There was non stop action in this story! A tale of a couple kidnapped from a scuba diving trip. Several men take them into a jungle where they are surrounded by nothing to help them get free. What could they want from them and how to get away. It does not slow down and I read it right through because I had to see what would happen. Before you start this book just get comfortable And I am sure you will agree with me, very good book!

Ak! This is pretty scary. It's more of a horror tale than a thriller due to the realism. The main character, Marah, is a survivor and I liked seeing her transform. Then the book just boom; the end. That I didn't like that at all. That is annoying in a full sized book like this one.

My copy came from Net Galley. My review is mine, left of my own free will.

Riveting.
A fascinating tale of a supposedly idyllic holiday gone wrong, written with a sparseness and brevity that kept me reading the book until the story had finished. Excellent writing.

The book it true to the authors style, and I like it. It is slow in the beginning, but just as slow as it needs to be. You get a great introduction to the main character, and the scene is set for the reader to be in the water with the story.

The twist in the book was a little predictable and I would have preferred it to be something else. The main character develop through out the book and I am happy to say that I was proud of her in the end.

This was a weird, wonderful, intense quick read! Kirk Kjeldsen sets the stage for The Depths early on with an eerie tone in the background - a depressed wife trying to overcome the deep seated sorrow she's feeling after suffering 3 miscarriages, a husband eager to take her on a trip to get away from it all, and seemingly, his own financial problems as well.

This book starts off a tad bit slow, but once it gets going, DOES IT EVER! As this is much shorter than the average novel, I burned through it in one sitting - I couldn't put it down.

We have a sympathetic protagonist who grows throughout the book into someone I just couldn't get enough of - her husband, who I'll let you judge for yourself, and even a kidnapper who I had sympathy for - the character development was pretty spot on, especially given the concise prose, nothing overly wordy or unnecessary in this book.

I guessed at what was underlying in the plot, however watching it unfold in some unexpected ways made my heart race. The ending ALMOST ruined the book for me and made me cry, but I have hope that it went in the direction that I think it did - I know that's vague but I really don't want to spoil anything.

Four solid stars!

Marah's husband, Eden, has convinced her that a scuba diving vacation in Malaysia is just what she needs to recover from her third miscarriage. Instead, Marah will find herself trapped in a harrowing nightmare that will strip her down her most basic instinct to survive. And just when you think Marah has reached the limit of what she can endure, what should have been her source of hope becomes her greatest danger. Though the ending is a bit abrupt, the emotions are real and visceral and pull you right into Marah's experience.

3.5 Star review published at Booklover Book Reviews website: http://bookloverbookreviews.com/2018/06/the-depths-by-kirk-kjeldsen-book-review.html

This was a good, if very scary, story. Makes me think twice when traveling! It was extremely fast-paced and compelling. I will definitely look for more from this author.

"The Depths" had loopholes big enough to drive a truck through. This woman should have been suspicious of her husband long before she was. The situations seemed contrived at best. I'm no expert on Malaysian kidnappings, so perhaps there was more of a point to the book than I saw. To me, it seemed like a book written hoping to be picked up for a movie.

Yikes! I just finished this and I’m breathless....as if I’ve just survived a horrifying experience in an exotic locale...all from the comfort of my sofa. The suspense was so intense that I had to keep reminding myself to breathe. And my dog is peeved at me since I ignored his pawing at me for hours while I was glued to the pages.

If you like thrillers, you will love this. Set mostly in the wilds of Malaysia, the story taps into that universal fear of being lost and in trouble in a strange place. A young couple, Marah and Edan, sets out on an adventurous trip that takes an unexpected and frightening turn.
The pacing is fast and the plot tight and riveting. The descriptions are unbelievably realistic with all the senses involved. I saw the crystal clear blue water, heard the sound of a screwdriver rolling back and forth on the bottom of the boat, felt the ties cutting into my wrists, tasted blood on the hood over my head, endured the pain of being in a cramped position for days, smelled the dirty water sloshing around in the bottom of the boat, and experienced the terror of being hunted.

It’s obvious that the author has spent considerable time in this locale. The juxtaposition of the beauty of this area with the terrible things that happened there adds to the realism. The beauty of the warm turquoise water and blue sky, the many unusual sounds of jungle birds and animals, and the white sand beaches, are contrasted with the cruelty of some of the characters, the physical and emotional pain the couple endured, and the terror of being completely vulnerable.

Marah, The protagonist, a passive, timid person when they arrive in Malaysia, develops an appreciation of her true nature through this difficult ordeal. Her developing strength and courage is an underlying current throughout the book.

I highly recommend this extraordinary book and look forward to reading more from this talented author.

Note: I received an advance copy of the ebook from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Last year I read and reviewed Land of Hidden Fires, by this author and absolutely loved it, so when I was invited to read this, by the publisher via NetGalley, I didn’t hesitate. This is a beaut read. Realistic, dramatic and very scary.
Marah and Eden work in Shanghai after moving there when Eden got offered a promotion in the bank where he worked. But it brought with it some emotional problems when Marah miscarried three times in as many years. Now she suffers with depression with no family near at hand to support her, so Eden takes her on a surprise holiday to Malaysia. When the couple are diving off the coast they surface to find terrorists waiting for them and are taken hostage to an Island and held for ransom.
Whoa, these fellows really mean business as the couple face horrific physical and mental abuse. Living tied up outside in the jungle exposed to the elements, they are starved and humiliated daily and forced to give the terrorist details of how to contact their families back home. The couple have gone from living accustomed to quite a comfortable life style to survival mode.
This is a gripping story with such vivid descriptions that heighten every sense you have. The worst of the horrors are yet to come as the tension rises further in the last few chapters. Brilliant story line that kept me spell bound. Highly recommended!

4 stars
Thanks to NetGalley and Grenzland Press for sending me this e ARC. Eden and Marah Lenaerts go to the Malaysian part of Borneo for some diving in a pristine environment with lots of wildlife. Then it all goes wrong. They are kidnapped by 4 men armed with M16s. They demand that Marah make a phone call for ransom money.
I would call this a thriller/mystery in that you know who most of the bad guys are. The author drops clues to the identity of the other and I suspected who it was, but there are no spoilers in this review. I liked the ending and the author's description of the sight, sounds and smells of the jungle.

One quote on sunrise: "Fingers of soft light soon reached down through the thick canopy of the trees, illuminating the darkest reaches of the jungle. The warmth of the sun slowly urged out the delicate scents of the wild coronitas, the moon orchids, and the sampaguita flowers, chasing the nighttime odors of wet, dead leaves, standing water, and the giant Rafflesia flowers that smelled like rotting corpses."

Unfortunately the best that can be said of The Depths is that it is very short and if you skip all the names of the fish, flora etc it’s even shorter. I thought I were going to be reading about Norway during the Second World War but turns out that was a book written earlier by this author. This is not a book I would recommend to anyone because it leaves you without any empathy for the main character. The story seems far fetched and even the ending doesn’t make you care one way or the other. I guess you’re supposed to guess but again who cares? Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this book in exchange for my unbiased review.

This was a fast paced thriller that I thoroughly enjoyed. The story practically thumps with suspense. Thank you NetGalley for an ecopy of this book.

Loved this story, it was fabulous from the beginning to the end!! Would recommend to anyone who is a fan of this genre!!

I thoroughly enjoy the way Kirk Kjeldsen's mind works. The Depths is another excellent who-done-it from this author, this one in modern times, set in the Mindanao Island Group - over a thousand islands in the chain, which covers forty thousand square miles of Pacific Ocean. Eden Lenaerts and his wife Marah are taking a mental health vacation from their home in Shanghai's Min Hang district after Marah's third miscarriage. Things aren't going all that well for Eden at work, either, as the economy hits another long downward spiral.

Marah is very sure her mental health would be happier with a trip home to New York to see her mom, or if it must be Malaysia then a 5 star western hotel with all the bells and whistles. Eden wants them to do some diving though, and he has made arrangements to lease a private beachfront villa complete with a motor boat in a small village between Semporna and Kunak, Malaysia and has maps featuring great diving locations within range of the villa.

Very shortly, the trip will turn into a nightmare, detrimental to both Eden and Marah's mental health. But the word pictures of the beauty of this varied group of Islands, the songs of life all around from birds to insects to primates, the shushing of the tides, the stars at night - all tend to downplay the angst that Marah and Eden are dealing with - or balance out the angst in my mind, anyway. Poor Marah.

I received a free electronic copy of this novel from Netgalley, Kirk Kjeldsen, and Grenzland Press in exchange for an honest review. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. Kirk Kjeldsen is a writer to watch for.

The basic plot has promise: young(ish) married couple goes on vacay on a remote Malaysian island, in hopes of repairing and rekindling their floundering relationship… only to find themselves kidnapped and carted off to the jungle by a band of pirates. Not inherently original, but surely the sort of action/psychological-terror vehicle to provide ample—and satisfactory—escapim, right?

Unfortunately, not so much; despite having the makings of a suspenseful low-budget movie, the premise of Kirk Kjeldsen’s The Depths is far better than its execution.

How does it all go so wrong, then? Believe it or not, even at a miniscule print length of 143 pages (listed as a “novel”, by the way, though to me it would be more-aptly described as a “novelette”)—the very definition of “tight” writing and editing(!!)—The Depths still feels a good (or bad, yeesh) 90 pages longer than it needs to be. (Yes, really.)

The problem, in all those excess pages, is that very little ever actually happens… and the space in between—where you’d expect to feel the psychological terror the couple is going through—becomes excrutiatingly repetitive, very quickly. If Kjeldsen had given them more to think about, so that we really learned about the characters (and could genuinely feel their plight), this could’ve been a compelling little read, but instead, they come across as thin, cardboard creations with little connection to the reader.

The only good thing is that I didn’t immediately figure out what was going on, so… I guess that’s something, right? (The biggest mystery to me is actualy the amount of professional praise this has received via the editorial reviews. I feel like there’s no way any of them could’ve read the same story I did..!)

Bottom line: The Depths is woefully misnamed, because this one-note wonder has very little depth, at all.

Depression concerning infertility clouded this heroine’s judgment toward her husband’s changing attitude for most of the book. Marah’s grief has left her feeling dependent upon him, yet simultaneously disconnected. When he suggests an isolated island get-away, she believes Eden wants to nourish their marriage by resuming their former habit of exotic travel. But when they are kidnapped by pirates, things turn dangerously twisted.

Keep an eye on this author! Major talent!!!


posted on amazon as barth gimbal

This was a fast, but gripping story of an adventurous couples entrapment in a vacation gone wrong. Being held captive by ruthless men is never a choice anyone would make, but is everything what it appears to be??