This is a domestic thriller following newly wed couple Abigail and Bruce. The couple is on their honeymoon on an island when the man Abigail had a one night stand with during her bachelorette weekend shows up. The man insists that their one night together meant something more and he wants to prove it to her by tracking her down. Abigail then has to decide to either tell Bruce and ruin her honeymoon or find some other way to get her stalker off the island before he ruins her marriage.
I really loved the atmosphere of this book, specifically the island. I think Swanson did a fantastic job at setting the scene but giving us enough little inklings that something creepy might be going on to really set up an uncomfortable atmosphere. While they are in the city and getting ready for the wedding, the tone of the book was pretty normal. It didn't feel too over the top excited or too sinister. But once they get to their honeymoon island, I immediately felt something was off. I think a big part of this feeling was how easy it is to picture that sort of situation. Abigail and Bruce are on a luxury retreat on a private island that is a no-technology zone. It is marketed as a way for stressed out business men to relax and recharge but something about picturing most people (myself included) having to give up their cell phones and find other activities to do was just unsettling enough to set the mood for the rest of the novel. Of course, there are similar sorts of retreats set up all over the place which just meant that the whole set up for the thriller aspect was just that much more believable. I think that sometimes with commercial thrillers there's an amount of suspension of disbelief that the reader must have but that wasn't the case in this story for me. As Abigail goes about the first few days at the resort, she also notices small details that, by themselves, aren't much to worry about but when they all add up together it really helps build that tension and uneasy feeling.
This book felt like it had two distinct halves that were fine on their own but didn't quite fit together and made the overall story feel a bit disjointed. The first half is Abigail's past history and family life with her parents and the second half is all the events that take place on the island. The first 30% or so of the book is a lot of backstory on Abigail. We spent a lot of time with her in childhood, remembering growing up at her parent's small theater, and watching her sort through her feelings now that the theater is closed and her parents are separating. We also see her grow from a college student with these artistic desires to someone who is a bit more pragmatic and how that change affects her relationship with her long term boyfriend at the time. Then we get to her sort of whirlwind romance with Bruce and the more thrilling aspects of the novel pick up from there. At first, I felt all that backstory was pretty much filler and maybe, at best, got us to be sympathetic to a character who cheated on her fiance. However, during the climax of the book, Abigail mentions a game her and her father used to play called 'what movie are we in' where they present situations and think back through the movies they'd seen to find one that best matches. This is the first time in the book this game was mentioned and I think something like that could have been so much more impactful if Abigail were doing it all along. I think it would have been an excellent device to show not only how the events were making Abigail feel, but also give the reader more proof of how connected she is with her parents. When the book did introduce this game to the reader, I honestly had forgotten that her father was so into films and upon reflection, it really made the whole first section of the book feel pretty meaningless if I had to read through all of that only to come out with this little nugget of information that was actually relevant at the end of the story.
Another part that fell flat for me was the thriller aspects in the first 3/4 of the book. The only thing I knew going into the book was basically the back cover description. So I was expecting a lot more thrills or tension from this person Abigail slept with. At the very least, I was expecting some domestic drama. Instead, I found that his character was pretty nonthreatening and fell pretty flat. Sure, he verbalized that he would tell her husband if she didn't do X, but I never really felt like that was a real threat. I was also sort of expecting maybe some psychological thriller elements to be included where maybe he's threatening from afar and she's trying to figure out who he really is and what he wants. But, again, those elements weren't really there for me. I could see his characters and his actions on paper but I never felt like I got the gravity or importance of the situation that I should have gotten. Now, the last 25% of the book is a completely different matter and that section is where all the thriller aspects are. I was intrigued enough to keep reading during the first 75% by the little hints that something sinister might be going on underneath the surface of this resort. However, I could see how some readers would be a bit bored and might be tempted to put the book down. I thought the payoff in the end was worth it but I also find a 300 page thriller to be a pretty low time commitment so individual mileage may vary on this point.
I really liked Abigail as a character. Yes, she cheats on her fiance during her bachelorette weekend, but I don't have any problems with following an unlikable protagonist. Even if she is a bit unlikable, I still found her super compelling and complex. I think the amount of background we get on her relationships growing up and her previous long term relationship made her a really compelling character. It was also interesting to see her navigate other people's opinions on her and Bruce's relationship especially when the question of if she was just marrying him for his money. Once things start to go down on the island, I loved that she wasn't really a stereotypical horror movie girl where she would more or less just sit around and wait for her fate to befall her. Instead, she took matters into her own hands and was really smart about her decisions. I think the way she handled herself during the climax was consistent with her character developed throughout the book up to that point. Again, since we got so much background information on her I think the reader has a really good sense of her character. Also, this story is entirely following her so we really get to settle into her head as she navigates the book's events. It was interesting to get her character growth from her childhood to marriage and then see how that growth and those events shaped her into someone who would get into this type of situation but also be able to navigate it to the best of her abilities.
Finally, as with most thrillers, the twists and the ending are often the make or break aspect of the book. For the big twist in the third act, I do have to say that I saw most of it coming from a mile away. There's one specific detail that Abigail notes a few times during her time at the island that immediately made a red flag go up in my brain. However, some of the nuances I didn't guess and were surprised by, so that's always a nice surprise. I think that maybe less seasoned thriller readers wouldn't necessarily pick up on the clues ahead of time because I think they were very well integrated into the overall story. Swanson I think did a really great job at giving enough little details that seem innocuous at the time but when the big reveal comes at the end, all those details come together like puzzle pieces. I will say that the ending didn't go as far as I thought it would - it stayed pretty grounded in reality. And while I can understand that and I think it does match the rest of the tone of the book, I was fully expecting this ending to get cranked up to 11. I don't want to give away any specific guesses I made, but if you're a fan of pretty realistic thrillers and don't really like having to suspend your disbelief too far then I think you'd like this ending. There's also a good amount of the aftershocks of the books events which I always appreciate. We find out a lot of the fall out and what happens to most of the characters we'd been following all along. Again, the resulting actions are very grounded in reality and I think consistent with the character development we'd seen in the book's events.
Overall, I thought this was a very intriguing thriller with a good atmosphere and compelling protagonist. The narrative was a bit disjointed and low on thrills during the first 3/4 but really ramps up in the end. I think if you are interested in the premise and don't mind a bit of a slower build up to your thrillers, then I would recommend this book. This was my first Peter Swanson novel and I do plan on reading more in the future.
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