BOOK REVIEW: After the Storm by Jane Lythell

Some secrets destroy you.   So goes the opening line of the blurb for Jane Lythell’s After The Storm, setting you up for a few hours spent between the covers of a thriller where at least one character is hiding something sinister. After the Storm introduces readers to two couples at the outset. Shortly after meeting Owen and Kim, English couple Rob and Anna are persuaded to join their new friends on an old boat travelling around the islands of the Caribbean. It should be paradise – lazy days on board, dips in the ocean and long evenings with the company of the sea as the sun goes down. But something is not right. The mysterious Owen never seems to sleep and clams up at any opportunity to mention his past. Kim isn’t all she appears to be either – after all, a knife kept tucked into her money belt seems a little unnecessary for a pleasant holiday at sea. Anna is the sort of woman who gets people to open up… but this time, she might be better off staying quiet. After the Storm is set almost entirely on the old boat, adding to the sense of claustrophobia that creates a lot of the subtle and slowly building tension throughout the book. It’s a slow burner, with a lot remaining unsaid between the central characters. If you like your thrillers breakneck speed, with twists and turns coming as quickly as a chapter ends, this one may not be for you. For the same reason, it may disappoint fans of Lythell’s first novel – the very well-received The Lie of You. The suspense does build and every character does have a secret past to call their own, but the positioning of this book in the market does it no favours (the cover similarity to the likes of Gillian Flynn’s novels and Paula Hakwins’ The Girl on the Train is no accident). This is more of a suspenseful relationship drama than a thriller, but if that’s the novel experience you’re primed for there is much to enjoy about Lythell’s descriptive style of writing and her layered portraits of flawed men and women and the relationships they create.