Liquid Silver Books, $5.99, ISBN 978-1-62210-265-5
Paranormal Romance, 2015
To enjoy Danielle E Gauwain’s Silken Tide, you will need to have a high amount of tolerance for overwrought, melodramatic antics from the hero Mark. I don’t recall his last name here, but I suspect it is McWeenie.
You see, this 35-year old man’s new squeeze gives great head and is hot in bed, but he discovers her in the act of getting hot with another guy shortly after he gets laid off from his job. In the days after, Tammy manages to get her hands on his credit card and leaves him more in debt than ever. Meanwhile, his childhood is angst-ridden too – according to the prologue, his dad dragged him home from the beach and a seal he was befriending, the waves destroyed his sandcastle, and I suppose all these things could leave a scar on one’s psyche for the rest of one’s life. Therefore, when Mark goes back to his father’s place to lick his wounds, he is broody, moody, and confrontational. He picks fights with his father, hooks up with Jessica while telling her that he never trusts women – ever (and seriously, why would any sane woman hook up with a guy who thinks it’d be great date conversation to say things like this?), and generally acts like he’d die if things don’t go his way even a little.
The paranormal elements come in the form of Mark dreaming of some woman under the sea telling him cryptic stuff and him ending up in some strange situations that he couldn’t figure out at first. It is pretty easy to guess what the twist is – there’s a seal in the prologue, after all. But unless I’m to believe that Mark’s true nature comes with an instinctual or genetic tendency to be gratingly whiny and moody, I have a hard figuring out what this crybaby’s deal is. He seems to pick fights rather than being genuinely persecuted, he is actually in a well-off position in life compared to many people and yet he acts like he’s the saddest orphan in the coldest winter ever, and his instinctive reaction to any emotional crisis is to flee while acting all defensive and mean when he is called out on his behavior.
Jessica doesn’t have much of a personality here, as the story is very Mark-centric, but I suppose she must have a thing for big babies to take Mark as her loving husband in the end. Jessica is aware of Mark’s flaws and sometimes calls him on it, but she’d then pine after him when he’s fled to lick his wounds, so I guess she really, really likes her big babies. Also, she learns of Mark’s paranormal nature just a few pages before the last one, so I’m not sure how these two would have a happily ever after for real. How do I know that she’s not going to freak out during the honeymoon?
At any rate, Silken Tide boasts the wrong kind of melodrama, and it’s probably best read only if you want to test your tolerance for heroes who inexplicably act like a sulky ten-year old.
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