Ebook Water Bound A Sea Haven Novel Christine Feehan 9780515148244 Books

Product details Series A Sea Haven Novel (Book 1) Mass Market Paperback 480 pages Publisher Berkley; First Edition edition (July 27, 2010) Language English ISBN-10 9780515148244 ISBN-13 978-0515148244 ASIN 0515148245

Water Bound A Sea Haven Novel Christine Feehan 9780515148244 Books Reviews

• Rikki Sitmore is an autistic sea-urchin diver who lives on a farm in Sea Haven with her surrogate sisters who saved her from herself years ago. One day whilst she's harvesting the spiny creatures off of a shelf along the San Andreas Fault, a massive wave comes out nowhere and throws Rikki off of her boat. Midway through her battle back to the surface, she encounters a man being battered against the underwater rocks along the shelf wall. In a split-second decision, Rikki saves the man from falling further into the fault line, risking her own life in the process. Rikki is a believer in the old laws, especially that of the sea. If you take it from the sea, it's yours. and Lev Parenskii is hers, come hell, fire, or damnation.
  
  Lev is a foreign secret agent, taken from his family as a child and trained to be the dark hand of his government. While on assignment, Lev ends up underwater in the Pacific Ocean with no rescue in sight. Just as he resigns himself to a watery death, he's rescued by a woman who takes him home to recuperate. He quickly falls in love with this autistic woman with an affinity for water, but he knows that finding their Happily Ever After is going to be a bit harder than a dime-store romance novel.
  
  Rikki has a rash of fire and death in her past and things have to work for her or she shuts down and Lev has his entire existence in the way, having to remember who he is and then making sure he remains dead to his country. Separate, the two have special abilities, and together, the pair can work wonders but are their unique gifts enough to survive everything the fates have thrown at them?
  
  I have started and restarted writing this review dozens of time in its lifetime. I want to gush and be emotional. And I want to be distanced from it all, all professional-like. I've struggled to find a happy medium to do this review because I want y'all to see how amazing this book is. And I can't. I am emotionally vested in this book and I am definitely not a literary professional as of yet. So here it is.
  
  Water Bound hit the quadfecta for me. I found the book because it was written by Christine Feehan, a favourite author. I took it off the shelf for the title. I fell in love with the cover and the synopsis teased me. Author, Title, Cover, Synopsis. I immediately bought the book and I began reading it as soon as I got home and safely ensconced myself in my closet (I like reading in closets). And then, dearest readers, I read the book.
  
  Water Bound shoved its way to the tippy top of my favourite books list with the first chapter. Why? Because for the first time ever, I had a book whose heroine I could relate to. An autistic woman with tragedy in her past that thought herself a monstrous freak. I cried reading Water Bound that night and I'm not a crying person. Not only was Rikki an autistic woman, but she was intelligent, not centring herself around math and science (which I strongly avoid), and she was mistreated by 'the system' for being different. Because Christine Feehan normalised autism by having an autistic heroine, I stopped hating being different and began to love myself, autism and all. I even started dating, which I’d sworn never to do because, ew, commitment and close personal contact with a person bother me.
  
  Christine Feehan’s descriptions were exceptional, as always. I was enchanted with the vivid description of the underwater seascape that Rikki was so in love with. I was repeatedly reminded of the times when I was younger that I would climb out of my bedroom window at night to sit on the roof and just enjoy every raindrop that fell on my skin, something I haven’t done in over a decade.
  
  I know this isn’t a new(ish) book or a yet-to-be-released book, but I’ve seen some disparaging reviews on onilne that griped about Christine focusing on Rikki’s autistic qualities and her fascination with water and I felt the need to switch my review schedule about so that I could dedicate today’s review to this book that me feel a little bit more normal than I usually do. Writing from a point of view that isn’t neurotypical is hard – even for someone who is neurodiverse, trust me, I’ve tried. And the fact that Christine not only attempted to write from Rikki’s POV and give her a HEA, but succeeded in describing that special place we all disappear to during our ‘moments out of time’ and the frustrations of not being able to do ‘normal’ things like grocery shopping or hugging your family, it matters to me and any other reader on the spectrum. She constantly brings up Rikki’s ‘weird traits and obsessions’ because that’s a thing with us. We obsess and ‘space out’ and we stim and fidget. Many of us don’t do actual eye contact and some of us develop fake-out methods such as sunglasses or staring at a person’s nose. We have sensory issues and we have to have things just so or our entire worlds go off kilter. For someone who isn’t an Own Voices writer (that I know of), she manages far better than certain popular TV shows to showcase autistic characters with a realness few authors achieve when writing characters with disabilities.
  
  I give Water Bound a whole 5 stars because it is well-written and the research she put into the storyline shows from the succulent plants outside of Rikki’s home to her accurate portrayal of an autistic woman to the diving scenes that are fully developed without glossing over the 'technical' side of diving.
  
  Oh, and I actually own three copies of this book. One is so tattered that its cover is duck taped to the binding which is also duck taped, I bought that one fresh off the shelf the first month it was available in my go-to chain bookstore in Georgia. Then I finally had the money last month to buy a replacement copy as a Christmas gift to myself and I bought the kindle edition this month, so that I can read that instead of accidentally damaging my brand-new copy that I cuddle with when I'm having an 'autistic moment'. It's calming and that's all that matters. Buy a copy, rent a copy, audio, print or eformat. Whichever. Just read this book.
• I haven’t read Fire Bound yet and I don’t know when Bound Together is supposed to come out but so far, this is my favorite Sisters of the Heart book. I love that this book starts pretty much where Hidden Currents left off, making it impossible to really get this book without reading the Drake Sisters.
  
  I also really love the fact that the author keeps Jonas involved.
  
  The fact that Rikki was different and still made a life for herself just makes this book different from her others and I love the way this book came out. Even in her Dark books with one woman blind and the other mute, they weren’t born like that. This is just a special book for me.
  
  The writing is just amazing for this story, the cover and the picture on the inside are both beautiful and does not disappoint, it looks like a great story and that’s exactly what it is. The pace is perfect, a little bit of slow healing, character building and just the right amount of action.
  
  I can’t wait until Bound Together comes out, I really hope it doesn’t fall short when everyone meets up.
  
  Everything just flowed and fit like a good movie or show. Would very much recommend this series to any romance lovers.
• I will preface this by saying I have never read this author's work before, so although I know this is the first in a spin-off of her Drake Sisters series, I was not familiar with Sea Haven or any of those characters.
  
  I thoroughly enjoyed this book primarily because of the main female character. Rikki Sitmore is an autistic woman, living on a large farm with her four adopted "sisters" - all of whom have some kind of tragedy or difficulty in their past. Rikki's is that there have been several fires in her life that have killed people close to her. She's worried that perhaps she's subconsciously starting those fires. At the beginning of the book, she's busy living her life the best way she knows how, as a sea urchin diver obsessed with forming every inch of her existence around preventing fire near her or her loved ones.
  
  Lev Prakenskii, the male main character, is a Russian operative (assassin mostly) who ends up in the ocean during a rouge wave. Rikki saves his life. They form a strong bond almost immediately, although I was pleased to see that it came mostly from him first. He clings to Rikki as the first person in his life to really see him, not just see his usefulness. To be clear, I enjoyed this because most romance novels I've read have that happening in conjuction with the woman swooning and falling all over him, being sweet and understanding at every turn.
  
  Rikki isn't the typical romance heroine. She does take care of Lev and she does provide understanding without judgement, but she does it in a far more realistic way. She tells him she'll kick him out if he's violent toward her or her family. She never wavers from being the boss of her boat, her house, or her existence. Even when Lev begins to push her outside of her comfort zone, he asks first and defers to her judgement. My favorite scene in the entire book is when Rikki goes to the local grocery store to buy food for Lev, and nearly has a breakdown. Her autism means that she find bright lights, noises, and people uncomfortable to the point of pain. I appreciated that the author did not shy away from portraying how debilitating autism can be - but also how people on the spectrum can adapt to a society not built for them, living their best lives without fear or hesitation.
  
  (I am going to temper that last paragraph a bit by saying I'm not sure how convinced I am that anyone like Rikki - who abhorrs touch and change and new things - would immediately fall into Lev's arms and allow him such physical access to her at all times. But, hey. They have some kind of crazy soul connection, right? I guess it's okay.)
  
  The sex scenes were detailed and hot. The minor characters were of passing interest. I thought the plot was thin and wrapped up entirely too quickly, although I did enjoy that Rikki manages to use one of her "freak outs" as a plot device.
  
  All in all, a solid read. I think I'll pick up the rest of the series as I'm curious what Rikki's "sisters" manage to get up to with Lev's brothers.