Holy crap, was this book bad! Like 'terrible' bad! And the strange thing is, is that it really didn't start out that way. I remember being 30% into the book and being extremely mad that my bus wasn't a bit later since I had to put it down. Cut to me at 60% and I started thinking "Why am I STILL reading this?!" In fact, the only reason I finished it was because by that time I was already 60% in and thinking "What the hell. I need a long-ish book to up my page average..."

My main gripe with The Dark Tide was that it was boring. After the first initial 30%, it just started going downhill. I seriously didn't want to pick the book up after that. I kept thinking "And I care why?" Yes, it was incredibly snarky of me, but my God, I was bored! That should excuse my snarkalicious behavior shouldn't it? Speaking of snark: the romance. Sigh.

By the way, that wasn't a good "OMG, they are incredibly cute" sigh, but rather "WHY is a romance even being written in this book!" sigh. I have seen many a mystery ruined because the author thought it was imperative to put a romance into the mix just so the book blurb could read "Intrigue, Espionage, and ROMANCE! This book has it all!" And normally, what it has isn't good. Sure, there are exceptions. Dennis Lehane's Kenzie & Gennaro series is fantastic (the romance is actually my favorite part of the series) and Jennifer Lane's With Good Behavior did the whole romance suspense thing beautifully, but those are about the only ones. The Dark Tide didn't. At all. These two are madly in love after seeing each other like three times throughout the year she's supposed to be mourning her husband and they're already in love. In fact, she gives him that part of herself that she's always kept hidden even from her husband of 24 years. Blach! What is that part supposed to be? Shallowness? Annoyingness? Seriously, I'm dying to know. Only I'm not. Not really.

Needless to say, I did NOT like The Dark Tide. It was superficial, cliche, and oh my GOD was it BORING! I'm just so incredibly happy that it was a free Kindle pre-order and I didn't waste any money on it. Besides that, SKIP IT!