lenagrey7

“Spindrift from seas with passion erupts stinging the eyes, pouring down cheeks
castles of sand, now all washed away by oceans of tears that flow through the pail.
Tears in a bucket filled from above blurring the vision in sorrowful eyes spill their liquor as weeping clouds precipitation from rain filled skys.”

~ Howard Brace (Bucket of Tears)

Siôn Ruston, of 'Spindrift' by Amy Rae Durreson, goes to the village of Rosewick Bay to try to regain his sanity in, what he thinks, will be a small, uneventful place. Little does Siôn know, that Rosewick is the most hazardous and precarious place he could be.

For the first few weeks, Siôn tries to relax and busies himself taking photographs and painting. One morning he is awakened by a ghost walking through his bedroom moaning, stinking of death and sea water, and calling out for Sarah and Joshua. At first Siôn thinks he's completely lost his battle with regaining his sanity until he goes down to the village museum and meets a young man who is the spitting image of the ghost haunting him. Mattie turns out to be the ghost's great, great grandson and tells Siôn the story about Matthew's drowning and the curse attached to it; if the ghosts are seen then a young man will drown before the end of the summer. Mattie stirs up feelings Siôn has not felt for years, but his first thought is that at thirty, he's too old for the twenty-one-year-old bundle of energy and enthusiasm and that he has nothing to offer him. But Mattie lives downstairs from Siôn, making avoiding him almost impossible. Mattie begs to come up to Siôn's and “ghost watch” with him. Reluctantly, Siôn agrees. When Mattie witnesses the ghost firsthand, it frightens him more than he'd imagined it would. Despite Siôn's reservations, he and Mattie grow from friends into lovers.

When Siôn has more “ghostly” encounters with not only Matthew but also his lover, Joshua, things really get intense. Each event brings with it more information and Siôn is convinced that there is a great deal more to the tale than what he is learning from the research he's been doing. A big breakthrough is when he is able to contact a partner of one of the victims who drowned years ago. Another is when Mattie discovers a journal that belonged to Joshua but it is in code. Siôn works with the journal and is able to decode most of it, but the results still don't give them all the answers they need. The closer they get to the truth, the more complicated things become. Conclusions that Siôn and Mattie have come to about what happened between Matthew and Joshua seem to be completely wrong. Matthew is convinced that if Siôn stays, he will be the one on the bottom of the ocean floor and begs him to leave. Siôn is stubborn and feels that he's run away from too much in his life and is determined to stay and find a way to break the curse, once and for all.

This well written story quickly captured my imagination and had me on the edge of my seat throughout the book. Since it is written in first person, I discovered things at the same time as Siôn. I knew no more or no less than he did, which was fine except that I really would have liked to have known Mattie's side of the story as well. The ghosts were frightening and intriguing. Siôn and Mattie have to work hard to be able to untangle the confusing facts and get to the truth. Mattie's cousin, Caitlyn, was a great character, full of life, intelligent, and cheeky. She had an amazing impact on the story, to be a bridge between Mattie and Siôn as well as her role in helping them discover the truth about what happened between Matthew and Joshua. She absolutely won my respect.

The “search for the truth” was delightfully suspenseful and deliberately misleading, adding to the overall intensity of the tale and surprising me with an ending I didn't expect but that worked out perfectly. If you like tales about ghosts, secrets, curses, hot sensual encounters, and opposites attracting, you may enjoy this book. Thanks, Amy, for the unique, suspenseful tale.