Rebecca L MarshCritiques

“Where hope is found” is an intense emotionally-driven story about a young woman, Marissa, dealing with horrendous loss and desperately trying to make it through to the other side of her overwhelming grief.

With the help of her family, including her brother Owen and their children, Marissa relocates to a nearby residential island where she struggles to find a footing that will allow her to heal.

In the grips of the terrible irony of grief and healing, Marissa cannot recover until she allows herself to experience the full extent of her emotions (all of them), which won’t happen until her own subconscious mind believes that she is truly ready to bear them. For the reader, on the outside, looking in, this grief-to-healing journey feels authentic, uncertain and frightening - it is all too possible that Marissa will lose everything she has left to live for, including herself.

It’s hard not to be touched by the subject matter, and although this story may be intense and difficult to read in some places, we feel a raw connection with these characters- Marissa, Owen, and the children - and can’t help but feel, as we witness their struggles and share in their pain, that hope and healing for them all is both possible and within reach.

I won’t tell you how it ends (no spoilers here) but this is a lovely story, sad in many parts and sweet in many others, and the author is very skillful in telling it.

A big thank you to the author, Rebecca L Marsh, for a review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts presented are my own.

When The Storm Ends by Rebecca Marsh is a framework story that captivated me from the beginning. Marsh does a great job at foreshadowing and diverting your attention away from events that aren't important at the time. Or so it seems. She times the information and events well as they unfold and bringing details back to remembrance several chapters later. The answers to the story narrative questions are realistic and unexpected.
As the story of the past catches up to the present day the two stories merge together to give us answers for both the main character and the protagonist. The present setting reaches into the past to get answers for Beth as she gets answers for her client. It was a great way to connect the two pieces.
I gave When The Storm Ends 5/5 because there are two complete stories here without too much information. Despite the setting being a high priority crime case and a conversation between a doctor, a lawyer, and a patient, the text does not use jargon that is hard to understand.

I highly recommend this story.