Storms have always given me mixed emotions- a scared anticipation and an excited thrill. Reading this book was just like sitting through a storm, there were highs and lows, thrills and scary bits. It was a totally enthralling read. Really enjoyed it and would totally recommend it.

This story of a traumatised GP who is caught up in an accident in bad weather was okay but did not engage me as much as other novels by this author. The mystery behind the trauma was not that surprising and I zoned out in parts.

Thanks for the opportunity to read and review an advance copy of this novel.

Ahern's In a Thousand Different Ways was the first book I read by her, and I enjoyed it enough to want to read another of her books.

Despite the unpopular present-tense narrative, along with slapdash editing, this had me hooked to the end. Ahern managed to toss my smugness all over the place. Within only a few pages, I thought, oh, it's obvious, I know how this is going to pan out, but then Ahern throws you curveballs and twists and turns, and your powers of detection are all over the shop. Now that's clever.

The story is tightly and intensely coiled with emotion as GP Enya Pickering worries about her upcoming birthday—the age at which her mother tragically and suddenly died—and then has to deal with lasting trauma of tending to a road-traffic victim on a cold and stormy night. The storm isn't just literal, it's metaphoric as well.

Well-written and very compelling, I was glad I read another book by this author, as it tipped her into my 'definitely read more of' list. It's a shame she didn't acknowledge her readers at the end, it's always a nice touch.

Dr Enya is driving home when she stops to resuscitate a boy the same age as her own. This sends her into a spiral of emotions and she makes some big changes to her life to avoid confronting what really happened that night. Bring in the rag tree which she hates along with her new community job. The problem I had with this book is I just failed to connect with Dr Enya and her reasons for walking away. Her mom had died whilst swimming in the sea. I did however adore Margaret the property manager for her new home. The story was addictive and easy to read but my lack is compassion for Dr Enya did spoil it somewhat.

After previously reading other books by Cecelia Ahern and enjoying them I thought I would love this one but u fortunately I didn’t. It just wasn’t for me, I will definitely still read her other books as this is the only one I haven’t enjoyed.

Cecilia Ahern is one of THE go-to authors for me. But this one was a little disappointing and I gave it 3 stars.

The main character (Enya) is a GP who drives back to her family during a storm, but she is stopped in the middle of the road by the body of a teenage boy. Enya is traumatised by this experience (not helped by her twat of a husband and detached son), so she’s given the opportunity to run away to rural Ireland where she hopes to start a new life. But obviously it’s not clear cut as her problems don’t disappear.

I was slightly disappointed by the plot and expected more, given my experience of this author’s writing. But this doesn’t remove her from my favourites!

I would say that this is the best Cecelia Ahern book since Ps I Love You. I absolutely adored it and kept me guessing right until the end. I look forward to reading more of her. back catalogue that I managed to miss over the years.

I have read almost all of Cecelia Ahern’s book, so I was keen to get into this one. The story was quite slow in pacing, but it suited the story well and I found myself flying through it. I really liked the main character and also Margaret, who added some humour to the story. Lots of interesting facts were cleverly woven through this. I felt I learned a lot about Ireland and about rag trees without feeling like I was being told about it. I definitely recommend and would love another book featuring these characters. Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers.

I’ve been a fan of Cecelia Ahern since P.S I love you and have read everything she’s ever written.
Into The Storm is completely different to any of her other books and it pleasantly surprised me.
I loved the suspense and mystery but I also loved the Irish mythology and family dramas.
All together very different but an enjoyable read by one of my favourite Irish authors

A wonderful novel that kept me hooked until the very last page. The writing was beautiful, and the plot was both thought-provoking and uplifting. Highly recommended.

If you like Cecilia Ahern you'll enjoy this one. Thought provoking, serious yet light, dark in places but with hope in its heart and with an unseen twist, this will keep fans happy and newcomers will look for her back catalogue.

Unfortunately i was not able to open my edition of this book so therefore cannot review. Apologies but it did not appear in the NetGalley app ands wouldn’t send to my kindle app either

A well-crafted story with plenty to appreciate. The pacing, characters, and plot twists kept me interested throughout. I'm looking forward to seeing how readers respond once it's released!

Cecilia Ahem has long been a favourite author of mine. It took me a couple of goes to get into this book as on first read, it seemed really different from her usual offering. However, once I set aside some time to persevere, I got the hang of the story and was hooked. I have to say that I changed my mind as to who I should believe a number of times. It took some following as there were so many lies and mistruths told by all the characters. An unusual premise for a book but stick with it and you will not be disappointed.

One wild night in the middle of December, local GP Enya is driving home from a house call when she comes across a taxi parked in the middle of the road and a boy lying motionless on the wet ground. Oscar, the taxi driver, tells her he has just found the boy like this and he doesn’t know if he’s breathing. As the rain pours down Enya kneels in the road and performs CPR, desperately hoping she can save his life. After she’s questioned by the police and returns home she sits in the car for moment, soaked to the skin and thinks about her mother. Brigid, a rather eccentric and free-spirited woman, died at the age of 47 while swimming in the sea. For a while, as Enya battles to save the teenage boy’s life she feels the water on her face and wonders if this was how her mother felt? Enya struggles in the aftermath of the incident and can’t seem to put it out of her mind. Is it because the boy was so like her son, of a similar age and wearing the same clothes? The storm propels her into huge life changes as she walks away from her loveless marriage and takes a job in the small town of Abbeydooley. There she lives in a remote spot, but with a rag tree in the garden that brings people from far and wide to tie their ribbons and fabric to it’s branches. Even though her days are filled with patients and she starts to make friends, that night in the rain just won’t leave her. As she looks out of the window at the sacred tree she is faced with the stories of all the people who’ve tied a memento there. Could it be time to face the truth of her own story as well as the memory of her mother?

We meet Enya in the middle of a crisis and the night of the storm is really the breaking point of that crisis. Enya is 46 and the day after her 47th birthday she will be older than her mother ever was. She has always had the sense that her mother was still going before her but from that day it’s only her. Alone. The grief hits her like a tsunami wave. There’s also the matter of her marriage and living situation. Xander made me feel cold. He comes across as clinical and controlling. The house they live in doesn’t feel like a home to Enya. Their home was the new build that she poured all her effort into, it’s where she had Ross and where she learned him to ride a bike in the garden. Now it’s their GP surgery and they live in Xander’s family home that he inherited after his parent’s death. There is nothing of Enya in the house and everything inside is exactly where it was when Xander was a boy. If she moves the coat rack slightly or repositions an ornament it is soon quietly placed back where it should be. He even controls her relationship with Ross, having chosen his boarding school and at home telling her not to disturb him when all she wants is to spend time with her son. There’s an invisible barrier there and I could feel her sense powerlessness. Enya has been struggling for some time: feeling overwhelmed at work; making small mistakes with forms and requests; desperately trying to find an escape, somewhere she can breathe. She has also struggled to let the injured boy go and has visited the hospital and made contact with the boy’s mum. When the offer comes to relocate to Abbeydooley she jumps at the chance.

Her introduction to Abbeydooley life isn’t a smooth one. The tree is baffling to her. It has filthy and torn rags all over it and completely obstructs her view from the window, taking all her light. She sees it as an eyesore and asks the maintenance person to come out and remove it. Margaret is a brilliant character and the women don’t get off to the best start. Margaret has assumed the tree is damaged and turns up the next morning with a chainsaw, but when she sees the tree is intact she refuses to touch it. Doesn’t Enya realise this is a rag tree, a sacred tree that’s watered by a spring from the site of the original abbey. People believe it’s a sacred site, that their prayers will be answered if they leave something to represent the person or problem they’re facing. It seems ridiculous to Enya, especially when a tour mini-bus arrives with a group of pensioners excited to see this symbol of pagan traditions. Alongside this observance of pagan religion, Enya also has to contend with the church. A visit from the parish priest makes her realise that traditionally the GP and priest have worked quite closely together, sharing information and forming a team to help parishioners and patients. Enya is reluctant, but is starting to learn that in these remote rural areas, being a GP is a very different thing to the app led and computerised system she and Xander used. Maybe she will have to adapt to a new way of working and living.

The whole book is a combination of a woman trying to find her way in the world and navigate emotional challenges, with a darker mystery woven in. The backdrop of Abbeydooley is almost like the light relief in the story, with it’s old-fashioned ways and humorous characters like Handyman Willy. I wondered whether it would be a redemption arc, where the town’s quirky ways would win Enya over and change her life. It’s a space for Enya to breathe and think, but her demons have definitely followed her. We’re not sure whether she’s a narrator we can rely on. It’s not Xander’s opinion or the little slips at work that concerned me, it’s more about her rising paranoia and the reveals that prove she isn’t telling us everything. When an agitated man turns up at the surgery to confront Enya we have no idea who he is or what bearing he might have the story. She sees another man through her window late at night, are they the same man or is someone making a late night visit to the tree? All this time Xander keeps her what from her son so she’s reduced to leaving voice notes for him in the hope he’ll listen to them alone. Xander claims he’s protecting their son, but from what? I really enjoyed Margaret because she sees Enya at her worst and remains her friend. Margaret knows what it’s like to make a mistake and blow your own life apart. So she’s the best person for Enya to spend time with. What I found sad is that Enya has had support there all along. Although Xander has controlled her, she has allowed her life to slowly constrict her to the point where she felt her only choice was total escape. Yet she has her sister and brother-in-law who are warm and welcomed her into their home when she first leaves. She could have made changes, been closer to her son and faced up to everything. Enya seems like a person who runs away: from grief, from her marriage, from the truth. I didn’t warm to her as a character, but her journey was fascinating and I did want her to break free from all the restrictions she placed on herself. She would certainly make a fascinating client.

As Dr Enya Pickering negotiates the twists and turns of a mountain pass driving home in a violent storm, she’s flagged down by a man who’s found an injured boy in the road, a victim of a hit-and-run. For a scary moment Enya thinks the boy is her teenage son, Finn. It’s not, but the incident sends her spiralling.
Cecelia Ahern’s 20th novel deals with loss, trauma and grief, and the messiness of dysfunctional families. Enya shares a successful medical practice with her doctor husband, Xander, but their relationship is fraught, she and Finn are growing increasingly distant and Enya feels lost. She decides to leave her Dublin home when she hears about a post for a doctor in rural Ireland.
Earlier this year when interviewing the author, she spoke about seeing a rag tree in a botanical garden and how it inspired this novel. A rag tree is an old Irish tradition of taking a piece of cloth from a sick person and tying it to a specific type of tree near water. The belief is as the rag disintegrates the person will heal.
The house Enya rents has a huge, ugly rag tree blocking her view and its branches tap on the window at night, but her attempts to have it cut down she angers the locals.
The tree plays a central role in the story as she realises her feeling of being adrift began when she turned 46, the age her mom was when she died when Enya was 12. She knows it’s irrational, but she can’t imagine being older than her mom and it causes her to relive the anguish of her loss all over again.
It’s a moving story which will have you thinking about ageing and the choices we all make.
Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC.

Cecelia Ahern is an auto buy author for me after falling in love with so many of her stories, and in Into the Storm, she has done it again! Sublime!

When one of my all time favourite authors releases a new book I get super excited so to get a netgalley arc was amazing - thank you!
Like with all of her books, the writing was rich and characters well described with Margaret being my favourite! The plot was interesting although I did find it to be a bit of a slow pace & I must admit this wouldn’t be my favourite book of Cecilia’s however I will 100% read whatever she writes because on the whole her books are fantastic!
3.5 stars from me.

I thought this was a different read from Cecelia as it has a mystery at its core - how did a teenage boy come to be on the road seriously injured on a stormy night? How did he get there? Who hit him? This adds suspense and tension to the story as Enya worries about the boy's progress. Enya is not telling the truth about what she was doing in the evening before helping the boy and she's trying to keep these secrets hidden. Marriage breakdown, life's unraveling, and secrets are all threads woven through the story. I'm a fan of Cecelia's storytelling, and this book didn't disappoint

Into the Storm by Cecilia Ahern

I have enjoyed several Cecilia Ahern books previously and I was intrigued at the premise of this book.

Dr Enya Pickering is driving home in the pouring rain when she is flagged down by a taxi driver. On the floor she sees a boy, who looked uncannily like her son, who had been knocked over. She performs CPR on the boy until the ambulance arrives and so saves his life. Her life then falls to pieces – her husband, also a GP in the same practice wants her gone, and her beloved son won’t speak to her. When her father tells her about an opening for a GP in a remote village in Ireland, she decides that it’s fate and takes the job. However, is everything as it seems and will the past catch up with her?

I really enjoyed this story. It’s somewhat of a ‘whodunnit’. It has great characterisation and shows how people are not always inherently good or inherently bad, but more all a bit of a mixture. A great, well written story.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7002527488
https://maddybooksblog.blogspot.com/2024/11/into-storm-by-cecilia-ahern-i-have.html