A Madness of Sunshine by Nalini Singh
I picked this book up while strolling through the romance section of my local library. I had been looking for something light and fun but not prosaic. The cover on this book caught my attention and the blurb hooked me.
Ana returns to her small New Zealand coastal town after being away for a decade. Filled with bad memories of her home and running from equally bad memories of the London she’d left, she isn’t quite sure where she fits in. But then a young woman goes missing in town while out on a run. The whole town turns out to look for her but there’s no trace.
The town’s only police officer, running from bad memories of his own, finds something intriguing about Ana, both an outsider and a local, and relies on her to help him figure out this small town with it’s secrets. But when they come together they find more in each other than utility. And together they may solve more than just this disappearance.
I can say with nearly 100% confidence this book should not be classified as romance. It’s a thriller or a mystery. Sure, at the end there is a happy couple. And there are a couple of referenced sexual encounters, though none lingered on for any length of time. There is nothing inherently sexy about this book. And it certainly doesn’t leave you with the warm and fuzzies a romance should.
This is a novel about violence. Specifically about violence against women. And the generational trauma that comes from it. It’s a story of secrets and dreams. Of expectation and struggle. It’s a community at its best and its worst.
This book took me a little bit to get into. The characters are complex and more than a little jaded. And being in their heads is a little disorienting at the start. But once it grabs you, there’s no letting go. And while the ending wasn’t necessarily expected, it was satisfying in its way. A little bittersweet. But the loose ends are tied up and there’s an arc to the story that feels completed.
This book gets 4.5/5 stars. It definitely wasn’t what I expected when I picked it off the shelf (I’m debating on telling the librarians when I return it that it should perhaps be shelved differently), but I’m definitely glad I found it. There’s something about this book that gets under your skin. I have a feeling I’ll be thinking about it for a while.
KT Byrde Writes 