The Night Mark

by Tiffany Reisz

From the bestselling author of The Bourbon Thief comes a sweeping tale of loss and courage, where one woman discovers that her destiny is written in sand, not carved in stone. Faye Barlow is drowning. After the death of her beloved husband, Will, she cannot escape her grief and most days can barely get out of bed. But when she's offered a job photographing South Carolina's storied coast, she accepts. Photography, after all, is the only passion she has left. In the quaint beach town, Faye falls in love again when she sees the crumbling yet beautiful Bride Island lighthouse and becomes obsessed with the legend surrounding The Lady of the Light--the keeper's daughter who died in a mysterious drowning in 1921. Like a moth to a flame, Faye is drawn to the lighthouse for reasons she can't explain. While visiting it one night, she is struck by a rogue wave and a force impossible to resist drags Faye into the past--and into a love story that is not her own. Fate is changeable. Broken hearts can mend. But can she love two men separated by a lifetime?

• ISBN10: 0778328554
• ISBN13: 9780778328551
• Publish Date: 28 March 2017
• Publish Status: Active
• Imprint: Mira Books
• Edition: Original ed.
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 400
• Language: English

Reviews

[kimbacaffeinate]

Last year, THE BOURBON THIEF made my top ten list, so I knew I had to read THE NIGHT MARK by Tiffany Reisz. I chose to listen to the audiobook, and I quickly devoured this on a rainy weekend. Time travel, interesting characters, and fate made THE NIGHT MARK an interesting listen.

Five reasons to grab your earbuds and listen to The Night Mark

• Tiffany Reisz is an excellent storyteller with a fluid writing style that lures the reader in and pushes the outside world away. As I closed my eyes and listened Reisz made me believe as I traveled back and forth in time. The entire story had this magical feel with themes of hope and love all wrapped in Reisz's lyrical writing style. I loved how she connected characters from the past to the present. She surprised me by taking a different twist with the hero.


• The story takes place in a quaint little beach town along the South Carolina coast and an isolated Lighthouse. We travel from the present to 1921, and the Lighthouse remains as a constant. I loved the attention to detail from the history to the townfolks.


• THE NIGHT MARK had a wonderful cast of characters that will draw you in. Faye our heroine is in a very bad place when we meet her. She is still mourning the husband she lost four years ago and is raw from the poor decisions she made following his death. Those decisions have not only hurt her but others she and her husband cared about. I felt for Faye and understood her actions. She arrives in town to photograph the Lighthouse, and things happen that make her curious about a local legend. The build up to her finding herself at the Lighthouse in 1921 were seamless done. The secondary cast of characters was small and each held a significant role in the storyline. I loved Pat the painting priest and his role in both the past and present. For those who don't like unanswered questions, Reisz even managed to share what happens to each of these characters.


• Teri Schnaubelt narrates THE NIGHT MARK and did a stellar job successfully bringing Reisz's story to life. While I am sure reading this would have been equally delightful, this tale lends itself perfectly to audio.


• The romance both past and present will pull at your heartstrings. If you have ever loved or loss, you will instantly connect. Moments that could have been cheesy brought tears to my eyes as Reisz weaved her magic.

Fans of time traveling romances like THE OUTLANDER and THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE will enjoy THE NIGHT MARK.

 


This review was originally posted at Caffeinated Book Reviewer

[Linda]

This review was originally posted on (un)Conventional Bookviews
The Night Mark deals with hope - how we need hope to move forward. To get out of bed in the morning. To care for ourselves and others. To care for our planet.



The Night Mark has a magical feel to it, and a lot of that comes from Reisz's excellent writing. It's like a novel in a poem with a fantastical story in which realistic characters live their lives to the best of their abilities. Hope and love are strong themes, and I had to wipe away a few tears at the ending, because it was so sweet and tender, and I wanted to stay with the characters a little longer. I think what I love the most every single time I pick up a Reisz novel is that I am in a bookgasm for the duration. Her writing is very well done, there's something more to it, that draws me in and makes me utterly a part of the story alongside the characters. Another thing I love is the characters, who are so life-like I feel like I could close my eyes, reach out and touch them. And of course, through her lyrical writing, she always brings me the feels! Every single time!

The romance aspect of The Night Mark was in the background, there, but not the most important part of the story. Love, however, was important, and so was hope. Faye had lost all hope, and I found it ironically sweet that in the past, her name was Faith. I think it's difficult to have faith if you don't have hope, and it appeared that Faye found that in 1921, after having abandoned all hope in 2015. Of course, there is some very pertinent quotes about religion, and I always enjoy how Reisz seamlessly include those in some of her stories, almost like an afterthought, but always right on spot. The beauty of the story lies in the writing, though. And the characters who move the story forward through their hopes, their dreams, and their actions.

The Night Mark intrigued me, it kept me wondering, and it also filled me with a kind of longing I don't feel that often when reading a book. The way Faye dealt with her grief, her divorce, and her new lease on life touched me deeply. And how Fay happened to find herself in 1921, and the lengths to which she was willing to go to in order to stay there were astounding. Love conquers all, they say, and Faye proved that saying beautifully. The way she tried to find solutions to her problems both in the 21st and in the 20th century is partly why I loved her story so much. When she made her choice about where, or rather when she wanted to be, I felt both elated for her and sad for her all at the same time.

Carrick and Pat are very important characters in The Night Mark as well, and I have to admit I have a very soft spot for Pat. He is the town's retired priest, and what he did for Faye to help her get things in order was nothing short of amazing. Written in third person point of view, past tense and mostly from Faye's perspective, I was so completely immersed in the story from start to finish it was difficult to get back to the real world. As I was reading through some of my highlights to include quotes for my review, I got all teary-eyed, and I know that this story will be one of the very few that I will re-read. Reisz and her beautiful writing and life-like characters just do something to me each time I read one of her stories.



Now that she didn't have to think of anyone's needs but her own, she'd discovered just how little she needed.

She should have been afraid, but she wasn't. Supposedly she'd lost "everything" in the divorce and had been left with almost nothing. Turned out almost nothing was exactly what she wanted.

But she understood the temptation to live in the past better than anyone. When people lost hope, they looked in the last place they remembered having it, and it was in the past.

Hope was other people, no matter what the philosophers said.