Real Rating: 3.5* of five, rounded up out of respect for its ambition

<b>The Publisher Says: Mystery and Suspense in Kazakhstan!</B>

<i>Sea Fever</i> is a mystery thriller surrounding clandestine activities on Voz Island in the desiccating Aral Sea of Kazakhstan, when Ayan Kazbekov was growing up in a fishing village by the Aral in Soviet time. When two locals are murdered while taking a couple of strangers to the now-abandoned Voz Island in the post-Soviet era, Ayan and his friend Grace, the wife of an American expatriate, are incited to decipher a coded note secretly passed to Ayan before the fall of the Soviet Union by Victor, his Russian scientist friend from their university days in Moscow.

Victor is not heard from again, but his note may hold clues not only to solving the locals’ murders but also thwarting life-threatening dangers to humankind.

<b>I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review</b>: I strongly doubt most of us have heard of the Aral Sea, or its impending disappearance. I will bet my life that not more than one or two of my readers have heard of Voz Island...at the most. Kazakhstan, very likely to be likewise. So there are the exotic locale, effectively limned, boxes ticked...the stakes have to be high to get the uninformed interested in the subject of such a setting.

How does environmental catastrophe causing multiple disease outbreaks ring your bell? Unfolding over decades, including huge world-changing events like the fall of the USSR, the discovery and Vossible exposure of its ugliest secrets puts lives at risk decades later.

I won't say this is the fastest-paced thriller I have read, but I will encourage anyone who likes Robert Ludlum's geopolitical plots to give this one a whirl. It is more than engrossing enough on its merits to deserve our attention just for its factual basis.

A well written mystery and suspenseful read. It kept me up as a page turner instead of doing other things. Kudos to the author on a great book.

This books is pegged as mystery and suspense in Kazakhstan, but it’s so much more. I enjoyed the sense of place and time, the people, culture and the significant role the Aral Sea plays in the book - it’s almost a main character integral to the storyline. Spanning about 50 years, the story’s main protagonist is Ayan Kazbekov who grew up in the village of Balta not far from the city of Aralsk in southwestern Kazakhstan. His path takes him to Moscow where he attends university studying English. It’s there that he meets Victor Luganov, a friendly, intelligent, and fun Russian whose focus is microbiology. They become firm friends jogging and hanging out together and sharing their life goals. But then Victor becomes a bit distant and distracted and they finally lose touch after university. But Victor makes a reappearance in Ayan’s life. As they catch up over drinks, Victor surreptitiously passes Ayan a note under the eye of a man obviously keeping an eye on Victor. Shortly after, Grace Curran enters Ayan’s life and becomes a much-needed friend on whom he is going to count on as the story unfolds. Grace is American and in Kazakhstan with her husband who is on a work assignment for a year. Things start happening and Victor and Grace have to figure out why. Are the incidences linked, why are they being followed, and does this all have anything to do with Voz Island? Along the way, there are great insights into the country and culture. I enjoyed the love and connection Ayan’s dad had for his boat, the strong bond Ayan had with his horse, and the influence and indelible mark the Aral Sea made on those living around the area. There were many lovely relationships in the book, not all being that of human to human. To me this was a quietly enjoyable book, with an almost melancholic undercurrent but not such that it brought the book down. The tone and pace appeared to be reflective of the setting and people - of course I don’t really know if it is, but I do hope that’s the case. I’m very glad I had the opportunity to read this book and would recommend it. Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

A good idea for a story, let down by the execution including way too much reliance on coincidence and a lot of dialogue that read as being unnatural at times.

I was first drawn to this book by the intriguing synopsis, then noted it had been written by an author that I've previously enjoyed (I read 'The Heart of the Buddha' a few years ago). But where her book set in Bhutan had an arguably weaker plot, it was elevated by the writing and beautifully established sense of place. Unfortunately I felt Sea Fever was the opposite. The two books could have been written by different authors.