Another fantastic novel by Cecelia Ahern. Into the Storm is a contemporary, emotional novel that explores themes of healing, grief, trauma, complex family relationships and self-discovery. The story will keep the reader guessing with twists and turns and I could not put this book down. The story begins on a stormy night of winter solstice, the longest night of the year on a mountain road in Dublin. Dr Enya Pickering is a GP and after a life-changing moment during that night she saves a teenage boy and this event continues to haunt her. From this night she starts to feel as though her life falls apart. She is also reaching the age her mother passed away at 47 years of age and her emotional grief resurfaces, as she is dealing with the trauma of the way her mother died and she cannot see herself outliving her mother’s age. I really liked the writing style, character development of Enya and the complexities of her relationships. I liked the emotional, thought provoking, honest, descriptive language of Enya’s feelings and inner dialogue and I felt very immersed in the story and the emotions of the characters. The novel deals with mature themes of Enya’s complicated relationships with her family, loveless marriage, grief, anxiety, trauma and emotional scars of the death of her mother, hope and healing inspiration from the wisdom of an ancient rag tree that becomes symbolic of her healing journey. Thank you to the author, publisher Harper Collins UK and NetGalley for sending me an ARC kindle ebook.

Part mystery, part family drama, with heaps of references to Irish folklore, “Into the Storm” is lots of things all in one book. The central character is Enya, a doctor who in the opening chapters gets flagged down in the middle of a storm to a road traffic accident where a teenage boy has been hit by a car. She attempts to save his life and is severely shaken by the incident. We discover over the course of the book how her life has already been shaken by the early death of her mother. As Enya approaches the age that her mother died, she worries that she won’t know how to live without her mother being ahead of her. We also learn that Enya’s marriage is on the rocks as is her relationship with her son Finn. Enya struggles to recover from the emotions caused by the accident and this moment in her life and isn’t sure how to move forward. When an opportunity arises in her career, she takes it. But she struggles to out run her troubles and to trust anyone around her. Can anything help her? This is a really interesting book. As I said, it covers lots of areas, and I really enjoyed the folklore side particularly the important part played by the rag tree. I also enjoyed that the story didn’t feel stereotypical. I sometimes struggled with the behaviour of one or two of the characters but in the main, I would recommend the book to others. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book.

I have enjoyed several Cecilia Ahern books previously and I was intrigued at the premise of this book. Dr Enya Pickering is driving home in the pouring rain when she is flagged down by a taxi driver. On the floor she sees a boy, who looked uncannily like her son, who had been knocked over. She performs CPR on the boy until the ambulance arrives and so saves his life. Her life then falls to pieces – her husband, also a GP in the same practice wants her gone, and her beloved son won’t speak to her. When her father tells her about an opening for a GP in a remote village in Ireland, she decides that it’s fate and takes the job. However, is everything as it seems and will the past catch up with her? I really enjoyed this story. It’s somewhat of a ‘whodunnit’. It has great characterisation and shows how people are not always inherently good or inherently bad, but more all a bit of a mixture. A great, well written story.

I was expecting this to be a light romance, in the vein of other novels by Cecelia Ahern that I had read previously. This is, however, more of a drama about a middle-aged woman who, after helping a teen victim of a hit-and-run the same age as her son, ends up leaving her husband and loving to rural Ireland to work as a GP. With this in mind, I really enjoyed this book. I particularly found the main character, Enya, to be very relatable and appreciated the supporting cast around her, particularly her sister and son. A recommended read for fans of Where'd You Go, Bernadette, The Authenticity Project, and MFCs who uproot their lives.

I've not read anything by Cecilia Ahern before but I'm happy I have as once I started it, it was hard to put down. As a fellow writer, I loved the way the author maintained the pace and tension. At the end of each chapter, I seemed to always be saying - just one more, just one more. I also thought the inclusion of the rag tree and the folklore behind it added to the story and enjoyed how Enya's relationship to it altered over time as she become more accepting and accepted in her new environment. The link to water and her mother's death was also well woven into the story and as a result provided emotional resonance and an understanding to Enya's unravelling. 4.5 stars. I'm looking forward to reading other books by this author.