This book about reincarnation and the Storm family curse had too much going on for me! I could not invest in one story because there was just too much going on. I was hoping it would get better, but it didn't. I did finish it, but had to force myself to.

This book maintains a dark and gritty atmosphere whilst covering some rather disturbing subjects. A well written addictive novel that will probably stick into your head long after putting it down. I can see it commercially scoring the charts, as it has all the elements for success!

Thanks for the Advanced copy of the book.

Sidhu is an amazing writer!
From the start this is a great story. I wasn't able to put the book down, wondering "what happens next" and staying up almost all night.

Welcome to Lake View. An average suburb of average people where Evan Storm lives. Evan has been having horrible nightmares. Vivid, terrifying nightmares where he does things that are completely out of character for him. More terrifying is waking from that nightmare to find the object of the nightmare standing behind you.

Derek is the object of that nightmare, but why is he haunting Evan? And why do they look so much alike? Evan’s peaceful life as a school teacher is turned upside down by these nighttime visits. Derek’s mom, Venice, just happens to be a psychic who possibly could help with explaining these nightmares, but Venice has her own agenda to keep. Add in Shadow, a new neighbor with nightmares of her own.

Storm is Book One of a new series by debut author Sidhu. The combination of paranormal and thriller and secrets sounded so compelling I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this one. In many ways I was rewarded with reading adventure, in other ways, not so much.

I have mixed feelings about this book. The story was interesting and kept me engaged. At times, I struggled with the wording or dialogue. The names of some of the characters and locations seemed almost comic book like. Overall, the paranormal side of things kept this book interesting enough. I wanted to know what was going to happen to Derek and Samantha. What secrets was Venice hiding? What had happened to Shadow, and why was she so familiar to Evan? The premise of the book was fabulous. I loved the ideas, it was the execution of these ideas that struggled.

Most likely I would want to follow the characters of this book through the series to see where they land. Without spoiling, this book wrapped things up a bit too neatly at the end. There are few questions that remain, nothing as sinister as how the book started. I am curious as to where Ms. Sidhu is heading with the next book. As with some other books series and first-time authors, time does improve both the story and writing. I hope that is the case with the next book in this series.

The opening scene was too much telling rather than showing for me. I couldn't get into the writing after that.

I was confused almost instantly because the first chapter is in the life of Samantha and Derek and chapter two switches to the life of Evan, and while it continually mentions his 'past life' in that chapter, it was done so in a somewhat confusing manner. As a result, it took me a while to realize the author meant it as a literal past life rather than a figurative meaning.

As the story progressed, however, the past life concept helped to keep my attention. Unfortunately, I did find it to ultimately be an almost pointless addition as there wasn't much followthrough. I am noting that this is supposed to be the first book in a series, so it does give a lot of potential to that storyline.

A storyline that should've been omitted was that of Denise and Ryan. I understand Denise is the main characters sister and an important mention to the story as both Shadow's boss and Ryan's protective older sister and thus her life is important too, but Ryan's accident and memory loss basically got dropped 3/4 of the way through the book and we never heard a word about it again. It just felt like something to fill the lull rather than anything conducive to the story.

My biggest pet peeve of all was the use of names in the writing sooooooo frequently. It drove me crazy at the start of the book where the names were constantly used rather than him/her or other describing terms. What made it worse was how when characters were talking to one another, they used the name as well, just adding more of the name all over the page.

I did really enjoy the secret agency concept, and the crazy ex with a lot of resources that actually made him a true threat. Not to mention the dad being apart of that agency as well. That held a lot of potential and I rather enjoyed that portion.

Overall, the story was promising and it held my attention fairly well, I just hope if there are future novels in the series they further address the concepts brought forth in this book that were left unmentioned/unanswered.

Storm ⭐️

Right away we are brought into the relationship of Derek and Samantha. Derek is an abusive husband and Samantha really does nothing but try and pelase him.

Then we Meet Evan Strom and he is in the future... well, his story takes place after Derek is gone. (Not a spoiler just a fact that’s important to Evans story) He is having nightmares and his overall health needs help.

Star reasoning
⭐️Love that right away i was pulled right into the drama of their lives. And it kept me pulled in.

⭐️I liked the writing style and enjoyed the characters. But...

-2 The story seemed all over the place. I had to back tract and reread thinking i missed something because so much happened but I didnt know how we got to that point.

-1 It drew me in right away but I lost interest just as quick. Diabolical... meh. Gripping... it started out that way. Thriller... not so much.
The characters were plastic and once you figure out whats happening (because of the confusion I found while reading) the layout of the story was easy to see ahead of time.


Thank you so much to booksgosocial via netgalley for sending me an ARC copy of Storm by Gurpreet Kaur Sidhu. This will be released on July 24. 2018
All opinions are my own.

I gave this book 3 stars...It started really strong but I had a hard time finishing the book because it slowed down a lot for me. The story didn't have a lot to keep my interest after the beginning.

Second chances come in the form of reincarnation in this complicated story about the Storm family curse. A family tree helps identify which characters are reincarnated. There are four stories being told: the story about Bruce, the story about Marvin, the story about Denise, and the story about Evan. Only three of the characters are reincarnated.

The story doesn’t hide the reincarnated characters. What is does hide is the reason behind it. I found this secret was anticlimactic. The entire premise was based on this one singular purpose, but it fell short. This was a lengthy and wordy story filling in the gaps with nonsensical information.

Just goes to prove that a prologue can mislead the reader into believing the story will be good. Another disappointing truth is judging a book by its cover. This one was chosen based on the cover and premise and neither delivered the way I envisioned.
“Sometimes I feel our family’s been cursed. Every time something good comes along, something bad is creeping up around the corner.” This pretty much sums up this book.

Storm: It’s a Curse to Remember is Book One in a series but can be read as a standalone novel and is a thriller which deals with past lives.

Evan Storm wakes up with terrible nightmares every morning about a past life where he is an abusive husband. He and his sister are orphans, and his psychic grandmother raised them from when they were small. Evan has just met his new neighbour Shadow Hex, and is shocked to find that she is the reincarnation of his abused wife from his previous life. Evan feels a bond with her and knows immediately that he must protect her at all costs. What Evan doesn’t know is that there is a secret agency out there that deals with problems for wealthy clients and that one of their agents, Marvin, used to be engaged to Shadow. Marvin wants her back and will use everything in his arsenal, which could include getting rid of Evan or anyone in his life. Can you fight against one who actually doesn’t exist? Evan’s sister Denise has her own problems, as her husband was in an accident and has lost 7 years of memories, including the knowledge that he has a son. Is there a happy ending in anyone’s future?

The story had a good idea behind it, but a lot of things let it down. Firstly the formatting was completely out. Letters of words were divided up between lines and many words had no spaces between them. Some pages had lines between paragraphs and other pages had paragraphs which just ran into each other. Sometimes the word order was incorrect and other times there were prepositions missing which changed the meaning of the sentence. The paragraphs were filled with head hopping and you could get multiple POV’s in a paragraph (including in some instances the POV of a cat). The only tie-in I could see with Denise’s story was the parallel between memories lost in her family, while Evan is struggling with more memories than most in his. Otherwise, the two parts don’t fit together at all and indeed have no impact on each other. Without giving away too much, the ending was very strange for me. Many past life memories are brought in which have no bearing on any of the current characters and actually make the ending more confusing. The intense fear of the agency and the build-up to a confrontation fizzles out and I hope that some of the character’s paths are expanded on more in the next book.

A story with past lives interfering with present ones as well as secret agencies with evil agendas does sound intriguing, but the story needs work to make it more coherent. I had to remove stars for the editing and formatting as well as for the storyline which left me hanging. I wish the author well and hope that she continues and grows in her writing.

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to review the book.

Smells of commercial fiction spirit. Characters highly plastic and plot predictable if not absolutely clear from the first chapters but if you like that sort of thing, and seeing that James Patterson is still the highest selling author alive...khmm plenty of people do. Not my cup of climate, unfortunately.

I received this copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.