Bleed the Water Red by R.L. Griffin

Release date: March 23, 2017

Blurb:

When Kate Tennison returns to the low country of South Carolina it’s with her tail tucked between her legs. She doesn’t want to be there and face the love of her life, who’s now married with a child. Distance has not broken the spell of fear that surrounds why she ran from her home in the first place.

Her story is a tragic one.

Mom in rehab.

Father dead.

Career annihilated.

When we run from something looking back over our shoulder, we miss the scars on the arms that now hold us.

Can the magic of the water heal her wounded heart or does something dangerous lurk underneath the perfect features of the new man she’s decided to take a chance on?

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First off, let me tell you that I enjoy reading R.L.’s stories. Her book, Quiet Lies is one of my favorite books and my favorite by her. And I was so hoping that this book would rank right up there with it. But somewhere along the lines, things fell short for me.

Bleed The Water Red is not a bad book by any means. I know a lot will enjoy this book more than I. And I do hate that I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I wanted to. But let me explain myself.

The plot line was amazing. I love how we were given small snippets throughout the story and were able to piece together our own thoughts. What I didn’t like was how things felt disjointed at times. It’s hard to explain without giving away parts of the story, but things are left out it seems or overlooked. It makes the writing come across as scattered. And that’s what hurt the story and pace for me. I felt all over the place at times. And I do understand that part of a psychological thriller is to have pieces left out, but in this particular scenario, the pieces were obvious but at the same killed the vibe for me. I knew what would happen in the end because of this. And for me, that really sucked.

Like I said, this book is good. I love R.L. and her writing. However, her writing in this book was not what I have to come expect from her. I know that this story came to her fast and I get that you just need to get it out. However, as a beta reader, proofreader and editor, there are a lot of things that I personally would have changed/edited. I am in no way knocking any of the proofreaders or editors on this, there is nothing wrong in that aspect. But for me, certain things were not working and made it plainly obvious what the outcome was going to be.

The characters are very well written. I love their backgrounds and where they are from. The amazing friendship between Layla, Poppy and Austin is awesome – I love these three so much. I enjoyed learning about Layla’s past with Gent and how all that comes together in the end. This part of the story was beautiful and heart-wrenching to watch unfold. Layla has some growing struggles to deal with it and does come in to her own eventually. It’s a really good story with different avenues that all come together in the end.

With that being said, please give the book a chance. It’s a great story line. I loved how this is tied to Quiet Lies. If you have read it before, you will like the tie-in. If you haven’t, it won’t hurt the story at all. I gave this book 3.5 stars because my only gripe was the disjointedness that I felt and how I was able to figure the ending immediately but the overall story line was what kept me moving forward and not stopping.

Will I continue to read R.L.’s books – hell yes! She’s writes amazing stories. This one just want for me and that sometimes happens. But it won’t stop me from reading any of her books.

About R.L. Griffin

R.L. resides in the Atlanta area with some cool dudes: her husband, son and two crazy dogs.  She was born and raised in the South.  She attended Georgia Southern University and moved to Washington, D.C. to intern in the United States Senate during the impeachment trial.  Falling in love with the city, she went to law school at American University, Washington College of Law.  By A Thread is R.L.’s second book, but is the first in a series that got her back into writing after a ten year hiatus.  She writes anything from romantic suspense to psychological thriller to romantic comedy. One of the things that readers always say is they never know what kind of story they will get from R.L.

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