Member Reviews

When Kieran Elliot returns to his hometown to help his mom and dad pack up their house, he finds that long-buried secrets resurface while he's there. One stormy night when he was young changed the town and Kieran's life forever and a new murder opens up all the old wounds. Jane Harper can be counted on to write a twisty, atmospheric mystery and the audiobook read with an Australian accent enhances the story perfectly.

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Listening to an audiobook is a very different kind of experience for me. I prefer books but this audio added so much to the story, I'll have to declare a tie. As you listen to this man's pain, it's evident that his life has been so affected by his youthful actions that he's having a difficult time just surviving. The narrator has done an excellent job of conveying the emotions and internal conflicts. An excellent rendition of a favorite author's work.

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DNF at 54%. I thoroughly enjoyed the author's previous three novels, so this one surprised me. I found the plot increidbly slow and couldn't ever get invested in the story. The timeline moves around, which was confusing because there wasn't anything to differentiate whether the narrator was in the past or present. Speaking of the narrator, I've listened to books of his before and didn't have the issues I did this time. His Austrailian accent is lovely, but the pacing was slow and there was a big percentage of the time when I could barely hear him due to his low tone of voice, regardless of how high the volume was. Not being able to hear him clearly, conbined with a slow paced story made for a dud of a listening experience. I was ready to quit much sooner but stayed with it as long as I could, hoping to finish but at over halfway, I just didn't care about the characters or story so I gave up. I'd recommend fans of Jane Harper to try this one in a physical format.

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I really like Jane Harper’s books. The Lost Man was one of my favorite books of last year and I was very excited to have the chance to listen to this book.
Social isolation has been hard. Work has been crazy, crazy, amazing hard and it’s been difficult to focus on audiobooks – it took me almost six weeks to finish the last one (granted, it was almost 32 hours long), but I finished this one in only four days.
Harper, as in her previous books, does an amazing job of setting a sense of place and atmosphere and the characters are well-developed. This book started off slow (never tedious) as we are introduced to characters and their histories; the pace picked up about half way through as bits of information about the character’s past are revealed. There were a number of red herrings, and I found that I guessed wrong a couple times– I never did guess right and found the ending satisfying.
I thought the narrator was very good and would have no hesitation listening to another book read by him. That being said, I have both listened to and read Jane Harper books, and I think I will read a physical copy of her next book – there are lots of layers that might be easier (at least for me) to appreciate with the written word.

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Alright friends- I LOVE Jane Harper. Well, to be completely clear, I love Jane Harper's Aaron Falk series and will die on the hill. I could not get enough of the Dry and Forces of Nature was just as delightful. Now, that being said I usually love stand alone novels by my favorite authors but for some reason Harper just hasn't landed for me. The Lost Man was meh, and now The Survivors.

Okay, I am so thankful for these copy of Harper's newest edition. I was able to listen to it on audio and it was fun having an Australian narrator. It really made you feel as though you were right in Australia. This novel has multiple mysteries that you are wanting to get solved. I will tell you that I wanted to know how this book was going to wrap up. I did. I read through the entire thing and was truly invested in knowing the outcome. However, I just didn't really enjoy the ride all that much.

I do wonder though that if I would have read this book in hard copy if I would have enjoyed it more. I don't know if the narrator just didn't do it for me (and let's be real, if you have a bad narrator a good book can be spoiled) or if I just wasn't all that into the plot. Either way, I would give this book 3 1/3 stars.

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4.5/5 Since The Dry, I have always looked forward to Jane Harper's books. This one started a bit slow for me and I was worried that it wouldn't live up to my expectations for the author. But I needn't have feared, the slow burn built up into a satisfying and beautifully written novel. Plus, now I really want to visit Tasmania.

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I have read Jane Harper’s three previous books, but I listened to the audio on this one. I really enjoyed it, especially the narrator’s Australian accent it really seemed to make the dialogue come alive and feel authentic. There’s a good, complicated Mystery involving a missing person from 12 years ago and a new dead body on the beach. A complex story with all the feels that we’ve come to expect from Ms Harper.

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Kieran and Mia return home to help Kieran’s mother pack up their family home. When a body is found on the beach, the investigation brings up many things from the past.

This is my first read by Jane Harper. And I am very sad that to say, that I just couldn’t get Into it. For some reason, I just couldn’t connect to any of the characters.

Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for a copy of the audiobook in exchange for my honest review. Due to my inability to fully appreciate and enjoy this book, I will not be publishing this review to any of my FB book clubs. I would hate for my weird opinion to negatively sway another reader.

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This was an enjoyable read. I’ve never read anything by Jane Harper before, but she’s on my radar now. The story follows a group of friends who suffered a major tragedy 10 years before. The mystery was fun to figure out, and I never guessed the culprit. I ended the book with a few questions, but overall satisfied.

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Jane Harper has become one of my favorite crime authors, and the fact that her work is centered in Australia gives it an extra shot of pizzazz. Here we have an old case and a new one in a Tasmanian beach town that has a vibrant local population dependant on the kindness of tourists (how's that for an oxymoron?). The season is over, and Kiernan has come home with his wife and infant daughter after a number of years to help his mother pack up their family home in order to move his father into assisted living. A new body is found on the beach, old resentments and secrets are unearthed, and all the while Kiernan is dealing with his own guilt from bad choices when he was a teenager and now with his father's encroaching dementia. The reader here spoke pure Australian, which I could listen to forever, and the plot unwound leisurely.

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Jane Harper does it again in this riveting audio version of The Survivors. All of Ms. Harpers’ locations are so well described it’s as though you are right there in the thick of it all. For me this book was a coming of age story with years long questions all with difficult answers; some lost to the sea. Stephen Shanahan’s narration is superb

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I loved it - a marvelous mystery that sucked me right in.
a wonderful moderator with a beautiful accent!
realistic and likeable characters with familial love and angst
a setting /environment that was both beautiful and violent
a great ending that i did not suspect

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I really enjoy Jane Harper's writing. It tends to be a little slower than many I read in the genre, but I really enjoy the atmosphere it sets.

I love that Harper adds in little bits that make the story more realistic. For example, in this story there is an older man with Alzheimers, a mother who can't get past her daughter's disappearance, a couple with a baby they adore though she hadn't been planned, etc. To me these are real life issues and though they aren't the core of the story, they make it feel real and make the characters feel whole.

I definitely recommend this for fans that aren't looking for an edge of your seat thriller, but more of a realistic small coastal town mystery. I look forward to reading whatever she writes next.

I listened to the audio of this one and the narrator was excellent. I felt that he fit the main character perfectly and had great timing.

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Jane Harper does it again! Let’s go to the town of Evelyn Bay, Australia where a shipwreck, a mystery and a family’s past and present converge to make this a heartbreaking mystery. Kieran returns home with his girlfriend Mia and baby Aubrey to help his parents Verity and Brian, who suffers from Alzheimer’s, get the house packed so they can move. Kieran is home only a few days when tragedy strikes almost exactly in the same spot it did years ago when his brother Finn, friends Toby and Gabby were lost in a horrible storm . In a hauntingly beautiful intertwining of past and present this story emerges. You can not go wrong with Jane and her beautiful tales of mystery. Thank you net galley for this audio version.

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I really tried to get into this book. I listened for a longer period of time than I would have typically read a book that did not grab me.

The narrator was good because of his accent.

For me, I cannot recommend this title. The subject matter did not appeal to me, however, this might be the perfect read/ listen for others.

I will not be publishing a review of my opinion as it might negatively impact the book, author, and/ or publisher.

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Twelve years ago life turned upside down and the guilt of that night is a weight that is unbearable, but unable to be put down. Now, back in town just in time for a visiting college student to be murdered, the events of 12 years ago become horribly tangled with the current events leaving neighbors pointing fingers at neighbors and a town full of questions! An excellent plot line keeps you guessing in this thriller as the field of suspects is incredibly deep. The characters are well developed and very real in a manner that grasps you and keeps you intrigued. While I thought the book was slow to start, it was like a rock gathering speed as it rolls downhill until you are listening late into the night as you can't stop until you have the answers to all the questions circling in this book!

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I think the best thing about Jane Harper's writing is how she writes setting and atmosphere and this most recent book is no exception. Another great mystery by Harper. And I really enjoyed the audio book narration. It was very well done and really made the book for me.

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Kieran is back in his hometown. Twelve years ago his life changed forever. A dangerous storm took his brother’s life while trying to rescue him from drowning in the sea. Now, when a young woman appears dead in the beach, everything dark from the past comes into light and the lifes of Kieran and his friends and family will change forever. A powerful thriller and great audiobook

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I had a rough time with this one, I am sad to say. So many of my goodreads friends rated this book 5-stars and so I was excited to dig in.

I loved the gloomy, dark atmosphere and the setting... but that was all I could get into. I'm not sure if it was the pacing of the story (it was definitely slow burning) or the narrator (slow, deep voice that lulled me to sleep several times) but by 40% I still wasn't invested in the story. I didn't feel much of a connection with the characters and I think this is meant to be a character driven book, which really left me flailing and struggling.

Thank you Ms. Harper and Macmillan Audio for affording me the opportunity to listen to and rate this book.

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I am a big fan of Jane Harper's work. However, I had a hard time with the audiobook version of The Survivors. The story seems to be interesting but every time I try to listen to it, the narrator's voice lulls me to sleep. It's a beautiful voice, but I just can't pay attention to the story when he reads it. I've never had this happen with any other narrator. I'm going to wait for the print version and read it on the page because I know I'll enjoy it.

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