The Survivors
by Jane Harper
Coming home dredges up deeply buried secrets…
Kieran Elliott’s life changed forever on the day a reckless mistake led to devastating consequences.
The guilt that still haunts him resurfaces during a visit with his young family to the small coastal community he once called home.
Kieran’s parents are struggling in a town where fortunes are forged by the sea. Between them all is his absent brother, Finn.
When a body is discovered on the beach, long-held secrets threaten to emerge. A sunken wreck, a missing girl, and questions that have never washed away…
My Rating:
Favorite Quotes:
She was four years younger than him and shy to the point that he wasn’t even sure he knew what her voice had sounded like.
… it must have been good fun, Kieran thought, otherwise why did they do it every weekend? But it was interesting looking back how the good fun had sometimes felt a lot like hard work… It had all seemed so important at the time, Kieran thought as he stood on the beach now. Life and death.
He had fed Audrey and read to her from a picture book that hinted heavily on its front cover that it would unlock her genius potential. Instead, it had sent her back to sleep, which in that moment seemed like an even better result. They should have put that on the cover.
My Review:
This was one of those slowly unwinding tales that kept me feeling a bit uncomfortable, on edge, impatient, tense, and unable to put my Kindle down without feeling annoyed at the intrusion. I was hooked from the beginning and full of nagging suspicions as at one time or another, almost every character seemed a bit off and capable of something dreadful. The writing was cleverly realistic with deeply flawed yet enticing characters while shrewdly plotted and cunningly paced to drive me mad in brain itching increments. It was brilliant.
Jane Harper is the internationally bestselling author of The Dry, Force of Nature, and The Lost Man. Jane is a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller, and has won numerous top awards including the Australian Book Industry Awards Book of the Year, the Australian Indie Awards Book of the Year, the CWA Gold Dagger Award for Best Crime Novel, and the British Book Awards Crime and Thriller Book of the Year.
Her books are published in more than 36 territories worldwide, with The Dry in production as a major motion picture starring Eric Bana. Jane worked as a print journalist for thirteen years both in Australia and the UK, and now lives in Melbourne.
It sounds like The Survivors could be my kind of book! I like to suspect everyone and be confused in the best way and your wonderful review tells me that The Survivors would deliver that.
I absolutely love books that make you feel like stopping to do other stuff is an intrusion! So glad The Survivors did that for you 🙂 Great review!
So glad this one was good for you. Sounds like it really pulled you in.
I love this one as well. This is one of the more than two dozen book reviews I have yet to write!