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Water Memory by Daniel Pyne is a thriller following Aubrey Sentro, a black ops specialist, with brain damage, trying to survive a pirate attack on a ship, while contemplating her life, motherhood, and career. Mr. Pyne is an author, educator and screenwriter who currently lives in Los Angeles.

Aubrey Sentro knows something is wrong. Her brain is not working right, she keeps forgetting names of people she works with, events and appointments. A lifetime risking her life as a spy is taking its toll.

Aubrey’s husband is dead, and her kids see her as a bad mom, which she was, but don’t know the reasons. She decides to take a vacation and ends up on a freight ship which gets hijacked by pirates.

I’m a sucker for espionage books, as a bonus my wife wanted to read this book as well. Water Memory by Daniel Pyne, however, is more of a black-ops story for the middle-age folks who can relate to the struggles of Aubrey Sentro, while piling on top outrageous events with twists around every corner.

The protagonist of the book is a widow, mother, as well as a combat veteran (did they have women in combat 30 years ago?). She is now working for a company specializing in ransom/rescue efforts. Aubrey’s memory is damaged from a lifetime of physical abuse because of her work. Subsequently she hides that from her co-workers and family, a family, by the way, who doesn’t know what she’s been doing for a living the past few decades.

Aside from these very unlikely scenarios, Water Memory by Daniel Pyne works very well. The confusion and frustration Ms. Sentro feels when her brain fails her is, sadly, starting to be familiar. The actions sequences are very well written, suspenseful, and as I mentioned, twists and turns galore. The narrative is not fast paced, however there is a lot of inner monologue, very descriptive language, and flashbacks which certainly flesh out the story, which I found sometimes helpful, sometimes distracting. I don’t think the marketing for this book did it justice by promising a fast-paced story.

The book is marketed as first of a series (Aubrey Sentro #1), so I wonder where the author will go from here since Ms. Sentro’s secrets are now out in the open. ( )

Could not finish. Not a fan of the writing. Not captured by the story. ( )

Water Memory is just the sort of book to turn any reader off freighter cruises. True, they do supply the leisurely cruise without the bling and crowds of the behemoth cruise ships of companies like Carnival or Princess or Royal Caribbean, but freighters are more likely to be boarded by pirates. In fact, one of the things I found interesting in Daniel Pyne's thriller is that there seems to be an entire thriving business around hijacked cargo ships.

The first third of Water Memory is a bit clunky as the author explores Aubrey Sentro's relationship with her children as well as the workings of Aubrey's mind. Persistent post-concussion syndrome means headaches, aural distortions, mood swings, and memory problems among other things, and watching Aubrey experience these things can be painful because she is a talented black-ops specialist who enjoys what she does ("international risk mitigation") and she's extremely good at it. Having her mind betray her is going to put paid on the life she loves.

Not having told her children Jeremy and Jenny what she really does for a living has caused problems. Both grew up with a stay-at-home father and the idea that Aubrey couldn't be bothered to spend any time with them like "real mothers" do. In fact, it's warped Jenny so much that I got tired of her whining about how she's never had the mother she deserved. (Big girl panties, Jenny. Big girl panties.) Pyne's description of mother and daughter-- "two peeves in a pod"-- made me laugh and stayed in my mind just like the author hoped it would.

Once the first third of the book, the setup, is done and the pirates have taken control of the ship, the pace picks up. This is where I really became engrossed in the story. I learned why Aubrey chose this unusual work for herself. I learned to appreciate characters like Morehouse the doctor and little Zoala who might be playing in the Cricket World Cup one day. I also appreciated what Pyne has to say about women who don't do what's expected of them.

I loved watching Aubrey at work as she tried to save everyone aboard the cargo ship. I loved Zoala. Those two caused me to break out in fist pumps more than once. And I loved the little twist at the end of Water Memory. Evidently, there's supposed to be a follow-up book in the "Aubrey Sentro series." As much as I enjoyed this story, I'm not interested in reading any further. Some characters are absolute perfection in one book and one book only. I think Aubrey Sentro is one of them. ( )

Die Hard on a Boat
Advance Review of the Thomas & Mercer Kindle eBook (to be released Feb. 1, 2021)

Water Memory was one of the 9 possible selections in the new Amazon First Reads program which offered 1 free advance selection to Prime members in Canada (possibly 2 in the USA).

I chose Water Memory based on its being tagged as "Espionage Fiction," but this is more of military black-ops suspense thriller without anything that one would expect from spy fiction except for some betrayals. Widow, combat veteran & now private military contractor Aubrey Sentro is suffering from progressive concussion syndrome while still working on elite ransom/rescue efforts. Implausibly, she is hiding the syndrome from her co-workers but not from her adult children who are trying to get her to seek medical assistance. Somehow she has been able to hide the nature of her work life from her children. How does she explain the wounds and scars from a "reinsurance" job?

With those very implausible beginnings, Sentro takes a forced break from work and books a cruise on a cargo freighter (pause to wonder if there really are such vacation possibilities) travelling from the East Coast USA to South America. The freighter is of course attacked by pirates and mayhem ensues.

The action sequences here were well done and there were several unexpected twists along the way. Still, the suspense was constantly undermined by Sentro having flashbacks to her earlier life and to previous jobs that had gone awry.

This is apparently the first of an expected series as it is tagged as Aubrey Sentro #1. ( )