When the Siren Calls (Tom Barry)

When the Siren Calls (by Tom Barry) is a mixture of business drama and romantic suspense. Honestly, I am not sure what to label it--I guess drama is as good of a term as any. Maybe contemporary is the term that I am looking for.

I found the first third of the book hard to get into. I am not sure if I was just having a bad reading day--something that every English major is familiar with--or if it was the book itself that the cause. It may have been the fact that one of the characters, Isobel, was moping around about being unloved...I tend not to like rich (or even just well-off) people complaining about their problems. And there was that point where I realized that two years had passed between two scenes--it was a shock to realize how quickly time was passing in the book. At the end of the first third of the book, I thought that the best the author could ask for was a three star review.

I was wrong.

The second third of the book sucked me in. And the third part just knocked my socks off. As the book progressed, the action speeded up and the emotions of the characters got more intense. I actually came to like the character of Isobel by the end of the book.

The one character that I had absolutely no sympathy for was Jay. I find this interesting because When the Siren Calls is the first book of a trilogy, with the next book entitled Saving Jay. I wonder how Tom Barry is going to make me a fan of that book...I presume that he can win me over for a second time.

So much to my surprise, I am actually giving When the Siren Calls a full five stars and looking forward to reading the next book in the trilogy.

[Disclosure statement: This review is based on a NetGalley galley copy that was provided to me by the author.]