A Madness of Sunshine
On the rugged West Coast of New Zealand, Golden Cove is more than just a town where people live. The adults are more than neighbors; the children, more than schoolmates.
That is until one fateful summer—and several vanished bodies—shatters the trust holding Golden Cove together. All that’s left are whispers behind closed doors, broken friendships, and a silent agreement to not look back. But they can’t run from the past forever.
Eight years later, a beautiful young woman disappears without a trace, and the residents of Golden Cove wonder if their home shelters something far more dangerous than an unforgiving landscape.
It’s not long before the dark past collides with the haunting present and deadly secrets come to light.
Reviews (202)
A Suspense Thriller Set in New Zealand
"Everyone has hidden corners of their life, even the people we think we know inside out." FINAL DECISION: A thriller/suspense story about the secrets that rest in small towns where everyone thinks they know everyone but where there are dangerous secrets. I found this book compelling and it kept me turning page after page wanting to see the secrets being revealed. THE STORY: Anahera Rawiri returns to her hometown in New Zealand. A hometown that she is reluctant to return to and yet is drawn back. There are dark secrets in this town and even more secrets among the people who live there. Will Gallagher is the new cop in town who was sent there after an incident in Christchurch. It was a way of putting him on ice. The town of Golden Cove seemingly is a dead end job without any need for Will's detective skills until a young woman disappears. Then the dark secrets of the town begin to be revealed. OPINION: Nicely centered in the community relationships and characters (which is an area that Singh excels in her romances), the story kept me guessing throughout. As varying stories are slowly revealed, there is no doubt that everyone is deeper than what is known at the outset. Nicely, that is also true of the two main characters in the story. As readers, we know some of the pasts of these characters, but their story is slowly unwound even as the mystery unfolds as well. Although not overly creepy, there is something unsettling about the town and its surroundings. The overwhelming feeling that everyone has secrets and some of those secrets are dangerous makes this book compelling. I liked both Anahera and Will. Both out of sync with the town...Will an outsider and Anahera a local who has spent a decade away and thus straddles the line between being a part of the town and being a stranger. This gives them a nice connection as they are the "outsiders" doing the investigation while both have one foot in the town. I enjoyed this story because I kept changing my mind about what was going on and how it was connected with the past. I kept reading page after page because I wanted to know more about Will and Anahera -- not just the mystery. That nice balance made this a really good read. WORTH MENTIONING: This is not a romance. Please don't read it looking for a Singh romance and then complain that it isn't a romance. It is also not a paranormal, fantasy or sci-fi book. The book does have romantic elements, but romance is definitely not the focus here. There is sex but it is pretty much all off screen. CONNECTED BOOKS: A MADNESS OF SUNSHINE is a standalone. STAR RATING: I give this book 4.5 stars. NOTE: I received an ARC of this book via Netgalley. I was not required to write a review or to write a positive review. All opinions contained herein are my own.
Nora Roberts would have done it better
I read everything Nalini Singh has published and love most of her books but when writing about werewolves and archangels and vampire the rules allow for improbable love connections. In A Madness of Sunshine, the author has written a basic thriller/romance in the same style as many of the Nora Roberts books, and she needs to up her game. The excellent parts of the story involve the South Island of New Zealand, and the language and customs of the Maori people who live there. There are haunting descriptions of the birds, the forests, and the effect of the Pacific on a small island. But her story does not quite work. First, there are too many suspects, but, unlike a skilled mystery writer, she does not allow the reader to guess who the murderer is. She lays out reasons for everyone to be a murderer, and then more or less tells us who it likely is, but keeps us guessing until he confesses. It turns out there are several murderers and we more or less have to accept in this tiny, idyllic Maori community, everyone is dysfunctional, and murderers run amok. This tends to negate the community's charm. Then she introduces a bitter, broken hearted woman with an abusive childhood and a tragic secret who happens to be a world famous pianist, and a bitter cop who has lost confidence in himself because of the death of a child he was protecting. Both have come to this small town to lick their wounds, and by golly, within three days of meeting they are in bed together, and pretty cozy for a couple of life's victims. This is not a believable boy meets girl etc. scenario. I applaud Ms Singh's desire to spread her writing wings, but she only gets a C+ for this first attempt.
Mystery and Intrigue in the Wilds of New Zealand
Set in a stark and hauntingly beautiful landscape, Golden Cove is situated in the Wild West of New Zealand. The town serves as the backdrop for a mystery thriller that has all the secrets, both good and bad, of a small and secluded town. A popular, beautiful young woman disappears so the only local detective, Will Gallagher, investigates what looks like foul play. Will was farmed out to this far-flung village after some traumatic events in his work life. The other major occurrence happening involves Anahera Spenser-Ashby, formally Rawiri, returning to the place she grew up after life’s vagaries have brought her low. Will and Anahera form an alliance working together to figure out who might have taken a deadly interest in Mariama; the girl whom everyone seemed to love and some even to covert for their own. Will and Anahera are people wounded by life, both struggling to make it each day and not be caught in the undertow from some devastating personal events. Several interesting characters populate Golden Cove, some rather quirky, many of whom Will has gotten to know in this remote town. As he peels back the layers of secrets, deceits, and mysteries with Ana’s help since she knows all the players, Will finds what could be a connection to three missing hikers from eight years ago. Anahera left home to seek a better life as do many restless young people, away from her hometown with its painful memories. She found fame and fortune, but it all turned to grief. After losing a husband who turned out to be someone other than she thought, Ana comes back to this place that was once home in hopes of finding herself again. She is quite at sea about what to do now that her life has so drastically changed. The Maori culture adds a rich component lending language and traditions interwoven throughout the story. The rough yet beautiful landscape and unforgiving ocean provide a thrilling and sometimes chilling environment for this story that has all the elements of a good tale well told. Fans of Nalini Singh’s other books will be glad to know there is some romantic suspense element to this story. Ms. Singh is well known for her romance and paranormal stories; however, this book proves her skills at weaving a compelling, page turning tale in whatever genre she chooses.
Great plot, but..
Being a devourer of crime, and NZ crime writing in particular, I was keen to read this new venture from Nalini Singh, moving out of her normal genre. I have read none of those so my moments of disappointment were not that Singh had changed direction in this novel, rather, I expected more from her obvious experience as a writer. The plot premise held my attention to start with; young, ambitious, talented local girl, Miriama) goes missing in an area were young girls had gone missing years before. There's a relatively new local cop, Will, with a past, and the unexpected return of a local woman, Anahera) from her high-flying European lifestyle and, initially they are wary of each other (but you can guess what happens between them). So far, very good. The search for Miriama begins and the author has done her research on how searches are conducted. Then things start to slow down. There are a number (maybe a few too many) characters, all with back story, some more interesting that others ( like Nikau and Kyle) and as backstories were revealed it began to feel as though each character or couple were designed to showcase some level of human dysfunction. There does seem to be a surfeit of pyschopaths, sociopaths and general misfits in this town, (which may be the norm, of course). Singh is an accomplished writer and there are elements of this crime novel that work extremely well. The twist at the end had such potential but was let down by over explanation. I found it almost impossible to imagine a rugged, isolated west coast, small town being called 'Golden', let alone a 'Grove'. Funny how something so unimportant in the greater scheme of the story can jar so much. And perhaps a tighter edit would have raised the tension and made this story more gripping.
Dark and gorgeous and powerful
I don't often read thrillers, but I love Nalini Singh so much that I preordered this one - and it turned out to be dark and powerful and utterly compelling. The setting - a tiny, isolated town in New Zealand - is gorgeously vivid and evocative, and the characters feel very real. I loved the two PoV characters, their strength and their twin commitments to justice for others even through their own pain. There IS a lot of pain in this book - the heroine and hero both have painful pasts, and various types of child and domestic abuse are issues for characters throughout the book. The central murder is a hard and sad one - and in the past, I've actually sworn off all books about hot young women getting killed because they're so overdone and can feel so sleazy/vicarious in their descriptions (especially in those thrillers that include tons of passages from the killer giving gory details with a sick thrill). However, this book worked really well for me because there is no such treatment of the victim here - only a very powerful rage at the way some powerful/angry men treat women, again and again over time, and that rage is echoed through multiple storylines. The victim's death is treated as the tragedy it is - and as a microcosm of those big structural social inequities that have caused so much pain for so many of the families in this book (and the world at large). It's not done simplistically, either - again and again, different women struggle (or are shown) with complicity at various levels. There are a lot of very real shades of grey, which makes it all even more compelling. However, what really made me love this book was the way various women are able to fight for empowerment and strength by the end - and I cheered for the angry, complicated central heroine all the way, as well as for the very good (and also complicated, with big mistakes as well as traumas in his past) cop who becomes her love interest. Their romance isn't the biggest plotline, but it's a very satisfying one.
Boring
I own every book by Nalini Singh and bought this one as soon as it was out based on that alone. Unfortunately the author decided to try a completely different genre - instead of fantasy she jumped into a simple boring murder mystery. Or at least that's what it looked like when I finally gave up at 20% of the book. It was incredibly boring with no back story to help figure out what is going on. Frankly, the description of the book did not mention anything about such a drastic change of genre. Please go back to writing fantasy! There are already way too many murder mysteries out there! Definitely returning this book and will not trust next books by the author like I did in the past.
Almost boring......
I normally really like her books, but this one was very slow moving and at times quite tedious reading. All the language references were hard to follow and so distracting. Poor flow, lack of suspense, and unlikable characters, made this book easy to put down and hard to pick back up. So disappointing. No with paying hardback prices for this low level book.
Haunting Mystery!
So beautifully written. Just amazing. When you make a living writing, you have to be able to make every word sing to readers exactly like that. Wow! Loved this haunting mystery so much. Loved the main characters; Anahera and Will, "The fallen hero." Anahare saw the two of them as "two broken people who ran into each other." The highlights for me was when they couldn't help having something special going on while working together to solve a case of "a beautiful young woman disappears without a trace". Loved that they healed each other and become less broken in the end. This wasn't a kind of heart-pounding, fast paced thriller. But felt more like being carried away by slow moving currents filled with hidden danger. Still more danger lurked behind friendly and attractive surroundings. I swore I could hear scary music playing the entire time while reading! I was thankful that the author didn't go into brutal details, whether about the acts of murders or the acts of raising/creating serial killers. And yes, my hair still stood up, just thinking about it all. The villain(s) looked so obvious. So I felt no urgency. But, it turned out I picked the wrong present day villain! The interwoven of the main case and the subplot of three cold cases were masterfully done! I enjoyed being misled and deceived. The stark beauty of the West Coast of NZ, specifically, Golden Cove, would haunt me for a long long time. Why? It acted as a perfect natural accessory to murders! I'm looking forward to Nalini Singh's next mystery! From one of her interviews, the location will change to another part of beautiful New Zealand!
Unexpected! If you are expecting a romance this is not that book.
I happen to enjoy a good crime mystery book. This one delivers a couple of twists. While there is a developing relationship between two of the characters it is not the main focus. I know it is impossible to totaly give background on all the characters in one book, however I do feel like there need to be a bit more especially on the main characters. I enjoyed the book, but I am not impatiently waiting for the next one.
The setting was interesting and it was a great mystery!
What makes a woman who writes paranormal romances switch genre’s and try her hand at a mystery? I really don’t know but I was curious enough to pick up her novel and take a look at the back cover. There were a couple of things that jumped out and made it sound interesting. The mystery takes place in New Zealand and the synopsis made it sound different than other novels I’d read lately. As I started reading I found myself amazed that this was the same author who I’d read in the past. The pace was slow and deliberate, and whereas the two main characters were a man and a woman, this was not a love story. After the sudden death of her husband, Anahera moves back to her hometown and a childhood friend, Miriama, immediately goes missing. As she gets to know her old friends again she starts to wonder if the long ago case of some missing hikers is connected to her friends disappearance. As police officer, Will and Ana investigate they uncover secrets that had been buried for years and Ana realizes that someone she knows may be a killer. Lately, my tastes have run towards reading mysteries. More of a whodunnit kind of reader, A Madness of Sunshine was right up my alley. I enjoyed getting a feel for a country I don’t really know that much about, and loved the atmospheric outback feeling the character’s names and scenery provided. Despite the slow pace it held my interest and I couldn’t help but like the two very flawed main protagonists and the mystery they were solving. Is this the start of a new series by Nalini Singh? I don’t want her to quit writing romances but I hope so, or at least I hope that she’s found a genre she enjoys writing and can continue to throw me a bone every year or two. ❤️❤️❤️❤️
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