A Cry From The Deep is a time-slip mystery and adventure about a love so powerful it spans several lifetimes. When Catherine Fitzgerald, an underwater photographer about to cover the hunt for one of the lost ships of the Spanish Armada, buys an antique Claddagh ring, she becomes troubled by nightmares that set her on a path to fulfill a promise made centuries before. As she unravels the mystery … the mystery of the woman who haunts her dreams, she has to come to grips with her own struggle to find true love.
Set in Provence, Manhattan, and Ireland, this romantic mystery not only exposes two women’s longings, but also the beauty of the deep, where buried treasures tempt salvagers to break the law.
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Diana Stevan’s debut novel, A Cry From the Deep, is an unusual mash-up of several different genres: romance, thriller, and paranormal, in a story that not only spans France, New York and Ireland, but leaps around a couple of centuries as well!
First of all, kudos on a fine cover. Book covers DO matter and, in the indie world, too often that step is relegated to amateurs, with the resulting “visual” of a book following suit. Stevan’s cover, however, is top-notch and would look right at home on a shelf with any traditionally published book. Hats off to her for respecting her work enough to see to that… and it’s a compelling cover!
Her story follows Catherine Fitzgerald, a skilled underwater photographer who’s left the States (and an ex) to grow lavender in the fields of Provence with her young daughter. It’s revealed that part of the reason Catherine left the business was due to a near-death accident while on a job, an event that continues to trigger PTSD when she even thinks of diving again. But she’s pulled back into the game when her mentor at the National Geographic hears that a well-known antiquities scavenger is heading to Ireland to scout a long-sought sunken vessel, and the magazine will be chronicling the event with a team that would include Catherine on camera and Daniel Costello, an underwater archeologist, as her advisor and partner. After meeting Daniel, and getting a few retraining sessions under her belt, her courage is bucked, and her intrigue about both the man and the mission convince her to sign on.
The story bounces between this present-day narrative and one from centuries earlier: a mysterious tale of a young Irish maiden who waits for her lover to return from the sea and on the day he finally does, and despite her having been promised in marriage to an old but wealthy codger from the town, she heads off to meet the ship. When the old codger spins a curse that takes down both the maiden and her intended in a vicious storm, a story of untethered spirits and broken hearts is set into motion across dimensions and time, one that connects to Catherine and Daniel in mystical and intriguing ways. Readers are drawn along with Catherine in her quest to uncover the stories behind the ghosts that begin to appear to her in the most unexpected of places… and not all in her dreams.
Stevan does a fine job of imbuing each of the book’s genres with a certain depth (no pun intended!) and the corresponding and expected elements are there, from ancient rings, beautiful specters, and misty Irish graveyards, to hardcore issues of underwater environmental protections, antiquity laws, and conniving scavengers, to the arcane and specific aspects of deep-sea diving and sea travel. Her details, particularly in describing the minutia of diving are fascinating and clearly well researched, and her sense of place, certainly Ireland, is replete with color and sensory richness. The thriller aspect is page-turning throughout (we always want to know what happens next), and we like the people we’re supposed to and don’t like the ones we’re not; she does a good job of drawing her characters and their very individual characteristics.
I have a feeling, however, that true romance aficionados may feel a bit unsated. Stevan incorporates some of expected tropes of romance in building the relationship with Daniel and Catherine (and as one who’s not a fan of the romance genre, this was the least interesting aspect of the book for me) but her greater focus, and rightfully so in my eyes, seemed to be on fashioning a complex narrative in a colorful, exciting adventure of spiritual connection and meaningful love.
I thoroughly enjoyed the journey and very much appreciate Stevan’s attention to detail in the wonderful quality of her work.