A Darn Good Read: Storms Gather Between Us by Clare Flynn Book Review

Publication Date: June 17, 2019
Publisher: Canelo Saga
Format: Paperback & eBook; 384 pages
Genre: Historical Fiction/Romance

Synopsis

Life can change in a single moment...

Living under the watchful eye of her controlling and abusive father, Hannah Dawson’s hopes for freedom and happiness seem a distant dream. Her mother, passive and ashamed of her self-preservation, refuses to challenge her husband. It is the mysterious circumstances of her long-lost Aunt Lizzie’s disappearance in the 1920s that inspires Hannah to seek a better life.

Since escaping his family’s notoriety in Australia Will Kidd has spent a decade sailing the seas, never looking back. Content to live the life of a wanderer, everything changes in a single moment when he comes face to face with a ghost from his past on a cloudy beach in Liverpool.

Hannah and Will are thrown together by fate and bonded by secrets from long ago. Now, they discover a love like no other. But with Hannah’s father determined to see her wed to a man of his choosing they must fight against a tyrant who has ruined many lives. Even if they succeed, can they escape the chains of their histories? And will their plans for a future be possible when the whole world is changing forever…?

My Thoughts

Driven from his homeland by an unrequited love and family notoriety, Australian William Kidd has spent ten years as a merchant seaman. His life has no purpose until a selfish act on his part, for which his best friend is unfairly punished, makes Will realise that he needs to change his ways. This means staying out of trouble and keeping his temper in check even when goaded by the bosun, a fellow Australian who, for some unknown reason, has taken a dislike to him.

When Will's ship returns to Liverpool and enters dry dock for repairs, Will heeds the advice of his former captain to use the time to earn his Mate's Certificate and signs onto a ship plying between Dublin and Liverpool. His future seems settled. A chance sighting on a Liverpool street, however, throws his emotions into chaos and changes his life further. Who is the woman who looks so much like his father's second wife?

Hannah Dawson, along with her mother and younger sister, lives in fear of her strict and religious zealot father. No books, except the Bible, are allowed in the house and their every move is governed by him, with violent consequences should they break his rules.

One day, leaving the family-owned coffee import business where she does unpaid work for her father, Hannah is startled and frightened by a man calling to her. He is calling out the name of her aunt, the aunt strangely no-one speaks of but of whom Hannah has fond memories. Later, she regrets not stopping to find out how this stranger knows her aunt, but in between voyages Will tracks Hannah down and romance blossoms.

The story line touches on some dark and confronting subjects, domestic violence being one of them, and the characters are all flawed in some way. This is an emotional story of two people with no real purpose in their lives until they meet each other. Hannah has given Will an even greater desire to shake off the tragedies of his past and focus on the future. She now has the means to escape from under her father's control and live a happier life, one she had only dreamed of. I loved the characters of Hannah and Will, and how they developed over the course of the story.

This was my first Clare Flynn novel and I definitely will be reading more from this author. Storms Gather Between Us was a very satisfying read.

Historical novelist Clare Flynn is a former global marketing director and business owner. She now lives in Eastbourne on the south coast of England and most of her time these days is spent writing her novels – when she's not gazing out of her windows at the sea.

Clare is the author of eleven novels and a short story collection. Her books deal with displacement – her characters are wrenched away from their comfortable existences and forced to face new challenges – often in outposts of an empire which largely disappeared after WW2.

Fluent in Italian, she loves spending time in Italy. In her spare time she likes to quilt, paint and travel as often and as widely as possible. She is an active member of the Historical Novel Society, the Romantic Novelists Association, The Society of Authors, NINC and the Alliance of Independent Authors.

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