The Survivors is not my favorite of of Jane Harpers, but still a solid, interesting mystery. Jane Harper builds the mystery slowly, and the big reveal comes at the end. I did not feel as attached to these characters (Kiernan and Mia) as I have in the past, and although the Tasmanian beach town seemed interesting I love the Aaron Falk mysteries set in the Australian outback. The Survivors also has an "old mystery" and a new one which are very much related. Twelve years ago Kiernan's brother, business partner, and the sister of a friend are lost in a terrible storm. Kiernan himself is injured and has struggled with his guilt concerning the loss of his brother ever since the event. This is the one part of the novel that bothered me - his relationship with his parents really suffered since that day - due to the blame that his parents heaped upon him.

The Survivors takes place in a small coastal town in Tasmania. Kieran Elliott has returned home with his girlfriend Mia and infant daughter to help his parents pack up their home. His father has dementia and he is there to help his mother move his father into a facility. Returning home has painful memories for Kieran due to a tragedy that took place twelve years earlier. Kieran's brother, Finn and his best friend, Toby drowned while trying to save Kieran who was stranded in a cave during a storm. Kieran has always blamed himself for their deaths. Now, the death of a young woman the day after Kieran and his family arrive stir up memories for the town of another young girl who disappeared without trace during that wild storm twelve years before. Other people in the town have secrets to hide and have not allowed Kieran to forget the events of the day his brother and friend drowned. This causes great tension and secrets starts to surface. The book was a little slow to start for me, but once it got going I really enjoyed the story and I was completely wrong once I got to the ending! To me that is a good sign when I am wrong about the conclusion. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for my review.

A small coastal town. A murder. Old friends reuniting. Memories of a tragic storm. Dangerous caves. Salt air. A missing child. The atmosphere in The Survivors is thick.
Secrets and guilt drive the narrative in this story of a small coastal town dealing with the aftermath of a murder in the present which has led to memories and new speculations about a missing girl and a big storm that changed the lives of everyone in the town twelve years earlier. The story is slow to build, but like a good storm over open water, it gathers momentum as old grudges, regrets, and secrets are revealed. There is a great sense of tension in the book, which was too often broken by a switch from action in the present to a memory of something that happened in the past, with nothing to denote the shift in time, which altered to pace of the narrative. This isn’t a book you rush through looking for the killer. It is one you wade into, one you let flow over you, one you savor for the images of sea and sky, for the relationships formed, broken, and rekindled, for the immersion in lives shaped by the small town, the sea, and human nature. The ending felt rushed, but overall, this is a book about secrets and guilt, about friendships and family, about fear and mistrust but also forgiveness and hope.

From the dusty outback to the frigid Tasman Sea, Jane Harper (The Lost Man; The Dry) does a superb job capturing the geographical diversity of Australia, while simultaneously showing that human nature never really changes. As The Survivors begins, Kieran, his girlfriend, Mia, and their new baby have come home for a visit to Evelyn Bay, a small Tasmanian seaside town. Evelyn Bay is the kind of touristy place where the population doubles in the summer but is placid the rest of the year.

Kieran and Mia rarely return, however, because a dozen years earlier, in a terrible storm, Kieran's brother was killed and Mia's best friend went missing. It was the most dramatic day in town history, until the day after Mia and Kieran arrive, when a body appears on the beach. It's a young artist named Bronte, who was waitressing in Evelyn Bay for the summer. Tensions among the townspeople immediately skyrocket, as inevitable comparisons to the aftermath of the storm begin.

The police start questioning everyone who interacted with Bronte, and it becomes clear that someone local must have been involved in her death. Kieran is reeling, repeatedly drawn back to the sea caves where he nearly died, and where his brother met his end. Kieran's unease mounts as strange things keep happening, and he's not alone: most of the residents of Evelyn Beach are stretched to their limits. Atmospherically creepy, and full of fascinating characters, The Survivors is Jane Harper at her best, a surefire hit for fans of Tana French or Camilla Läckberg.

The Survivors was my first Jane Harper book. I enjoyed this slow burn mystery with lots of atmosphere. I'm looking forward to checking our her other books.

Intense psychological suspense from an absolute master of show not tell. I am absolutely amazed at how quickly Jane Harper draws the reader into the story and the characters - these are perfectly normal people in a perfectly normal place and time, living seemingly normal lives - yet there are tiny tweeks and we want to know more, and then more, and we are drawn completely in. It is completely mesmerizing. A couple and their new child return to their childhood home on the Tasmanian coast where they find family and old friends, but when a woman's body is found on the beach, old ghosts and bitterness reappear as well. This is a story about people and relationships and what makes people tick and what makes them break and how they might recover. Harper is absolutely flawless at character development. There are twists and turns galore and each is deeply true and totally believable. I stand in awe. Highly recommended.

I love Jane Harper's other books, but this one kind of dragged for me. The story was good, and I enjoyed the main character.

Harper does a great job with description. Readers of The Dry, especially, know how much detail she can give when writing a book. The scene is set so well that you can actually feel yourself there. I did enjoy the description, but the story felt like it moved so slowly. It was hard to get into and want to keep reading. When I was reading, I enjoyed it, but it wasn't something that I was dying to pick up each day.

The timelines also jumped a bit, which was confusing. There was a missing girl from 12 years ago and a missing girl in present day. You'd be reading a chapter in present day and then all of a sudden, the next one is talking about what happened in the past. It does intersect, and the same people of the small island community are involved, but it was a little confusing at times.

I also didn't love the end. I think I wanted a little more (especially after The Dry), but it was a good mystery.

I really enjoyed Harper's writing and the character development had me hooked from the very beginning. Such complex back stories that greatly impacted each characters' perception of themselves and one another. The ominous Survivors were a grim reminder of mystery and loss that, personally, I would have loved a little more back story on as I was really intrigued by their origin and impact on the neighboring communities. All in all, an enjoyable read from beginning until the very end.

This book is an excellent example of Harper's talent. I cannot wait to read more by this author. I love her style and the attention to detail makes the suspense even more effervescent.

In typical Jane Harper fashion The Survivors makes you feel like you are in Australia, fighting the elements along with the characters. This is a slow-burn thriller, as most of Harper's books are, that ends up fusing together multiple mysteries. The book deals with true friend and family relationships, holding nothing back.

A strong debut novel that covers many important modern day topics while executing a multi-narrative, coming-of-age story for teens and adults alike. Set during the beginning years of the #MeToo movement, we follow a handful of girls attending Atwater, an elite all-girls boarding school that’s in the grips of a sexual assault scandal and lawsuit. Each of the girls have their own trials and tribulations to deal with while the horrors of unhealthy sexual relationships are revealed through their youthful eyes. Layden addresses the issues with private western institutions like Atwater when dealt with issues such as sexual assault, and how quickly these institutions work frustratingly hard to silence these girls instead of appraising and protecting them. Highly, highly recommend.

Why I liked it:
Harper writes mysteries in a way that feels fresh because of her unique settings that still read as something familiar. Yes, it's set in Australia, but small-town life is inherently a familiar concept and Harper writes those dynamics very well. I also appreciate that each character is developed fully. There are almost no throwaway characters in this story. It is a bit of a slow burn, but the writing is so rich that I truly didn't mind.

What I would like to change:
The characters that we get to know the least in these stories are the victims, and I would have loved to have gotten a few chapters from their perspectives. While the story was really good on its own, I think I would have enjoyed a deeper insight into those characters because, as it was, our only impressions of them are what other people knew.

Thank you to netgalley for a review copy of the book. This is another winner from Jane Harper. I fell in love with her writing and stories in The Dry and in each novel since then, she has created a world of mystery, friendship and family, and a wonderful what really happened story. This novel, set in Tasmania on fictional Evelyn Bay surprised me until the very end. If you like mysteries, with lush descriptions, and characters you want to join at the local pub, Harpers’ books are for you — I’d recommend The Survivors with 5 stars!

When Kieran Elliott returns to his small coastal town to visit his parents, he's sucked back in to the horrible storm of 12 years ago and a seemingly related incident during present-day.

This is one of those novels where I simply did not get the hype. From the start, Harper throws way too many characters into the mix with little to no development on all those characters. The transitions from past memories to present happenings were nonexistent. The writing style was difficult to follow and the conclusion/"twist" felt poorly planned. Honestly, instead of a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces the conclusion to <u>The Survivors</u> felt like a jigsaw puzzle in which people had jammed multiple wrong pieces into wrong places. I hate to say it but I honestly feel like 2 stars was a generous rating. I almost DNFed this multiple times...

A standalone from Australian crime writer Jane Harper, set in a coastal small town in Tasmania with a history of loss, and then a young woman dies mysteriously and old grudges come to the surface.

One thing I continue to appreciate and enjoy in Harper's writing is the importance of the landscape. Previously that has been the sparse, dry climates; this is a cold weather island, specifically on the coast where there are caves that are underwater only during high tide. What a perfect place to be full of danger and foreboding! I wish I could go there.

This was my first Jane Harper book. I thought the premise was interesting, the plot was intricately woven, and the characters were complex and captivating, but in the end it was a slow read. I think the book would be more appealing to millennial readers (which is not me). I'll give the author another try with "The Dry."

I have read all of Jane Harper's books. I was so excited for this one to come out, that I had to force myself to wait to read it until close to the release date. The "Mystery Book Club" at my library read The Lost Man (Harper's third book) and we all loved it so much that, since then, we have had trouble finding a book that can measure up to it. Every month, we find ourselves saying that, yes, we like this book a lot, but it was not as good as The Lost Man. I found myself in a similar position with Harper's most recent publications, The Survivors. Yes, I definitely liked it, but it was not as good as The Lost Man.

Once again, Harper has set the action in a unique location that has a huge impact on the action of the book. This time, she has brought us to a small, relatively remote coastal town in Tasmania. Twelve years ago, a terrible storm hit the area with tragic effects that the characters still feel. Kieran, the main character of this book, feels intense guilt for his role in the tragedy. Secrets from the past and the present get stirred up when a young woman is found dead on the beach. Kieran and his girlfriend, Mia, are back in the town for the first time in a very long time, and we follow along as they learn more about what happened--both with the latest tragedy and the fallout lingering from the day of the storm. Kieran's "investigation" is completely believable--he's only looking into things that are related to him, his family or his friends. Eventually, his own need to understand what happened twelve years ago kicks in as well.

I really liked this book. It was nice to experience a totally different setting for this book. As usual, Harper's characters are multifaceted and completely believable, and the mystery was nice and twisty. The Lost Man remains my favorite of all her books, but this was very, very good too.

While I tend to love Jane Harper, I found this particular book difficult to enjoy. The beginning is slow and doesn't seem well put together, and the denouement felt too easy and unsatisfying. I wanted more character development and a tighter story, which I have found in other Harper novels.

Twelve years ago, a reckless mistake changed Kieran's life forever. When he, his wife and young baby return to his hometown to help his parents prepare for some changes in their life, his guilt re-surfaces – and many of the small town's residents are still resentful. When a body is discovered on the beach, secrets are uncovered that some wish would stay buried.

I have only read two of this author's previous books, but I've enjoyed them so much that I couldn't wait to read this one as well. While it wasn't quite as captivating as the other two, it was still a very good book. I had to pay close attention to whose story we were following and in what time period, but what bothered me more was that this book was more character-driven than what I've come to expect from Ms. Harper. There were a lot of characters with good backstories – people struggling to make ends meet, people dealing with Alzheimer's – that made the town feel more real, but that's not what I usually expect in a mystery book.

I love the way the author describes the setting so well that it almost feels like a character in the story; I could almost hear and smell the ocean, and I could certainly feel the characters' fear and suspicion. There were quite a few red herrings in the book, and it wasn't until the end that I was finally able to put the pieces together. I look forward to reading the author's next book.

A well written, nice story but definitely an underwhelming mystery. Good atmosphere with wonderful descriptions of the coast and tides, but the plot kind of plods along. A decent book if you’re not looking for anything too exciting in a murder mystery.