The Sensitive: a novel by Renee Richardson
Suspense/Thriller/Drama/Mystery
418 Pages
Published 13th October 2023
Purchase from | Amazon AU* | Amazon US | Amazon UK |
My rating: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
I received a copy of this book from the author and am leaving this review voluntarily.
Emma Reilly is looking for a fresh start, well, everyone keeps telling her she needs one anyway. Heading to Newport, Rhode Island, after the passing of her mother, she moves into a house owned by her Aunt and Uncle. It’s a charming old house with a lot of character, and a deep past. However, it’s not the fresh start that Emma was hoping for. Each night she is awoken from the same nightmare, every time she closes her eyes, she has to live the nightmare of someone who came before her. When she runs into the quirky Willow, she is forced to face a part of herself that she had been trying to ignore her whole life. Finding no other choice but to embrace that part of her in order to solve the mystery the house has presented her with, Emma must keep an open mind and a sharp eye for there are some mysteries that the house has held onto for years, and it’s not quite ready to give them up. Will Emma be able to survive the truth that comes out as she unravels the dark past haunting her new house? And can she truly start over in the picturesque coastal town, or will the darkness follow her?
I had planned to have this review out a few weeks ago, but I didn’t realise that I’d overbooked myself severely in October. I did eventually make it through this read and I am so glad that I did. I’m absolutely hanging for book two!
This story starts as we meet Emma who is relocating to Newport to be closer to her family after the passing of her mother. Every night she has the same nightmare of running through the forest, being chased by someone. She knows that it’s not her dream, and that it belongs to someone else, but she doesn’t understand why she’s being shown it. I’ll admit, the beginning of the story moved fairly slowly and because my attention span has been severely affected over the past 12 to 18 months, it took me probably longer than I’d like to get into the story. But once I found a rhythm with it, I was absolutely hooked, I’d say that this happened around the 30% odd mark. We didn’t so much get an info dump, but we did get information filtered through to us, generally through flash backs, which worked quite well. Though at times I did find that I had a little bit of trouble when we had switched timelines into the past, and it would take me a sentence or two before I realised the timeline had switched. I did eventually get the hang of it and no longer had the issue of taking a moment to discern a timeline switch, once this happened, I found the story flowed nicely and that it didn’t kick me out of the story line anymore. Once we had met the person that was behind the nightmares, I found the story really grabbed me and I couldn’t put it down. I was so enthralled by the mystery, and it kept me reading well past my bedtime. I will say here, make sure that you check the TW for this book as I was not expecting some of the subject matter to be as dark as what it was. I didn’t have an issue with that at all, and I had read the TW beforehand, but I was still surprised by the sensitive subject matter that this story contains, so please, make sure you check those TW before picking this book up. I felt that this worked for the story so well, and none of the TW content was used simply for shock factor. It all had a purpose and added so much dimension to the story itself.
The characters were an interesting bunch, and I did thoroughly enjoy them. Emma did bug me on occasion, but to me that’s not a bad thing, it just shows Richardson’s ability at writing a believable character. For me, if a character can endear themselves to me and make me feel true emotions, regardless of what those emotions are, that shows how good of a writer the author really is. I found Emma to be incredibly stubborn, and pigheaded at times, this was what annoyed me. I understand that she had been through a lot before she moved to Newport, and I would hate to have gone through what she did, but her flat-out denial could be annoying at times. She had been experiencing things since she was a child, but she refused to listen to someone who was offering guidance and company on the crazy journey that she was about to undertake. I know that fear can make people act in strange ways and so can grief, and no one truly knows how they’d react in the same situation. So, Emma’s stubbornness is definitely not a deal breaker, just a thing that irked me a little bit throughout the story, and again, that’s not a bad thing, to me, it really does show Richardson’s ability in her craft. I absolutely adored Joel and I hope that things get back on track in later instalments. Willow, she was a quirky, loving, out there and sometimes annoying character, and the story would not have been the same without her. All of these main characters were so perfectly flawed, and they really added an extra dimension to this story, they endeared themselves to me uber quickly and I found myself furiously flipping pages because I just needed to know that they would be okay. I found the character of Emma’s aunt, to be an interesting one, and I hope we get to learn more about her as the story progresses. Seeing as her genre of choice is hauntings, I was surprised that Emma didn’t want to go to her aunt for help or even information, just another thing that Emma refused to do which I didn’t understand hahaha, but that’s okay. I’m sure there’s a reason and I look forward to learning what that is.
I don’t want to go into too much detail because I feel like this story is better experienced without knowing too much about it. All I will say is that this was a super enjoyable read that gripped me completely by about 30% in. If you find that it’s a little bit slow in the beginning while it’s finding its feet, stick with it because it is definitely worth it. It does kind of end on a cliffy, but the story in this book has closure so it’s not a terrible cliffy to be left on. I am hanging for book two because I need to know what Emma plans to do and what’s going to happen next. I’m looking forward to some more character development and relationship development in future instalments and keen to see where this story will go. Richardson has a wonderful ability in her craft already, and that only promises to develop more and more as her career progresses. I look forward to following her closely and seeing what she does next.
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