Title: Silver Bay
Author: Jojo Moyes
Source: from publisher via Netgalley
Rating: ★★★★☆
Review Summary: After reading this book and The Girl You Left Behind, I feel like I can count on Moyes to deliver a story with a tough moral dilemma, intriguing secrets, unique characters, and an emotionally moving plot – everything I hoped for in this book!
Although Liza and her daughter Hannah will always be haunted by their past, they’re happy with their life in Silver Bay. Liza loves the hotel where she lives with her sister, the freedom of the sea, the acceptance of her community, and her lack of romantic entanglements. All of these things are threatened by the arrival of the handsome Mike Dormer. Mike arrives expecting to make a quick visit to start the process of building a resort and move on. Instead he finds himself deeply involved with the inhabitants of Silver Bay, leading him to question his commitment to his business-focused life.
Getting into this book took me a little while. This was partly because of the four different perspectives in the first four chapters and partly because some of these chapters began with info dumps about the history of Silver Bay. I was happy I persevered because a few more chapters made it clear that the different perspectives and details of Silver Bay made this a very rich story. I loved seeing different characters from several other characters’ perspectives. It made each character feel more real and well-rounded to see both how they thought and how others thought of them. I also enjoyed the backdrop Silver Bay created. Perhaps because I’m someone who loves nonfiction, some of my favorite fiction is that which depicts a way of life I’m unfamiliar with. Learning about living in a small, Australian community which made its money from whale-watching while I learned about the characters was a fascinating and enjoyable experience. This did involve a small amount of sad animal stories, but things resolved happily enough that it didn’t impact my overall enjoyment of the book.
As with a previous book I read by Jojo Moyes, The Girl You Left Behind, right and wrong are far from obvious. Getting so many different perspectives helped with that. I was recently bothered by the way When the Cypress Whispers tries to demonize the main character’s generally nice fiance, clearly setting us up for her to leave him for someone else. While the situation in this book is similar, with me rooting for a romance with someone other than the fiancee, the author doesn’t make it easy. We clearly see both the good and the bad of both the character and the fiancee, making us share the main character’s indecision. As with Moyes’ previous book, Silver Bay also does a great job making you empathize with every character and reveals the characters’ secrets slowly without ever manipulating the story in a weird way to avoid an earlier reveal. I wasn’t completely won over by the ending, which was revealed in such a way that one of the character’s hard work finding a solution felt like a fortuitous last-minute rescue, but overall this book gave me the intriguing, emotional ride I expected from a book by Jojo Moyes.
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Oh, Jojo. She knows how to break your heart, doesn’t she??
She sure does! In the best of ways
Hooray for authors who make it more complicated than black and white! It’s so much more interesting when characters have nuance instead of just being “the perfect hero” or “the evil villain.”
I agree! I really like when a book makes me think and the ending isn’t too predictable.
The only book I’ve read by Moyes is Me Before You which was definitely an emotional ride, so I’m glad to read that her books seem to continue this! I love the complexity of her characters. I’m planning to read more of her books soon – though I’ll probably go for The Girl You Left Behind first.
Charlene @ Bookish Whimsy recently posted…Review: Sabriel
I haven’t read Me Before You yet, but I loved this one and The Girl You Left Behind, so it’s definitely on my to-read list
I just finished this one and loved it. Moyes does such a good job showing the good and bad in her characters. Liza and Mike and Kathleen and even Greg were so well rounded, I just love all the dimension! And the dolphins too. Who doesn’t like a dolphin? (As far as I know, they don’t eat penguins.)
Katie @ Words For Worms recently posted…Author Interactions: Top Five (Armchair BEA)
I’m glad you liked it too! I’ll be excited to read your review
I run screaming at alternating perspectives. I love Jojo Moyes’ character development in general, but I’m OUT on this trend.
Andi @ Estella’s Revenge recently posted…Armchair BEA: Expanding Blogging Horizons and Novellas/Short Stories
It definitely made the book harder to get into and I wasn’t sure I liked it at first, but it really grew on me
So is this an older title or a new one? Novella? She has a new book coming out in July too. I loved Me Before You so very much.
Anita recently posted…Review: The Secret Life of Violet Grant
This was a novel, not a novella, and I think it was previously published as The Ship of Brides in 2005. I loved Me Before You too
I have never read any Jojo Moyes, but I have The One plus One, which I’m excited to read. This one sounds nice too.
Melinda @ The Book Musings recently posted…The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
I’ve also picked up a copy of The One Plus One and I think it sounds like it has a great, unique cast of characters so I’m excited to get to it!