Review: Nocte (#1, Nocte) by Courtney Cole

My Thoughts

Creepy, haunting, mesmerizing and utterly addictive,
Courtney Cole’s tantalizing thriller will
leave you guessing until the very end.

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• Nocte: Amazon | iTunes

Synopsis

SAVE ME AND I’LL SAVE YOU…

My name is Calla Price. I’m eighteen years old, and I’m one half of a whole.
My other half– my twin brother, my Finn– is crazy.

I love him. More than life, more than anything. And even though I’m terrified he’ll suck me down with him, no one can save him but me.

I’m doing all I can to stay afloat in a sea of insanity, but I’m drowning more and more each day. So I reach out for a lifeline.

Dare DuBray.

He’s my savior and my anti-Christ. His arms are where I feel safe, where I’m afraid, where I belong, where I’m lost. He will heal me, break me, love me and hate me.

He has the power to destroy me.

Maybe that’s ok. Because I can’t seem to save Finn and love Dare without everyone getting hurt.

Why? Because of a secret.

A secret I’m so busy trying to figure out, that I never see it coming.

You won’t either.

My Review

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, Courtney Cole, delivers a spellbinding dark thriller rife with secrets, emotion and romance. Nocte is the kind of novel that flares goosebumps to life on your skin, the kind that gets your heart pounding as you devour every page trying to unravel the twisted layers of the story. A story that revolves around a secret. A secret that drives you to delirium. A secret that as a reader devoured me as I formulated countless possibilities in my head, trying to decipher the subtext pulsing just beneath the surface. The novel is skillfully written, dark and ominous and tangled, to give you the utmost sense of foreboding. You know the climax is coming and yet, even when it crashed upon the page, it caught me by surprise, sending me reeling until Cole delivered yet another skin-prickling twist at the end that left me questioning once again.

Eighteen-year-old Calla Price is drowning in grief after a tragic accident. She tries to hold onto her own sanity as she cares for her mentally unstable brother, Finn… her twin… her other half. Finn’s downward descent into madness is chronicled in a journal where his errant thoughts find a well-hidden outlet.

“Serva me, servabo te. Save me and I will save you.
Save me.
Save me.
Save me.”

Calla’s own grief is bottled up in a place well-buried within, as she tries to save her brother from himself. Finn seems to hold a barely-there grasp on his lucidity and no one else can understand him like Calla. No one else can keep him from jumping off the cliff into that permanent oblivion. We experience the chapters through the point-of-view of both Calla and Finn, a dueling juxtaposition that is wholly chilling and unnerving.

“My secret. That’s what it comes back to now. Always. No matter what.”

And in the midst of her struggles, Calla meets Dare DuBray. The boy with with the dark-as-midnight gaze. The boy who she feels instantly drawn to. Dare is an enigma to Calla, a mystery she’s inextricably pulled to figure out. You see, it’s clear that Dare has a secret too… many secrets?… but Calla can’t seem to walk away. Dare is a complex character. He’s intense and all consuming. He’s kind and caring. He’s cold and volatile. Who is the real Dare and what is he hiding?

“Dare DuBray. He’s my savior and my anti-Christ. His arms are where I feel safe, where I’m afraid, where I belong, where I’m lost. He will heal me, break me, love me and hate me. He has the power to destroy me.”

The perfect storm begins to take shape, as Calla starts to lose her grip on her own sanity, as Finn nears closer to his breaking point, as Dare seems to be on the brink of losing it all.

“Today the voices sound real, even though I know they aren’t. They’re not my voice, they’re just masquerades, a scary mask, imposters. They’re not real. My voice is real. Those voices are not. But it’s getting harder and harder to tell them apart.”

This story is a thriller. It’s a mystery that commands attention. A twisted tale that demands unraveling. A page turner that will assuredly surprise you in the end. A haunting psychological suspense, Nocte takes you to the precarious edge between illusion and truth, between madness and sanity, grief and love. You won’t want to miss it!

“Everyone has secrets, Calla, even me.”

Reading Order

There are three books planned in the series, but a part of the storyline concludes with this first installment.

About Courtney

Courtney Cole is a novelist who would eat mythology for breakfast if she could. She has a degree in Business, but has since discovered that corporate America is not nearly as fun to live in as fictional worlds. She loves chocolate and roller coasters and hates waiting and rude people.

Courtney lives in quiet suburbia, close to Lake Michigan, with her real-life Prince Charming, her ornery kids (there is a small chance that they get their orneriness from their mother) and a small domestic zoo.

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