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Mysterious Marsh #2
When The Tide Turned
It is August 1976 and an oppressive heat hangs over Romney Marsh in the South East corner of England.
Soon after the birth of her daughter, Hazel Dawkins, a young lawyer, is unexpectedly asked to return to work. No sooner has she agreed than she discovers that a dark force threatens both her family and her country; and before long, the past and present intertwine in a rising tide of horrifying events.
Haunted by terrifying images, she knows that she must uncover secrets from the past if she is to avert a catastrophe that will destroy all that she holds dear.
What draws her to the painting depicting a sudden storm at sea on a night in 1803 as Napoleon prepares to invade England?
What is the secret of the man pegged down to die on the incoming tide?
As Hazel seeks the answers to these questions she faces evil and intrigue, her life and that of her baby daughter threatened at every turn.
372 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2014
1 person is currently reading
13 people want to read
About the author
M.L. Eaton
10 books11 followersRetired from legal practice and semi-retired from holistic therapy - although she still teaches Reiki and other workshops - Marion lives close to the sea in the beautiful East Sussex countryside with a long-suffering husband, a lazy saluki and an urge to write into the small hours.
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January 19, 2016Attorney Hazel Dawkins has recently given birth to baby Jessica and after seven weeks is asked to fill in, temporarily, at her previous firm while one of the partners takes leave. Though reluctant at first—she is beyond exhausted—she eventually agrees, noting to herself that the money would indeed come in handy, and being able to take Jessica with each day is a supreme advantage. But when strange events and an aggressive client impede on her work, Hazel sets out to sort through it all, only to discover one mystery after another, leading from one dark place to the next.
Set mostly in 1970s Rye, an historic area known as part of the ancient Cinque Ports, at a time when women lawyers were still a bit of a curiosity, When the Tide Turned is liberally sprinkled with what I now, having read this author before, would call Eaton’s trademark imagery, beautifully brimming with words that make you want to read them again, envisioning, breathing in, surrounded by the scenes she describes.
Romney Marsh: a wondrous place where sky, land and sea met in a glorious pageantry of colour. Above the flat land, uncluttered with buildings and trees, the swirl of wind current painted ever-changing cloudscapes in the sky; sun and shadows reflected across meadows of green divided by still, dark dykes edged with rushes and the lace of meadowsweet.
So reads one passage from the novel, a mystery involving events and dark forces spanning two centuries and a painting related to Napoleon’s planned invasion of England. The author also occasionally adds in physical and historical descriptions of the area in which Dawkins lives, sometimes via her reminiscing. In this manner we learn background information and how characters come to be where they now are. Hazel is also subject to strange visions in which she sees people and places, unexplainable events that occur, which begin to bear remarkable—and eerie—similarities to actual events unfolding in her daily life. We see rather quickly, too, a dark force beginning to overshadow her family’s lives, even replacing the benign presence she had become aware of when they’d first moved in to their cottage home.
The mystery initially begins to reveal its nature when a client, Mr. Harris, demands documentation to secure the provenance of a painting. His erratic behavior attracts Hazel’s suspicions and events around the office—too bizarre to ignore—link to the dreams and visions she soon begins to piece together.
Eaton very early on had my full attention, partly because I sought out the afore-mentioned imagery I knew she would likely write into the story, and here she does not disappoint.
[Rype] had escaped the modernisation that had blighted similar town in the nineteen sixties and early seventies, clinging to its Englishness in the same way that honeysuckle and climbing roses embraced the half-timbered buildings along its High Street.
Additionally, Hazel Dawkins is easy to like, and her preparation for the temporary assignment begins very soon after the start of her tale, holding both the magnificent ordinary—her journey into marriage and motherhood—as well as brilliant narrative and conversation on the surroundings and its history filled with ghosts, Viking diet, land reclamation and old pirate bands, all without the slow start many otherwise brilliant works suffer from.
Eaton also lures us in with etymology of place names and keeps us moving with the tide—frantically turning the pages—as Hazel herself tries to figure out exactly what is going on. Like the Shakespearean “tide on the affairs of men” quoted in the epigraph, “On such a full sea are we now afloat,” there is a distinct urgency on part of reader as well as protagonist, to avoid loss of venture.
One morning, in preparation for a visit from Mr. Harris, who had insisted he see Hazel at that time, she visits the strongroom in order to find previous documents and their file, only to be locked in after a good shove has sent her reeling farther in the enclosed space. As she gets her bearings on the situation she now finds herself in, she assesses her prison:
Sudden panic threatened to overwhelm me. The strongroom had been built to protect the deeds against fire as well as theft. How much air was there in this vault? How long could I survive in here? Worse, how long could Jessica survive? Although the day outside was warm and sunny, here in the vault it was dank and cold. I was already beginning to shiver.
Eaton’s storytelling via Hazel is so gripping that readers will remember how the author sets up this scenario with a description of exactly how enclosed Hazel would be.
The strongroom was situated at the other end of the building. It had originally been a store burrowed into the side of the hill on which the building stood, a little way down from the summit. At some stage it had been transformed into a strongroom, lined with steel and sealed by a heavy steel door that boasted a huge iron lock.
When we first read it at the start of this scene, it is a mere description; now it has transformed into a dark cloud no one knows about. This frightening event is not too far into the story, and its result is a sort of reader skittishness: I personally didn’t want any part of this vault. Each time it subsequently comes up as a real destination or even hint I found myself becoming nervous, not wanting Hazel to go near it, until I finally realized, That is so previous chapter! Indeed, Eaton doesn’t need to rely on repetitious maneuvers to thrill, for she has plenty of intrigue up her sleeve, rendering readers only too happy to let their dinner burn.
Certainly we could easily forget the rest of the world as we follow Hazel through with her investigations into the odd behavior of her client, connections between painting and her visions, dark secrets linking past and present, where it all takes her and every facet of her life affected, including those who've intruded in upon it and will go to great lengths to stop her learning the truth. As she makes her way to startling discoveries, old and new, Eaton takes us through action and intrigue that rise like the tide of the title and epigraph, as we follow breathlessly behind, when there is so much at stake.
Quite simply this is an addicting read one will be unsurprised to learn is a B.R.A.G. Medallion honoree. Moreover, it being the second in the Mysterious Marsh series, it goes without saying I shall be looking toward the opening novel without hesitation. I highly recommend readers do the same.
Set mostly in 1970s Rye, an historic area known as part of the ancient Cinque Ports, at a time when women lawyers were still a bit of a curiosity, When the Tide Turned is liberally sprinkled with what I now, having read this author before, would call Eaton’s trademark imagery, beautifully brimming with words that make you want to read them again, envisioning, breathing in, surrounded by the scenes she describes.
Romney Marsh: a wondrous place where sky, land and sea met in a glorious pageantry of colour. Above the flat land, uncluttered with buildings and trees, the swirl of wind current painted ever-changing cloudscapes in the sky; sun and shadows reflected across meadows of green divided by still, dark dykes edged with rushes and the lace of meadowsweet.
So reads one passage from the novel, a mystery involving events and dark forces spanning two centuries and a painting related to Napoleon’s planned invasion of England. The author also occasionally adds in physical and historical descriptions of the area in which Dawkins lives, sometimes via her reminiscing. In this manner we learn background information and how characters come to be where they now are. Hazel is also subject to strange visions in which she sees people and places, unexplainable events that occur, which begin to bear remarkable—and eerie—similarities to actual events unfolding in her daily life. We see rather quickly, too, a dark force beginning to overshadow her family’s lives, even replacing the benign presence she had become aware of when they’d first moved in to their cottage home.
The mystery initially begins to reveal its nature when a client, Mr. Harris, demands documentation to secure the provenance of a painting. His erratic behavior attracts Hazel’s suspicions and events around the office—too bizarre to ignore—link to the dreams and visions she soon begins to piece together.
Eaton very early on had my full attention, partly because I sought out the afore-mentioned imagery I knew she would likely write into the story, and here she does not disappoint.
[Rype] had escaped the modernisation that had blighted similar town in the nineteen sixties and early seventies, clinging to its Englishness in the same way that honeysuckle and climbing roses embraced the half-timbered buildings along its High Street.
Additionally, Hazel Dawkins is easy to like, and her preparation for the temporary assignment begins very soon after the start of her tale, holding both the magnificent ordinary—her journey into marriage and motherhood—as well as brilliant narrative and conversation on the surroundings and its history filled with ghosts, Viking diet, land reclamation and old pirate bands, all without the slow start many otherwise brilliant works suffer from.
Eaton also lures us in with etymology of place names and keeps us moving with the tide—frantically turning the pages—as Hazel herself tries to figure out exactly what is going on. Like the Shakespearean “tide on the affairs of men” quoted in the epigraph, “On such a full sea are we now afloat,” there is a distinct urgency on part of reader as well as protagonist, to avoid loss of venture.
One morning, in preparation for a visit from Mr. Harris, who had insisted he see Hazel at that time, she visits the strongroom in order to find previous documents and their file, only to be locked in after a good shove has sent her reeling farther in the enclosed space. As she gets her bearings on the situation she now finds herself in, she assesses her prison:
Sudden panic threatened to overwhelm me. The strongroom had been built to protect the deeds against fire as well as theft. How much air was there in this vault? How long could I survive in here? Worse, how long could Jessica survive? Although the day outside was warm and sunny, here in the vault it was dank and cold. I was already beginning to shiver.
Eaton’s storytelling via Hazel is so gripping that readers will remember how the author sets up this scenario with a description of exactly how enclosed Hazel would be.
The strongroom was situated at the other end of the building. It had originally been a store burrowed into the side of the hill on which the building stood, a little way down from the summit. At some stage it had been transformed into a strongroom, lined with steel and sealed by a heavy steel door that boasted a huge iron lock.
When we first read it at the start of this scene, it is a mere description; now it has transformed into a dark cloud no one knows about. This frightening event is not too far into the story, and its result is a sort of reader skittishness: I personally didn’t want any part of this vault. Each time it subsequently comes up as a real destination or even hint I found myself becoming nervous, not wanting Hazel to go near it, until I finally realized, That is so previous chapter! Indeed, Eaton doesn’t need to rely on repetitious maneuvers to thrill, for she has plenty of intrigue up her sleeve, rendering readers only too happy to let their dinner burn.
Certainly we could easily forget the rest of the world as we follow Hazel through with her investigations into the odd behavior of her client, connections between painting and her visions, dark secrets linking past and present, where it all takes her and every facet of her life affected, including those who've intruded in upon it and will go to great lengths to stop her learning the truth. As she makes her way to startling discoveries, old and new, Eaton takes us through action and intrigue that rise like the tide of the title and epigraph, as we follow breathlessly behind, when there is so much at stake.
Quite simply this is an addicting read one will be unsurprised to learn is a B.R.A.G. Medallion honoree. Moreover, it being the second in the Mysterious Marsh series, it goes without saying I shall be looking toward the opening novel without hesitation. I highly recommend readers do the same.
February 17, 2016
WordsAPlenty received a free copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.
When The Tide Turned written by M. L. Eaton is a page turning thriller that hooks it’s audience with historical accuracy while adding in a touch of the supernatural, cloak and dagger mystery bringing them all together in a riveting thriller.
Hazel Dawkins, new mother and wife as well as a solicitor is asked to fill in for a colleague of hers at the firm prompting her to return from maternity leave earlier than planned. Hazel gladly accepts since she is able to bring her child to work with her. And thus begins Hazel’s journey into the supernatural and facing deadly threats to her and her daughter. The moment she agrees to return to work, a dark evilness invades her home, her husband and others. She begins to dream of a man tied, lying-face down in a cove waiting for the tide to turn and torture him with a slow painful death of drowning. He is a man of the past but whose past she is not sure.
The colleague hands over a very complex and barely legal case surrounding a painting of a storm at sea of the night Napoleon prepares to invade England. The mystery surrounding the painting, the pegged man on the cove, and weird experiences Hazel faces daily has her fearful but determined to solve the ever growing mystery.
Eaton provides detailed historical information woven skillfully around the mystery and supernatural thus providing one with a nail biting read. Hazel’s character demonstrates how strong a woman can be and how she handles the stereotype of women being perceived as weak to her advantage.
Combining the three genres into one was interesting and entertaining. Eaton provides a well-executed plot written clearly and methodically. The character development was well done although in an almost teasing fashion – once you decided you didn’t like a character, Eaton would confound you with adding a twist making you like them.
This was a good solid book, one I would highly recommend especially if you enjoy historical mysteries and the supernatural. Read her other books, you will equally enjoy them as well!
A five star rating!
When The Tide Turned written by M. L. Eaton is a page turning thriller that hooks it’s audience with historical accuracy while adding in a touch of the supernatural, cloak and dagger mystery bringing them all together in a riveting thriller.
Hazel Dawkins, new mother and wife as well as a solicitor is asked to fill in for a colleague of hers at the firm prompting her to return from maternity leave earlier than planned. Hazel gladly accepts since she is able to bring her child to work with her. And thus begins Hazel’s journey into the supernatural and facing deadly threats to her and her daughter. The moment she agrees to return to work, a dark evilness invades her home, her husband and others. She begins to dream of a man tied, lying-face down in a cove waiting for the tide to turn and torture him with a slow painful death of drowning. He is a man of the past but whose past she is not sure.
The colleague hands over a very complex and barely legal case surrounding a painting of a storm at sea of the night Napoleon prepares to invade England. The mystery surrounding the painting, the pegged man on the cove, and weird experiences Hazel faces daily has her fearful but determined to solve the ever growing mystery.
Eaton provides detailed historical information woven skillfully around the mystery and supernatural thus providing one with a nail biting read. Hazel’s character demonstrates how strong a woman can be and how she handles the stereotype of women being perceived as weak to her advantage.
Combining the three genres into one was interesting and entertaining. Eaton provides a well-executed plot written clearly and methodically. The character development was well done although in an almost teasing fashion – once you decided you didn’t like a character, Eaton would confound you with adding a twist making you like them.
This was a good solid book, one I would highly recommend especially if you enjoy historical mysteries and the supernatural. Read her other books, you will equally enjoy them as well!
A five star rating!
July 6, 2017
An enjoyable read---mysterious and intriguing! Great for a rainy day with a large mug of coffee! 🙂
April 16, 2018
So Much History!
I just love all the history and local legend woven into the story. So engrossing! Never a dull moment!! Excellent!!
I just love all the history and local legend woven into the story. So engrossing! Never a dull moment!! Excellent!!
June 29, 2014
Note : This review was originally posted @ Readers' Muse
The book opens with a quote from Julius Ceaser on Tides & affair of men. That combined with the summary and the picture in page 2 gave me an idea what to expect in the second edition of Mysterious Marsh series. Our protagonist, Hazel Dawkins is back again, this time with her newborn baby Jessica to solve yet another “Legal Mystery”. This time it only got better than the previous book.
So what did I expect? I expected beautiful writing, logical story and some beautiful history for I knew what to expect after reading the first book in the series. To state that the book lived up to my expectations would be an understatement. The book truly delivered more than what I expected. The story line was logical, well woven and had quite a number of surprising twists. In fact towards the climax the story line turned so racy that I ignored the growling of my tummy for it was lunch time.
Initially the history of the painting and Hazel’s dreams (or premonitions?!) seemed vague but as the story line progressed all that history about Rye & the painting made a lot of sense.
Two things that I truly loved about the book were – The writing style & the characterisation. The writer has this beautiful typical British style of describing things (Duh me! She is a Brit after all!). I fear not many people will appreciate this style of writing for people these days appreciate the “Instant” kind of writing sans the description about even the smallest detail. The writer has a great sense of describing things. Her experience in legal practice is much evident in her writing.
The characterisation deserves a special mention. The protagonist, Hazel is portrayed with such a depth that she inspires me to be a strong person. At times writers tend to get carried away so much so that the characterisation is so unrealistically ideal. Thankfully the characters in this book were nowhere near that state.
My only weeny tiny bit of complaint would be the story line of Mark in the beginning which I felt was a bit out of league.
To sum it up, “When the tide turned” is beautifully written compulsive read which got me all hooked!
VERDICT: Must read! It’s “THE PERFECT” mystery!
RATING: 4 on 5
The book opens with a quote from Julius Ceaser on Tides & affair of men. That combined with the summary and the picture in page 2 gave me an idea what to expect in the second edition of Mysterious Marsh series. Our protagonist, Hazel Dawkins is back again, this time with her newborn baby Jessica to solve yet another “Legal Mystery”. This time it only got better than the previous book.
So what did I expect? I expected beautiful writing, logical story and some beautiful history for I knew what to expect after reading the first book in the series. To state that the book lived up to my expectations would be an understatement. The book truly delivered more than what I expected. The story line was logical, well woven and had quite a number of surprising twists. In fact towards the climax the story line turned so racy that I ignored the growling of my tummy for it was lunch time.
Initially the history of the painting and Hazel’s dreams (or premonitions?!) seemed vague but as the story line progressed all that history about Rye & the painting made a lot of sense.
Two things that I truly loved about the book were – The writing style & the characterisation. The writer has this beautiful typical British style of describing things (Duh me! She is a Brit after all!). I fear not many people will appreciate this style of writing for people these days appreciate the “Instant” kind of writing sans the description about even the smallest detail. The writer has a great sense of describing things. Her experience in legal practice is much evident in her writing.
The characterisation deserves a special mention. The protagonist, Hazel is portrayed with such a depth that she inspires me to be a strong person. At times writers tend to get carried away so much so that the characterisation is so unrealistically ideal. Thankfully the characters in this book were nowhere near that state.
My only weeny tiny bit of complaint would be the story line of Mark in the beginning which I felt was a bit out of league.
To sum it up, “When the tide turned” is beautifully written compulsive read which got me all hooked!
VERDICT: Must read! It’s “THE PERFECT” mystery!
RATING: 4 on 5
February 17, 2015
We are proud to announce that WHEN THE TIDE TURNED by ML Eaton is a B.R.A.G. Medallion Honoree. This tells a reader that this book is well worth their time and money!
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