In her prologue to NIGHT DIVER, New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Lowell has the reader at “The sun was brilliant over the turquoise water and white sand.” The allure of the Caribbean island of St. Vincent, “where the language was music, the temperature was made for bare skin, and the surface of the sea was always warm,” sets the tone for an island adventure infused with steamy romance and sea air. NIGHT DIVER is a golden treasure of romantic adventure, one of Lowell’s best, most captivating novels.
When Kate Donnelly receives a desperate request from her brother, Larry, to help save the family diving and marine recovery business, Kate reluctantly decides to return to St. Vincent. Her mother and father lost their lives in a dangerous night dive searching for Bloody Green’s legendary treasure ship, the Moon Rose. Kate was on the Golden Bough the night they passed away. Her mother’s body was never found, and her father died in her arms. Frequent nightmares were a constant reminder of that fateful night. However, Kate loves Larry and her Grandpa Donnelly enough to confront her fears by agreeing to help save the business.
"NIGHT DIVER is a golden treasure of romantic adventure, one of Lowell’s best, most captivating novels."
Fate smiles on Kate’s decision when she meets Holden Cameron, a former British military diver whose eyes resemble brilliant multi-colored jewels. Holden has been sent by the London Antiquities Office to evaluate the operations of Moon Rose Limited for purposes of recommending a shutdown or a continuation of salvage funding by the Crown. The chemistry between Kate and Holden is instantaneous and explodes, even before the tropical storm sweeps across the sea interrupting the search for sunken treasure at a pivotal moment and placing the reader inside the tumultuous wind and rain.
The legend goes: When a young Spanish lord and his bride were banished to the New World in 1685 by the queen, there was no record that the ship ever arrived, but as Kate stood staring at the gold necklace that looked like the drawing her mother used to dream about, she could finally “absorb the presence of the kind of treasure that had driven men for millennia, the shining reason for so many deaths and dreams revolving around the wealth of the New World.”
The crew of the Golden Bough are mysterious men with sketchy pasts who dive by day and drink by night, and then secretly dive by night. Rumor has it that the Golden Bough is cursed. Also on board is Malcolm Farnsworth, the London Antiquities Office contract employee who catalogs the results of each dive and locks up the recovered jewels and coins. The find is scant so far, and the Crown wants to know why. Something isn’t quite right, and when one of the divers disappears, red flags alert Kate and Holden to something sinister taking place aboard the ship. Kate fears her family is hiding something from her.
Lowell describes the underwater world as a beautiful and alluring destination not to be missed. Her insight into the world of salvage diving for treasure is exciting, but the heat generated by mango-scented suntan lotion and sex on the beach is the beginning of something far more valuable than sunken treasure. NIGHT DIVER is the first beach-read treasure of the season.
Reviewed by Hillary Wagy on April 10, 2014