Engrossing, smart story for discriminating readers. I enjoy all books DeSales Harrison, and The Waters & The Wild is no exception.

This book was quite the thriller and it surprised me how much I enjoyed it! I loved the Gothic theme and the author's world building. I recommend this to anyone looking for a quick and enjoyable read.💯📚

I wanted to love this book, but this fell flat for me. The prose felt really strange for this kind of book, and it was mostly just pretty boring. I was bummed about this one!

I wanted to like this book,. The premise sounded great and the cover art is gorgeous. I just could not get into the book and found myself skimming through it to finish.

Did not finish. I don't know what it was about this book but I just could not pull myself through it. The prose bugged me, the characters just didn't click. The cover is gorgeous and the synopsis sounded interesting at the time but after reading the first fourth of the book I didn't feel any desire to continue. Considering the other reviews I think it might just be me but I do appreciate receiving the ARC to form my opinion about it, though I truly do hate giving bad reviews. I hope others enjoyed it more!

A sophisticated literary mystery about a psychoanalyst who receives a mysterious note that causes him to question the suicide of a patient - and his own impact on her death. I felt that we were always kept at arms' length from the characters, but the excellent plot development and thoughtful prose made up for the distance.

My feelings are mixed on this book. I appreciate the flowery prose, the atmospheric setting, and the story line; however, it put me to sleep. I kept trying to push through so I could absorb enough to provide a substantial review, but I only made it 30% into the story. The cover drew me in when I first saw it, and honestly, it does represent the book well. The poem from which the title comes is beautiful, so I can understand the choice to use a cover like this. It might appeal to a different type of reader; I typically choose historical fiction or mystery. This contained some of that but it seemed to be more literary than I am used to. Thank you for the opportunity to review it!

Beautifully written. This story took me a little bit to get into but I was enthralled with the writing style and got more intrigued in the mystery as the story unfolded. This mystery/thriller will not be for everyone but if you appreciate beautiful prose then I'd recommend!

Overall impression: Much like the gorgeous cover of this book, the writing was beautiful. I appreciated the psychological aspects of this story as well as the references to literature. Specifically, poetry – which fit with the poetic prose of the book. The characters were complex, but I didn’t have a connection with them. I wish since it was a literary mystery and not just literary fiction that it wouldn’t have been such a slow and meandering burn in the plot.

Entertainment Value: 3
Characterization: 3
POV/Voice: 4
Storyline/Plot: 3
Overall: 3.25

Daniel Abend is a good example of who you do not want to be your psychoanalyst. Let’s just be honest, if you knew his story – this is definitely not the guy you’d be going to for help with your mental health. I couldn’t really put my finger on who this guy was, to be honest. I wasn’t connected with any of the characters in particular. The author very slowly revealed the truth of each character, which made the storyline interesting, but made me unable to connect with any of the characters because some of their actions were just so confusing. Daniel’s especially - until the end.

The writing was beautiful. The plot was very complex. And I liked that it dealt a lot in the relationship between parent and child as well as the mental health of both Abend’s patient and his former girlfriend – and that was all tied together in the poem by Yeats.

You need this book if you’re a fan of literary fiction, elegant prose, and a very slow-burning mystery.

I received an ARC copy of the book via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

I wanted to read it but couldn't finish it. It was slow and difficult to get through, and I found myself skimming the chapters, which doesn't do the book justice.

Thanks to Random House and NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Full review published at Booklover Book Reviews website: http://bookloverbookreviews.com/2018/04/the-waters-the-wild-by-desales-harrison-book-review.html

I read almost half of this, before I had to set it aside. I had a difficult time imsersing myself in the story and the characters. Sadly I did not finish reading it.

The Waters & the Wild - DeSales Harrison

I found this to be somewhat ponderous reading and almost gave it up. However, I stuck to it and was glad I did. I enjoyed the story although I thought that selective editing, especially some of the personal musings of Father Spurlock. might have made it more palatable.

This book is on the fence for me. The mystery / thriller plot line of the book was solid, and the characters were relatively well thought out and solid, but the writing style is too wordy and effusive for me. If you're a fan of Abraham Verghese or Michael Koryta, you'd very much enjoy this novel

This is really a strange book and I read a lot of strange. It seems to tell the story of a long ago love affair that doesn't end well. The writing is expressive and beautiful, but this goes on so long that I found myself skimming while I waited for something to happen. Eventually we are told that the story is only partially true. Now the story changes to a tale of revenge. A strange and violent revenge over something that may or not have happened. And a revenge that falls upon a complete innocent. This is where it lost me. The girl does not deserve in any way what is taken from her. A tacked on ending seems to suppose that she's undamaged, but it seems incomplete and short-sighted. I'm not put off by horror, but I never had an inkling of where this was going. In some cases, that is a very good thing. Here I felt betrayed.

The Waters & The Wild by DeSales Harrison is a recommended mystery - for the right reader.

First Father Nelson Spurlock has a young women visit him, looking for something her father may have sent him. Later Spurlock receives through the mail the confession, of sorts, from a man he doesn't know. The writer is Daniel Abend, a psychoanalyst and single father living in New York City and father of a teenage daughter, Clementine, the young woman who must have been Spurlock's visitor. Abend apparently had an affair years earlier with a woman in Paris, presumably the mother of his daughter. When one of his patients commits suicide, Spurlock delivered the eulogy, which is what brought the man to Abend's attention. After this death, however, his daughter disappears and Abend begins to receive threatening messages, which lead him to examine his past.

While the writing is beautiful in this novel and the mystery is intriguing, the presentation and the prose overwhelm the plot. The beginning starts out strong, but after that the sheer barrage of language eliminates some of the pleasure of following the twists and turns of the story. The narrative mostly moves along at a crawl and I began to lose patience with the florid language of the prose and snail's pace of the plot. It must also be said that at times it was difficult to follow which character was talking as they weren't presented from the start as unique individuals. At the conclusion, it is an interesting story but, for me, a struggle to finish. 2.5 rounded up for the right reader.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of the Random House Publishing Group.
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The Waters & The Wild opens when a young lady, Clementine Abend, visits the church and says that she believes that her father sent a package there that she needs to retrieve. Rector Nelson Spurlock turns he away not knowing of any such packages but a few weeks later it arrives in the mail.

The story then takes the reader back in time to a psychoanalyst, Daniel Abend and begins to tell his story that the package has led to. Daniel was married with a daughter and living in New York City where he practiced. One of his patients he had been close to, Jessica Burke, dies and the story follows from there.

The Waters & The Wild is another case for me of being the wrong reader for his particular mystery read. What some that enjoy this style of writing are sure to say is that it’s beautifully written and well done but for me beautifully written tends to translate into overly wordy and descriptive which in turn slows down the pace and dare I say I get a tad bored waiting for things to happen.

If you enjoy a really slow burning mystery with writing that can almost at times feel poetic then I’m sure this would be for you, however it just wasn’t my cup of tea. I had hoped to that I would fall in love with a twist or turn or an amazing conclusion but nothing really grabbed me along the way and I never developed much of a connection to the characters to rate any higher than 2.5 stars.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

I can now say I have read a literary thriller, but I can also say it just wasn't for me in the end. I was very interested in the lies and truths that plagued the storyteller, but the detail put into The Waters & The Wild left me feeling overwhelmed far too often. I skimmed, a lot more than I'd like to admit, and I really only stuck it out with this book to learn about what happened to the girl. The poetry aspect was phenomenal, it is clear that DeSales Harrison knows his poetry (I would hope so with his profession), but the constant circling back to it felt superfluous. The Waters & The Wild is an incredibly well written literary novel, maybe almost too well written in my opinion. It's filled with beautiful words and a storyline that actually could be very engaging, but ultimately is difficult to connect with.

I was attracted to this novel at first glance due to the beautiful cover. Well... I feel like that was about all that I enjoyed of this novel. This was a serious SLOW burn... wow. I think I skimmed more then half of this book.

Desales Harrison has a unique format of telling this story but I was very confused. I had a very hard time with the delivery on this one and could not keep up with the storyline.

The writing is truly beautiful but this one unfortunately was just not for me.

2 stars...

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House for the arc.
Publication date: 4/3/18
Published to GR: 4/2/18.

Thanks so much to NetGalley to giving me an eArc of this DeSales Harrison novel.

This book took a while to get into and was a little hard to keep the momentum going. It is written as a character's very lengthy confession of his past, a cleansing of his transgressions and lies that have shaped his life as he knows it. It also includes reactions from the priest who has received the confession.

The story itself is very interesting, it lays out the main characters past, the choices that he'd made to get to his present, and the reactions that he moves through when he begins receiving mysterious letters and photographs which unearth his hidden secrets.

The ending took a long time to reach, the story developed slow and steady.

Not a terrible read, but I also didn't love it.