The Crushing Depths (By: Dani Pettrey)

The Crushing Depths
Series: Coastal Guardians (Book 2)
By: Dani Pettrey

Story Line: 3 Stars
Depth: 4 Stars
Faith: 3 Stars
Love Story: 4 Stars
Overall: 3.5 Stars

CGIS Agents Rissi Dawson and Mason Rogers and their team are back in book two of Dani Pettrey’s newest series, this time to investigate a suspicious death on an oil rigger off the coast of North Carolina. 

At the end of book one, The Killing Tide, Rissi and Mason are shocked to come face to face with each other after sharing a traumatic, complex history and having no communication for years. As they try to sort through the jumble of emotions upon seeing each other again, they must narrow their focus on the investigation at hand: the death and other strange occurrences on the oil rig, which is rumored to have a curse surrounding it. 

As she usually does, Dani gives the reader an excellent storyline to dig into. We alternately weave through the mystery and the relationships with eagerness and savor each morsel of intrigue. Mason and Rissi share a past as foster kids in a group home, and some darker subjects from this time in their lives are mentioned but not explored heavily. Their love story is touching, and had us cheering for them both all the way. 

However, this read fell short of our usual standards and Dani’s usual slam bang finishes. Although the storyline was excellent for the first three quarters of the book, we couldn’t help but feel the end was anti-climactic - there didn’t seem to be a climax, and the answers to the mysteries left us disappointed. In short, the end feel flat for us. We kept waiting for the, “oh no!” moment that never came. 

That being said, we are eager for the next book in this series and being able to revisit some characters we have grown to love. We still need to hear Noah, Emmy and Logan’s stories and we genuinely look forward to those! ! 


Note:  We were given this book in exchange for our honest review.