Rising Tide: Dark Innocence

The Maura DeLuca Trilogy, Book 1

By: Claudette Melanson

Narrated by: Diana Steele

Length: 6 hrs and 17 mins

Publisher's summary

2015 Readers' Favorite Gold Medal Winner for YA Mystery 2015 RONE Award Finalist for YA Paranormal Chosen as one of 400 for the second round of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award for 2014!

Rising Tide will sink its fangs into you, keeping you awake into the wee hours of the night

Could Maura's life get any worse? Turns out, it most certainly can.

Isolated and sheltered by her lonely mother, Maura's never been able to make friends. She seems to drive her classmates away - except for the odd times they pay enough attention to torture her - but she doesn't understand why. Maura considers herself to be a freak of nature, with her unusually pale skin and an aversion to the sun that renders her violently nauseous. Her belief is only worsened by the fact that almost everyone around her keeps their distance.

Even her own father deserted her before she was born, leaving Maura alone with her emotionally distant mother, Caelyn. Even though Maura is desperate for answers about her unknown parent, Caelyn remains heartbroken and her daughter can't bring herself to reopen her mother's wounds. Or is there a more sinister reason Caelyn refuses to utter a word about her long-lost love?

When a cruel prank nearly claims Maura's life, one of her classmates, Ron, rushes to her rescue. Darkly handsome and mysteriously accepting, Ron doesn't seem to want to stay away, but Maura is reluctant to get too close, since her mother has announced she's moving the two of them to Vancouver...nearly 3,000 miles away from their hometown of Indiana, Pennsylvania.

If life wasn't already challenging enough, Maura begins to experience bizarre, physical changes her mother seems hell bent on ignoring, compelling Maura to fear for her own life.

©2014 Claudette Melanson (P)2015 Beacon Audiobooks

Excellent Story!

What did you love best about Rising Tide: Dark Innocence?

I loved everything from the title to the characters to the excellent writing.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Maura and Ron were my favorite characters, although I really liked the well-developed secondary characters, too.

Have you listened to any of Diana Steele’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I have not listened to Ms. Steele before. I greatly enjoyed her voice but I wished she hadn't repeated lines so often. That was distracting. Her pronunciation was off on a couple of words, too. Maybe Beacon needs stricter quality control.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Early in the book, when Ron had to rescue Maura, that was moving.

Any additional comments?

I will definitely listen to the next book in this series!

Fantastic YA Paranormal

Fantastic. I thoroughly loved this book. The lead character is Maura, a very unique young woman who never quite fits in. I think we can all relate to her. She goes through things that teenagers go through. The story was very detailed , but the pace was good. It is a very difficult balance as too many details can slow the pace. The author does a brilliant job of letting the reader experience things as Maura does which allows the reader to bond with Maura even more. The supporting characters were fleshed out nicely , each had their own individual quirks.

I listened to the audio book. The narrator was perfect. Her voice matched the story. If you don't get the right narrator, it can be a distraction. Luckily this was not an issue. Some stories are meant to be told out loud. This is one of them. I am excited to continue the journey with Maura into the next book

A fantastic story!

I had the pleasure of reading this book over the summer. Once I read it I fell in love with Maura and her story. I was excited to get my hands on a audio edition. It gave me a perfect excuse to revisit my favorite book of the year. I was impressed with the narrator. She has the perfect voice for Maura. Her voice was memorizing and captured the emotion behind every word. The most heart breaking moment was reliving the lake and bridge experience. Hearing it gave me a different experience then reading it. My favorite moments was listening to Ron and Maura's developing relationship. I don't think you coukd have picked a better narrator. With a cliff hanger ending I can't wait to listen to Undertow the next book in the series.

Rising tide:dark innocence

This was a very interesting book. I do want to read the next book in the series since this one ended in a cliffhanger ending.

Terrible editing

The story is great and the narrator was actually really good but whoever edited this did a terrible job, there was a lot of repeating of words and some repeated sentences. At point the narrator actually says ,”Ok where were we?”

Story was Great

Any additional comments?

Story was Great but the narrator was not. The narrator read to fast no pause between scenes and repeat sentences alot