Book Review — The Night Mark by Tiffany Reisz

“I will love you and take care of you for the rest of your life.”
“Don’t you mean your life?”
“I meant what I said.”

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WOW!! What a unique and heart-warming novel!

The Night Mark is a love story unlike any other I’ve read! It spanned the ages and time and opened my heart and mind to possibilities I couldn’t even imagine. Technically, you could call it a time-travel romance (similar in concept to Outlander) except in this book, the heroine is transported back to 1921 where her life is saved by a man who looks and acts shockingly identical to her present day, beloved late husband. And what unfolded next was a beautiful story that blended romance with mystery in a manner that filled my heart with hope, happiness, and even brought me to tears! I loved the hidden depth and symbolism of this story and really appreciated how real the story felt. If you’re looking for a genuinely DIFFERENT ROMANCE with FANTASTIC WRITING, this is definitely a book to try!

I’ve been a huge fan of Tiffany Reisz’s writing ever since I read the Original Sinners series (my reviews). To be honest, I’d say she’s one of the strongest authors I’ve ever read. She’s just one of those authors who I enjoy not only because I like her stories, but because I genuinely like to read her writing if that makes sense. So when I heard about this book and saw what a departure it was from the other kinds of books she’d written, I immediately knew I wanted to read it! I’m drawn to these different types of stories and after reading this blurb, I was completely sold.

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?

To be honest with you, time travel is usually a topic I tend to shy away from. It’s not that I don’t like it — I do! It’s more that it can be a hard subject to write well but I knew that if anyone could do it justice, Tiffany Reisz could.

The story was both quiet in tone and intensely intriguing in content. However, by 10% in, I got shivers from the first hint of the hidden layers and depth that this story would deliver. By the end of chapter 3, I got FULL BODY CHILLS! Like holy wow! My heart raced, my eyes watered… I needed to know more!!

“Do you believe in miracles?”

And the more I read, the more deeply I sank into this story. The chills kept coming as the plot thickened. How was it possible that she looked so much like the woman in the painting? How could the light house keeper look so much like her late husband? Who was that man? What was the bird doing? I needed answers! And much to my delight, while this book certainly raised a plethora of questions, it also answered all of them and I was left at the end feeling incredibly satisfied with this story.

“I won’t let anything happen to you,’ he said. “If you trust me, stay with me, let me protect you, we’ll be all right. It’s better than the other choice, isn’t it? Better than before? You don’t want to go back, do you?”

I was very impressed with the way the symbolic and (I’m incredibly hesitant to even use this word but…) spiritual aspect of the story was presented. It didn’t expect you to believe anything at all, it only presented the story in a forthright manner and showed you different characters’ interpretations of what was happening and then allowed you to interpret everything however you chose. But like the use of the white bird… HOLY FREAKING FEELS!

While this is a much tamer and more mainstream book than her Original Sinners series, every once in a while as I read, I’d see a hint of that snark and spice that reminded me that this was indeed written by the author of possibly one of the hottest series ever written! This book has quite the romance and it made me swoon and even sometimes laugh out loud. Never have I ever before heard anyone speak of a light house so suggestively…

“So how tall exactly is this majestic monument?”
“Well, that depends,” he said. “Are we counting the height from the floor to the top of the lightning rod? Or are we counting from sea level up to the light?”
“From the base to the tip,” she said, and Carrick cocked an eyebrow at her.
“About eighty-seven feet. Impressive, isn’t it?”
“Impressive enough… Hunting Island’s light is bigger, though, isn’t it?”
“It’s taller, I suppose,” Carrick said dismissively. “Mine’s wider.”
“Width matters, does it?”
“So I’ve been told. Mine is also younger and will likely last a lot longer.”
“Are we still talking about the lighthouse?”

Heehee!!

I’m really hesitant to say much more about the story. I feel like it’s one you have to experience for yourself. It’s a story you have to take a leap of faith to believe, it’s one that can’t be rationalized or explained in a practical sense, but it’s one I fully accepted and embraced. I find it such a treat to read novels like this — unique stories with strong writing! Ohhhh and in the very last scene, the happiest of tears came to my eyes and I literally gasped aloud with the beauty of the symbolism.

This book would make an absolutely AMAZING movie! It’s one of those stories I could visualize in perfect clarity as I read it. All the locations and characters came to life as I read and I really believe that this story could deliver a riveting on-screen adaptation. I’ll cross my fingers and pray to the movie gods that it might happen one day!

I genuinely LOVED this book and everything about it — the writing, the story, the characters. I was completely captivated and entranced by everything that was happening and didn’t ever want to stop reading. The only reason that my rating isn’t higher is that, apart from those specific scenes that I mentioned gave me those CHILLS, the story was a little quieter than I’d have wanted. I wanted it to be a little more angsty, more intensely emotional. With the uniqueness of the story it presented, I kind of wanted it to make me ugly cry. I wanted it to destroy me a little more. But that being said, it was still an amazing story and definitely going on my favorites list because, while it wasn’t a constant feeling throughout the entire story, when this book made me feel, it really made me FEEEEEEEL!!

“One person can’t change the world.”
“We could change a tiny corner of it. Isn’t that enough reason to go back?
To save even one life?”

If you’re in the mood to read a beautifully written, refreshingly unique story with a spell-binding romance, this is a book you will not want to miss! I couldn’t put it down and loved it!

Rating: 4-4.5 stars! Standalone Contemporary Time-Travel Fiction Novel with Romance.

• Buy THE NIGHT MARK (Kindle)
• Buy THE NIGHT MARK (Paperback)
• Buy THE NIGHT MARK (Audiobook)
• Buy THE NIGHT MARK (iTunes)