This isolation thriller follows Lux and her boyfriend Nico when they are hired to sail two women to a remote island in the South Pacific. At first, Lux is excited as she's been waiting for her and Nico to start sailing around the world in his boat. However, when they pull up to the island and find a second boat already anchored there. Luckily, the couple from this new boat are also looking to relax and explore this remote island and the group of six quickly become friends. They spend days swimming in the clear waters, exploring the thick jungle, and drinking on the beach. But when a third boat sails up and the owner is off-putting and creeping Lux out, the resulting tension in the group forces cracks to open up and secrets are revealed. When people start disappearing or turning up dead, the cheery tropical island starts feeling more like a death sentence.
TW/CW: alcohol use, drug use, infidelity
For me, this was one of those reads where I really loved the reading experience but when I think just a bit about some of the plot points, I find it falls apart a bit. I think this would be a really great summer beach thriller read where you just want to have a good time. I also think the ending (really, last 25%) is going to be polarizing but it really worked for me.
I really loved the premise and set up in this book. Isolation thriller set in a beautiful tropical setting instead of a snowy location - perfect. The characters all choosing to go somewhere very remote and not necessarily being 'stuck' there - great. Natural tension in the group because the people involved are basically strangers - fantastic. Our characters get to the island at about the 10% mark which is exactly the timing I like in isolation thrillers. We do see Lux and Nico in that first 10% and we can see the cracks starting to form in their relationship, the little resentments that are going to start to build This really allowed me to get sucked into the premise of being on this island with basically strangers and just waiting for things to start going wrong. In the Author's Note at the end, Hawkins said she's always wanted to write a "boat murder" book and I think a lot of people are similarly interested in stories of shipwrecked or otherwise isolated island stories (Lord of the Flies, Swiss Family Robinson, Gilligan's Island, Castaway, etc).
The setting was fantastic and I think Hawkins did a great job at weaving in the sordid history of the island throughout the book. Our characters are visiting Meroe Island, an island with a dark past (which based on my googling, is the name of a real island off the coast of Thailand but the one in the book is a 3-day sail off the coast of Hawaii so it is fictional). Multiple ships had been shipwrecked on the coral surrounding the island which led to rumors of cannibalism. Also, it was used as an airstrip during WWII and there had been people attempting to live on the island on and off ever sense. We get snippets of articles, letters, and other discussions about the history of the island at the ends of some chapters which further builds the reputation of this island. I love the setting of a tropical island for an isolation thriller because the dangers are so different than we normally see with more snowy-settings. We're told about some of the threats on the island and we see a few of them, but I really wished Hawkins would have leaned into those elements a little harder. I felt like there was a bit of a discrepancy between the threats that were introduced to the reader and the threats that the characters ran into. Another specific threat that kept being mentioned to the reader is that people have gone mad on the island because it seems so perfect but is actually very hard to survive there. There were a few places that it felt like Hawkins was trying to inject some of that into the plot thread with the characters but it didn't really work for me. I wanted the island to be more of an antagonist during the story and while we do get little pieces of that, it never went as far as I was hoping.
I was pleasantly surprised that this ended up being multi-POV/multi-timeline. We're only getting Lux's POV in the 'now' timeline but we do get flashbacks that follow Lux as well as other flashbacks that show us the pasts of the other characters. I did find it a little strange to read because the present day plot was in first person (Lux) but all the flashbacks (including Lux's) were in third person so brain took a page to adjust every time there was a change. I'll admit that at the beginning, I found the flashbacks to be pretty boring but they slowly started to build some unease and tension in my reading experience. When I got to the ending, I do think the flashbacks were essential in helping the ending make sense. That being said, I feel like we got a few too many of these flashbacks that covered very similar information. I would have preferred a couple fewer flashbacks and more present-day tension. I did like how the flashbacks eventually tied into the current plot line in an unexpected way. I was making all sorts of guesses to figure out how everything would be connected but I wasn't able to figure it out before the reveal.
The ending 25% goes pretty much from 0 to 100 and while I do appreciate an over-the-top ending to a thriller, I think the tension hadn't been built up enough to really earn that ending. I felt like there was a disconnect between the first 75% and the last 25% in terms of tension and darkness. The majority of the book felt very light and fun with just an undertone of unease and then in the last 25% bodies start dropping and it really felt like we missed a day or two of escalation. I've read a few reviews that mentioned readers are either going to love or hate where the ending goes and I agree with that sentiment (personally, I really liked where it went). I do think the ending reveal worked well since I was already onboard with everything hitting the fan once it got going. It was a satisfying reveal because we know from the flashbacks that there was some unresolved plot threads and the ending wrapped all those up together. There was one particular point that I felt was a little too convenient but overall I liked it and I think the over-the-top-ness of the ending fit the vibe of the rest of the book as sort of this extreme and opulent vacation that goes horribly awry.
Overall, I really enjoyed this read and had a fun time but at the end, I do think it was a little light on the tension for me. The setting and premise were great but I know the ending is going to be hit or miss. This really feels, to me, like the book you pick up on your way to your beach vacation. I think this same premise could have taken a really dark bordering on horror turn but Hawkins keeps it pretty light (although there are pretty consistent rumbles of tension below the surface).
Thanks NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC!
Expected publication date: January 4, 2022
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