The Dark Tide (The Adrien English Mysteries, #5) in Q&A with Josh Lanyon

May 03, 2011 Mtsnow13 rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, m-m, fbi-agent-detective, romance, contemporary, suspense, series-read, less-than-200-pages, amazon, own-read

Wow. I am feeling so much right now. Almost mournful. That. It. Is. Complete.

I came to love these characters so much that I am feeling a sense of sadness or loss, like I will miss good friends. I am so choked up with emotion right now. What.An.Ending. Josh is a master storyteller, and he really wrote such human qualities in these characters. I am so honored that I was able to share the hours with Adrien and Jake. And the supporting characters were all written so well. It was like I had my own li Wow. I am feeling so much right now. Almost mournful. That. It. Is. Complete.

I came to love these characters so much that I am feeling a sense of sadness or loss, like I will miss good friends. I am so choked up with emotion right now. What.An.Ending. Josh is a master storyteller, and he really wrote such human qualities in these characters. I am so honored that I was able to share the hours with Adrien and Jake. And the supporting characters were all written so well. It was like I had my own little family waiting in the wings. The monologue within Adrien's heart and mind was so REAL. I just wanted to crawl inside both of them and absorb and embrace everything about them.

I did not imagine that Jake could redeem himself in my eyes, but somehow the author reached deep inside of me and twisted my guts to see the humanity and forgiveness that was necessary for the unconditional love that ended up being at the bottom of both the MCs emotional makeup. And the bits with the exes all around. I was continually holding my breath and squinting my eyes, afraid of what kind of choices were going to be made... What a ride!

But even better for me was having the opportunity to 'listen' to them all back to back. This is a set SO worth purchasing as audiobooks. The narrator was optimal in his portrayal of the MCs. He had wonderful inflection and intonation, and I felt like I was in Adrien's body as he was going through everything. I know that may sound odd, but it's the only way I can think of to describe how I feel directly after finishing this final story in the series. I hope Josh gifts us with little glimpses of these two in the future with some CODAs, or dare I hope they actually have some future mysteries to dig into..

Anyway. I can not say enough how much I enjoyed this series in audio format, and highly recommend this series to anyone who might have a love of a good mystery, a feeling of old world film noir, old-fashioned bookstores, and a love of beautifully written words. Oh, and another thing. This is an excellent example of good mystery writing whereby he protagonists just so happen to be gay. Josh has well-earned his reputation of being a master in his field, if you ask me. [sigh] So sad it is over! but was a wonderful ride! and thankfully one I can revisit again! like I would my bestest and oldest friends. ...more

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Mar 06, 2012 Stephanie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, josh-lanyon, finished-series, 2009, cops-private-eyes-bodyguards

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I felt this was a fitting end to Jake and Adrien's "romance." It wasn't over the top sappy but yet it wasn't swoon worthy either. I would have loved to read from Jake's POV throughout this series. You really do not know what is going through his mind most of the time. You don't get any kind of sense of his inner struggle. Also, I didn't pay attention at all to the murder mystery. I had no interest in knowing about the why's and who's behind Jay Steven's murder. So I basally skipped those parts w I felt this was a fitting end to Jake and Adrien's "romance." It wasn't over the top sappy but yet it wasn't swoon worthy either. I would have loved to read from Jake's POV throughout this series. You really do not know what is going through his mind most of the time. You don't get any kind of sense of his inner struggle. Also, I didn't pay attention at all to the murder mystery. I had no interest in knowing about the why's and who's behind Jay Steven's murder. So I basally skipped those parts which made getting through this book much faster.

Jake still didn't prove to me that he's deserving of Adrien's love. He was ready to bail on him 3-4 weeks after Adrien's heart surgery and after telling him he would give him time and space to figure out if he wanted a relationship with Jake. It just felt to me he still wasn't ready to face what he is or what he had done. He really hurt Adrien. And to me, he didn't really prove himself in this story that he had changed and could be trusted. The fact he wanted to leave and start over in Vermont just proves he could bail easily if things got rough. It really didn't give me a lot of assurance that he would be there for Adrien in the future if and when they hit rough patches in their lives together.

And I had a big WTF moment when Adrien made a date with Mel to go swimming and they almost had sex. I felt that whole scene was not needed and it was so bizarre that I was scratching my head. Why would Adrien even want to go there with him? He just got done asking Jake to not leave. Then he turns around and almost has sex with Mel? I felt he did betray Jake when that happened. If you are trying to work out your feelings for a person, you don't go on dates with exes. It made no sense to me at all. I felt Josh could have found another way to show that Mel truly had a problem with Adrien's heart issues other than having him practically sexually maul Adrien at Lisa's house.

Other than that, I am hoping that Josh writes another novella, sort of a follow-up epilogue on these two so we know they are still together and doing o.k.

Merged review:

3rd Read: 10/16/12

"Don't. Don't baby."
I nodded. Drew deep, shuddering breaths.
"I want to tell you something," Jake said against my ear. His face was wet.
I nodded
"I've always been grateful - even when I was married, even when I thought it was over between us - that it was you I fell in love with."

*sob* ...more

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Oct 27, 2011 Cynthia rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

I LOVED this series...so well written. Adrien made me laugh so hard at times...he's so witty and clever. (OK...I realize that it's actually Josh that's so witty and clever, but Adrien was so well-written, he seemed real to me. ~sheepish grin~) I also loved Jake...I guess I have a "thing" for the silent, tortured soul. I will miss reading about these two. ...more

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