Reverb ★★★★☆ | #COYER Book Review

Warning: This book may not be suitable for all audiences.  It has flashbacks to rape and torture.

Written by: J. Cafesin
Genres: Psychological Thriller; Romantic Suspense

James Whren is brilliant, beautiful, rich, and taken—with his genius for creating music. Desired by many, he commits to no one but his muse. On the eve of his brother's funeral his father shatters his life, and James is left abandoned in hell with no one real to save him.

His odyssey to freedom takes him beyond the looking glass, to the reflection of friends and lovers. Humbled and alone, James escapes to the Greek island of Corfu. But instead of finding solace there, loneliness consumes him.

Until Elisabeth, and her son, Cameron...

Reverb is a love story, a psychological thriller paced with romantic suspense. It is a tale of redemption—the evolution of a modern man from solipsist to integrated awareness, the journey inadvertently awakening his capacity to love.

     When the author contacted me to read this book I jumped at the chance.  I've been trying to widen my horizons and read different genres.  It promised to be different from anything I'd read and I can say it definitely was.  The closest book to this that I've read would be The Sea of Tranquility, but that was a YA book and this surely was not.  I was hooked from the beginning of the book and swept up in the drama and fierceness of it all.  This isn't one of those books that when you're finished you get the happy feeling... nope I sat feeling numb from it all when I was done!  Whew.

     As you can read in the blurb James is brilliant and beautiful and everyone wants to be him or at least be close to him.  But all James loves is his music and has no time for people.  Until through a set of insane circumstances he ends up tortured and raped.  Through the whole 2nd half of the book there are very disturbing flashbacks.  But despite how much they upset me I couldn't stop reading.  I guess I am a hopeless romantic because once James meets Elisabeth and her son Gabriel all I can think of is please let this work out!  As with The Sea of Tranquility a lot of the book is just day to day stuff and yet it captivated me.  James and Elisabeth and their responses to each other were so raw and real.  I can say that there was not one point in this book that I guessed what would happen next.  Instead I was constantly on the edge thinking oh my gosh what could possibly happen next!

     This book is written in several points of view.  The author did such a good job of capturing the lives of each person and their relation and reactions to James.  I especially liked Martin.  From almost the beginning you learn that James has this sort of magnetism about him.  The way people react to him and he is aware of it as well and calls people out on it.  This book took me for an emotional thrill-ride that I don't think I could handle very often as I explore new genres.  It has left me feeling emotionally raw.  Despite all that I did love the book.  If you have a hard time with the types of rape/torture flashbacks James has in the book I would suggest perhaps just skimming over them because the book is really worth the read and I would hate for someone to miss out on such a good book because of that.

Favorite Quotes:

"Gonna have to stop hiding in this bedroom if I want any semblance of a life.  I get that.  Just don't know how to convince fear to let me walk out the front door."

"Do I still want to die?  I hear Kate in my head.  Not when I'm with them."