I love a good thriller with action and suspense as much as the next reader, throw in some twist and turns and I am in heaven.
This story was just... okay. The idea was good but it was not executed well and i found myself questioning it quite a bit. If there are anymore books from this author I may pick it up to see how the writing has progressed.

Dr. Kate Pomeroy is busy working at the hospital when things start going wrong mentally for her just before surgery.
She is sent to be with her aunt on Storm Island for some relaxation and therapy. But things are not what they seem there either. Kate runs into someone that could become something more real, then it too takes a strange turn of events. Or it is all in her head? Great psychological suspense with surprise twists and turns! I loved the book so much I bought the book! Can't wait for the next one!!!

I love this cover and think it's gorgeous. But the story left me a little underwhelmed. I thought it was a little convoluted as it tried to shove you around to see the next turn. I thought some of the twists were a little more obvious than others but I did like the conclusion. All in all, I thought it was just okay.

I enjoyed reading this, the mystery itself was great and I liked the main character Kate. Overall I look forward to reading more in the Kate series.

I got the second in the series, The Tao Of The Viper, 5 months ago from Netgalley. It sounded good at the time but I kept putting off reading it. After the author contacted me, I decided to request this book and start at the beginning of the series. Still I kept putting it off. Why, I don't really know other than I was busy with other books I needed to review. If I had known how good it was I would have read it immediately. The book is set on Storm Island, an island off the coast of Maine, a place I really want to visit. The atmosphere of the island is one of the characters. As this character becomes more developed and we learn its history, it becomes an even more important character. A doctor doing a residency in Los Angeles, Kate has a breakdown in surgery and her father sends her to her aunt Hettie, a psychiatrist in New York, to recover. When she arrives Hettie tells her she will be going to Storm Island to get their house ready for the season. With much trepidation, and really having no choice, Kate returns to the island where she spent summers as a child, the place where her mother committed suicide when she was 10. Strange things immediately begin happening, leaving her pondering her sanity. A romance with a local, learning more about her mother, strange men, bootleggers, and tunnels all combined to keep me raptly reading. I don't want to spoil the book so you will have to read to see how these are connected. I loved the book and am starting the second book now. I want to thank Netgalley and the author for allowing me to read and review this.

STORM ISLAND returned me to those good old days of upper childhood and adolescence when I daily devoured the likes of novels by Phyllis A. Whitney, Victoria Holt, and the plethora of Gothic paperbacks of the 1960's, stories of intrigue, adventure, suspense, commitment, betrayal, jealousy, insanity, gaslighting, love, romance. Of course those preceded the #Metoo Movement by decades, so there were no instances of sexual assault, date rape or Rohypnol.


Author Linda Watkins successfully brings the Gothic Suspense genre into the rapid-paced 21st century, but yet there is still that underlying aura of past Gothics (especially the protagonist's encounters in the woods and in the tower room). I can see her as played by a young Ingrid Bergman, as evil villains in the shadows gaslight her and soon she cannot distinguish friend from those who wish her ill. A satisfying read, STORM ISLAND is Book 1 of the Kate Pomeroy Mysteries.

I really enjoyed this story. There is lots of psychological suspense that will keep you turning pages. Very fast paced read.

This book was hard to put down! It has mystery, suspense, paranormal and a love story all rolled in to one addicting book. I can't wait to read the next book in this series.
I received a free ARC of this book from NetGalley for an honest review.

I would like to thank the Author Publishers and NetGalley for providing a free kindle copy of this book to read and honestly review
A clever intelligent mystery suspense story, well written descriptive and entertaining from start to finish. With a brave clever feisty heroine. Why only four stars well in parts it is somewhat contrived, and the paranormal parts unnecessary and far fetched.
Recommended.

This book was atmospheric and spine tingling. I was drawn in from page one and found it very hard to put down. It stayed with me, long after I finished.
Many thanks to BooksGoSocial and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. 'Storm Island' begins as a relatively simple story. The heroine does not seem to have a complete grasp of the situation she finds herself in. The protagonist is obvious from the very beginning. What is not obvious is why all of this is happening. Each character in the story has a part to play but their development is lacking. A good read, just not exceptional.

Kate Pomeroy is a second year surgery resident who ostensibly has a breakdown at Memorial Hospital, where she is training. It coincides with hearing a conversation between two doctors that she wasn't meant to hear.
Almost committed to an institution for evaluation, her surgeon father intervenes and sends her to Storm Island to recuperate, under the care of her aunt, an esteemed psychiatrist.
Her Aunt Hettie and Uncle Raoul have a vacation home on the island. Kate will help get it ready for the summer visitors while her aunt oversees her recovery.
The place has bad memories. Her mother committed suicide there and as a child, Kate found her body. Her mother suffered from depression, has Kate inherited her mental illness?
As she prepares the house,she reunites with Jeremy Bradshaw, a friend from her childhood. They have a romantic connections, but can it survive her worsening mental condition?
This dark, gothic thriller has a touch of mystical elements and romance.
A fun and entertaining read that kept my interest. I did feel that the writing was filled with cliches that sometimes pulled me out of the story, and it felt antiquated at times.
Despite these flaws, I really enjoyed it, an excellent escape from reality.
Looking forward to the next one in the series!
Thank you to Argon Press for the e-ARC via NetGalley.
3.5 stars, rounded down to 3 stars.

Life seems great for Dr. Kate Pomeroy, surgical resident at Los Angeles’ Memorial Hospital, as she prepares to assist Dr. Alastair Redbone in removing an older man’s gall bladder. Then, as she picks up the scalpel, the room starts to shift and her consciousness begins to alter. She passes out and wakes up in the ER, strapped to a gurney and under the observation of a psychiatrist she has reason to distrust.

Thus begins her living nightmare, sending her from sunny Southern California to coastal Maine, where her family owns a huge mansion on Storm Island.

Her father, Hamilton, chief of staff at the Los Angeles hospital where she’d been a resident, doubts his daughter’s diagnosis, especially when she proves that the psychiatrist is dosing her with experimental drugs, and instead sends her to New York to be cared for by his sister Hephzibah, a psychiatrist, and her husband, Raoul. However, as soon as she arrives, her aunt and uncle inform her she’ll be heading out to Stormview, the family’s manor house on Storm Island, off the coast of Maine. Kate will stay in the carriage house while helping get the house ready for summer, as well as take medication prescribed by her aunt.

Almost as soon as she arrives on the island, however, she’s forced to face the memory of her mother’s suicide nineteen years earlier, including finding her body spinning from a ceiling fan. From her first day on the island, she hallucinates, endures horrifying nightmares, and glimpses a stone silo no one else can see. She also strikes up a romance with Jeremy, a local lobsterman who was a childhood friend.

Even after her father, aunt, and uncle arrive at Stormview, the bizarre interludes continue. Her father believes her, but her aunt and uncle dismiss her symptoms as signs that she’s as mentally disturbed as her late mother. When she finally meets the man her mother was supposedly having an affair with, a sculptor who’s also Jeremy’s uncle, he supplies her with the first sign she’s not insane — in fact, he has an interesting theory about her lineage that explains some of the mysteries she’s experiencing, although no one has any idea just how dangerous Stormview and Storm Island are for Kate Pomeroy.

Linda Watkins has written a spellbinding mystery that will keep readers turning pages well into the night and promises to be a bewitching series.

Suspenseful thriller. Kate is a second year resident in surgery, getting ready to assist in a major surgery and the world tilts. We are off on this grand mystery which throws a little bit of everything. Mental illness, real or imagine? Her dad sends her to storm Island to recuperate from her world tilting.. The same island she lost her mom on from mental illness, or was it.? This book has so many twists and turns, shadows with drugs, human trafficking and light with people who care and a budding romance with a veteran who has his own issues. WHen I read this book I understood the word complex. It is truly a complex mystery a suspenseful thriller in the gothic mysteries of old and sprinkled with romance. Thank you Linda Watkins, Argon Press and NetGalley for the arc. This was a first read of mine by Linda Watkins and it won't be the last.

would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this spooky book

kate is a surgeon working through her residency, when for some unknown reason she becomes paranoid...several events occur that the diagnosis could mean she may be committed

but luckily for kate her dad interverned and sent her off to be looked after by her aunt...and so the visit to storm island began

years ago kate and her mom would visit every summer but a fatal event occurred there and katie had never been back...now she is back there and the memories are surfacing...

but why do the blackouts keep occuring, could it all be in her imagination or is someone out to get her, but who could it be..as only her aunt and uncle are on the island with her...surely they couldnt be behind it all...

and what about that light in the silo that nobody else can see...

all in all a very good psychological thriller that will keep you reading till the end

Scary,dark,intriguing,a bit mystical. All in one mystery. WOW! This author knows how to tell a story that keeps you turning those pages and forgetting time. You've got to read this book.

Exciting, addictive, gripping, creepy.

This novel for me was the perfect mystery. It begins with the main character Katy Pomeroy a doctor preparing for surgery when she has a mental breakdown. She then takes time out going to the home where her mother committed suicide. This sets up the story for some exciting paranormal activity, along with a romance with a man named Jeremy. She has nightmares, see's strange things happening, all of this breaks down to her dealing with her mothers death and accepting a loving relationship with Jeremy.

While Katy works on trusting Jeremy, she finds out many different hidden stories about Storm Island, and the home she's living in at the time. Highly recommend this to read. Thank you Netgalley and BooksGoSocial for the Kindle book, this is my honest review.

Kate suffers a breakdown at work and her father sends her to his sister's on Storm Island to recuperate. As a doctor herself she is unsure about her illness, not convinced about all of the pills etc she has to take, hasn't really come to terms with her mother's apparent suicide decades ago and so on. Perhaps the island isn't the best place to go as that's where she found her mother's body on otherwise idyllic holidays. Lots of nightmares, paranoia, things that others say aren't there add to her distress. There is drug dealing, people trafficking, secret tunnels and 16th century witches to add to a complex and well-written story before Kate comes out the other end - intact and with a hunk of a boyfriend. I suppose that he was essential but remain unconvinced. The twists and turns keep you guessing as to who is a 'goodie' and who a 'baddie' and the tension is kept up throughout. I look forward to the next in the series and now that Kate and Jeremy have got together perhaps he'll add something to the story. Thanks to NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

Kate Pomeroy is a 2nd year medical resident, all set to become a terrific general surgeon. But right before one of her surgeries, the room tilts, and she finds herself a patient in her own hospital. Tests are run and all are found negative.

Her mother killed herself almost 20 years earlier ... supposedly she suffered with depression. Has Kate inherited her mother's mental illness? She and her father think she's just been stressed with her residency and he sends her to your aunt and uncle who then send her to their island vacation home for rest and to recuperate.

Kate is forced to come to terms with her last memories of the island home, as this is where her mother killed herself .. and Kate found her body.

Nightmares ...or night terrors continue. Is she hallucinating ... or something worse? She discovers a strange small building deep in the woods and Kate tries to unravel what secrets it might hold. But is it real ... or something else she has conjured out of her mind? She sees things that don't exist .... she hears things that aren't there ... she smells her mother's perfume but that's impossible.

This is a well written, complex mystery full of twists and turns with just a touch of the paranormal. Once started, it was hard to put down. Unpredictable from start to finish, the characters are finely drawn with credibility. A little romance just adds to the enjoyment.

Many thanks to the author / BooksGoSocial / Netgalley for the digital copy of this mystery. Read and reviewed voluntarily, opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.