I love a good fast paced thriller. This is an interesting read, and the author has an engaging style of writing that is appreciable. I would have liked more depth in the characters and more of a tightly bound plot. But overall enjoyed reading this one. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Thank you NetGalley and Thomas and Mercer for pricing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I struggled with this book. The first half of the book is setting the stage with inconsistencies and incongruous events that will come together later in the book, but for me to go half the book without any satisfaction or guarantee of this is just too much.

Some of the disjointed ness is due to the brain injury and memories of the main chapter. I applaud what the author is trying to accomplish with this, but as a reader it makes the experience difficult.

The story premise is interesting and I love the setting of the ship. I also enjoyed the character and would read more in the series.

’Water Memory’ by Daniel Pyne (Thomas & Mercer, $14.95)

With a pace that will have you racing through Daniel Pyne’s thriller, ‘”Water Memory,”’ it’s no surprise that the second in the series is already in the works. Black ops specialist Aubrey Sentro won’t be held back.

Or will she? There’s a lot going on in “Water Memory,” and Pyne’s story covers a lot of ground: motherhood, memory and munitions, separately and often all at once.

A series of career-generated concussions has left Sentro with severe memory problems — not quite Alzheimer’s, but something like it, her doctor explains. Against medical advice, she continues to work for Solomon Systems — a group of agents like her who save the world on a for-profit basis — but she does agree to a vacation.

That her chosen respite is on a cargo ship fits with Sentro’s DNA. She’s not one for a pampered, lascivious cruise, and with her husband, Denny, deceased, she’s still in the throes of figuring out both her memory lapses and her past relationships.

Her former husband the homemaker, her children who resented her gaping childhood absences and her conflicts with other black ops colleagues simultaneously sustain the story and take it on diversions you won’t see coming. As the narrator relates, “She’s a snow globe somebody had picked up and shaken, and she just has to see how everything will settle.”

When the ship, its crew and passengers are captured by pirates, Sentro comes into her own, showcasing the military skills she’s honed over decades. That those skills are tested by her dark recall and that no one is really who they seem to be — including Sentro herself, who for years fed her now-adult children the fiction that she was a well-traveled desk jockey — confound and propel the novel.

“Water Memory” is a speedboat on steroids and Pyne’s use of the present tense and blind narrative turns fuel the propulsion. Tackle this one while you’re wide awake, hang tight until the end and wait for “Vital Signs,” book two in the Sentro series, due out a year from now.

Fast paced-couldn’t put it down! Very awesome book with tons of great crazy rides! This was my first book by this author and it was amazing!
Thanks NetGalley publishers and author!

In Daniel Pyne’s novel, Water Memory, we meet Aubrey Sentro, a black-ops specialist who is suffering from serial concussion syndrome. She has been experiencing frequent memory loss while on the job, and is forced to take a desperately needed vacation. However, while on high-seas everything comes to a standstill, as pirates highjack the cargo ship Sentro is on. What the pirates do not consider during the takeover is Aubrey Sentro, who while fighting to retain her memory, and for someone bigger then herself, ends up being far more dangerous then the pirates could guess.

While excelling in the black-ops world, Sentro ends up lacking in the family world. Married with two children, she is often absent in their lives. Her family ends up harboring resentment and loss towards Sentro. Fast forward to today, as she is suffering frequent memory loss, she feels the need to reconnect with her adult children. While on this ill fated cruise, battling memory loss, and the will to return to her children, Sentro utilizes every tactic she has learned to get back to her family, and save the ship.

From the start of this novel, we are thrust into Sentro’s world of disjointed memories; of her trying to make heads or tails of what they all tell about her, and to hold on desperately to what she has. Sentro tries to figure out who she is without her work, to find peace, serenity, and a feeling of connection. The memory loss seems to get worse, but as she is faced with imminent danger, she is able to focus and survive. Is she anything without her work?

I enjoyed this novel for its glimpse into the fractured world of a black-ops specialist. Pyne takes the character of an operator, and breaks her down to the nitty-gritty aspects of her. We have a married mother of two, who happens to be a killer operator; what does that kind of life do to a family? We end up having anger and resentment. After enduring this world, and all the bumps and bruises, we are left with someone with a fractured memory, left to pickup the pieces. However, when push comes to shove, regardless of the memory loss, Sentro continuously relies on her training, and leaves a trail of bodies in her wake...relying on the age old stereotype of a women couldn’t have done that!

This is a must read for any thriller fan who is looking for there next read that takes a different look into the black-ops world. We have the action that we have all come to love in the thriller world, but with this extra layer of memory loss!

Reviewed for “Mystery and Suspense Magazine”