that you can reach out and touch, taste, feel and experience.

jennlp2004's review against another edition

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challenging emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

cab65's review against another edition

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3.0

I got this book from Kindle Unlimited and it had the audible included to I listened to it instead of reading with my eyes. I can't say much about the narrator because I listened at 1.25x speed. I can say that at that speed the narration was easy to follow and it kept me distracted while I was riding my bike on the indoor trainer.
The story itself was an interesting mystery. There were a couple slow spots but I enjoyed the story and really couldn't have guessed who the killer was until the last couple of chapters. That said, I still didn't expect the ending.

mvbookreviewer's review against another edition

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5.0

Meggie Brogan returns to her hometown of Shelter Bay because she wants to prove that she has indeed left her past behind. The past that involves the brutal murder of her sister Sherry, a murder that had rocked and torn asunder the idyllic town where she had grown up in. The murder that had splintered her family, having now left her all alone in this world, except for the man who wants to make her his, if only she would let him.

A true crime writer, Meggie has never broken the cardinal rule of not picking an unsolved case, which is sort of what Sherry’s case is. Although the killer had been identified and things had gone horribly wrong in between, Meggie can’t help but believe that a part of her subconscious keeps holding back fragments of the memories associated with the day Sherry had been killed. Returning to her hometown raises more skeletons from her closet, ones like the sexy Blake Sutton, the man she had left behind when she had fled her home all those years ago.

Blake has got his hands full with being a single father to his son Noah and trying to restore his family’s place of business to its former glory. And then in walks the woman that had gotten away, the woman whom he has never forgotten, though so many things had happened in his life since then. Meggie’s quest to write a book on her sister’s murder brings a fresh source of worry for Blake even amidst the haze of desire for her that almost obliterates everything else. The town of Shelter Bay is about to be rocked to its very core once again as Meggie’s quest for the truth takes her deeper into a web of secrets, lies and half-truths, secrets so deadly that she might not live to tell the tale she came home to write.

Loreth Anne White writes a mean story with in In the Waning Light, throwing the reader into the chaos that she has so beautifully crafted. I was in shock, in awe and everything in between as I kept turning the pages, trying to piece together what had happened that fateful day when Sherry had died such a brutal death. Meggie and Blake’s connection that rekindles was another factor that kept me glued to the pages. Though Loreth doesn’t spend all that time discussing their past, the bits and pieces tossed in between makes for wholesome reading, showing a passion that had refused to die even with all that distance and time that had come and gone since then.

There is so much tragedy and loss in the story that I at times felt like I was totally going to lose it. The secrets as they came forth like a dam that had broken, kept me on my toes, afraid of what just might be around the corner. I think it was because of all the factors above that In the Waning Light turned out to be a story that really got to me. I kept telling my husband about this great book I was reading; I was like a child with a beautiful sleek new toy that was all mine and I wanted to savor it in small doses but wanted to just take all of it as well. I actually managed to convince my husband to read this book, my husband who rarely reads, if ever. This book consumed him just like it did me, he barely even made the time to watch any of his favorite TV shows, just holed himself in the room and kept reading, cursing me all the while for giving him a book that refused to let go.

There is such beauty to the way the settings are described in this story that I absolutely fell in love with it. There are authors who try too hard to describe the scenes they are writing and end up failing miserably, making the reader flip through the pages just to get to the story that is at its core. Believe me, cos I have read my fair share of those books. But In the Waning Light tossed all that out of the window and made me sigh and yearn at the magic that Loreth was weaving right in front of my eyes. It is almost as if you are engulfed in the fog described, being tossed around in the roiling sea while the wailing wind tries to snatch you from the scene before it engulfs you as a whole. That was how I felt through every single scene in the book. It was all encompassing. It was that gripping, and I loved the sensation of being thoroughly swept away!

The suspense itself was topnotch. The clues lead the reader on a wild goose chase and then some. But at a certain point, you start getting a feel for who the murderer could be, that is if you are the type who questions every character that you come across in the story.

A small town brimming with secrets everyone is keeping from the other person, even their loved ones, those secrets that can rip families apart and toss a town inside out; those are the type of secrets that Loreth was dealing with In the Waning Light. A heroine suffering from a memory block, the same memory block that perhaps had saved her life long ago, the very block that prevents her from committing to anything or anyone in her life except for her passion of writing true crime.

If there ever was a romantic suspense that I would recommend the hell out of this year, it would be this.

Rating = 4.75/5

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shadowsiren's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

tsquare345's review against another edition

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2.0

A book about a writer writing a book. How meta. The main character, Meg Brogan, was difficult to relate to. She's extremely defensive and in denial. Ugh and don't get me started on Jonah