The Island does not disappoint. This fast paced thriller takes place on Dutch Island near Melbourne Australia. Tom a successful surgeon has two kids Olivia and Owen. When he has a work trip Heather the new step mom sees it as a chance to bond with the children. Only Dutch island isn't what it seems. Who will you trust?

Thank you netgalley and the publisher for the chance to read this digital arc. All opinions are my own.

Thank you to the Publisher and Netgalley for the access to the book. The island is tense thriller that moves at a lighting pace. Set in a fictional island off the coast of Australia, Heather and her family encounter the O’Neil family and must fight to survive on the island. The book has many twists and turns and kept me on the edge of my seat throughout. 4/5

A family decides to visit a remote Australian island in search of some koalas ... what could possibly go wrong? Turns out everything. Adrian McKinty's new novel The Island, soon to be a Hulu TV series, brings the treacherous side of the Australian outback to readers full-force in a propulsive action-packed thriller about literally running for your life. Perfect for fans of pulse-pounding survival stories with a touch of horror mixed in, The Island will have you on the edge of your seat as you race through its pages.

When Tom Baxter, a doctor, visits Australia for a medical conference, his new wife Heather, much his junior, and two kids tag along in hopes of some family bonding. Or, at least, that's what Heather, the novel's narrator, was praying this trip would bring. Turns out her stepkids want nothing to do with her, which is why she throws her support behind them when they plead with their dad to take them out in the Australian outback in search of some exotic animals.

But what was supposed to be a quest for the perfect selfie with some adorable critters quickly turns into a nightmare when Heather, Tom, and the kids venture onto the isolated Dutch Island, which is inhabited by a strange family. As the Baxters are exploring the island, a tragedy happens and they soon find themselves caught up in a dangerous situation with unpredictable people. Before they know it, they are on the run with a crazed group of people hot on their heels in a deadly game of cat and mouse. Will they make it off Dutch Island alive?

McKinty's The Island packs a punch and takes no prisoners. This fast-paced, intense read combines instinct, combat, and survivalist strategies to deliver a family through a nightmare come to life. Not light on the horror or the gore, this unflinching novel is best enjoyed by readers who love books that both thrill and chill.

I personally enjoyed the first part of the book before the Baxters are under attack more than the latter chapters of the novel, which focus intently on outwitting the enemy. However, readers who enjoy books that are packed with action will have no qualms about this explosive read.

The Island by Adrian McKinty. Pub Date: May 17, 2022. Rating: 🌟🌟🌟. I wanted to enjoy this one more than I did because I love to read thrillers, but sadly this one was just okay to me. Set in the Australian Outback, a family vacation turns into a nightmare. An accident propels the story into survival mode and the premise of the story is how is the family going to get off of a remote island where the locals are vying for death. Read this one if you like exotic scenery and escape room vibes. Thanks to @netgalley and @littlebrown for this e-arc in exchange for my honest review. #bookstagram #bibliophile #igreads #bookworm #theisland #netgalley #littlebrownandcompany

This novel makes a good argument for why you might want to just stick with reputable tour guides while vacationing.
Heather is visiting Australia with her new husband and stepchildren when they decide to take an unexpected detour to find koalas on a private island. A unforeseen calamity is the trigger for a whole avalanche of horrible things. The small family soon finds themselves unable to escape and running for their lives on the small island, making it pretty much the worst vacation ever.
This was a fast-paced and fun thriller.
Thanks to #netgalley and #littlebrownandco for this #arc of #theisland in exchange for an honest review.

This book was so intense from the first page. It's been a while since a thriller has kept me this on the edge of my seat throughout the whole book. McKinty does a good job of making you feel like you're there on the island and as fearful as the Baxter family was.

I would recommend going into this book fairly blind, don't read too much about it to get the full effect.

Check trigger warnings before reading!

Thanks NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for this e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to Adrian McKinty, Little, Brown and Company, and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of a digital reviewer copy in exchange for an honest review!


Scary. Heart-pounding. Cringeworthy.

“Perhaps they are worse than evil—they are bored.”
PLEASE CHECK TRIGGER WARNINGS PRIOR TO READING THIS BOOK.

SYNOPSIS:
It was just supposed to be a family vacation.
A terrible accident changed everything.
You don't know what you're capable of until they come for your family.

After moving from a small country town to Seattle, Heather Baxter marries Tom, a widowed doctor with a young son and teenage daughter. A working vacation overseas seems like the perfect way to bring the new family together, but once they’re deep in the Australian outback, the jet-lagged and exhausted kids are so over their new mom.

When they discover remote Dutch Island, off-limits to outside visitors, the family talks their way onto the ferry, taking a chance on an adventure far from the reach of iPhones and Instagram.

But as soon as they set foot on the island, which is run by a tightly knit clan of locals, everything feels wrong. Then a shocking accident propels the Baxters from an unsettling situation into an absolute nightmare.

When Heather and the kids are separated from Tom, they are forced to escape alone, seconds ahead of their pursuers.

Now it’s up to Heather to save herself and the kids, even though they don’t trust her, the harsh bushland is filled with danger, and the locals want her dead.

Heather has been underestimated her entire life, but she knows that only she can bring her family home again and become the mother the children desperately need, even if it means doing the unthinkable to keep them all alive.

REVIEW - SPOILERS AHEAD (you've been warned):
WHAT THE ACTUAL HECK DID I JUST READ!? My jaw was permanently glued to the floor throughout this entire book. My body felt weak as I read the gore throughout the pages. My senses were heightened as this book literally put me on the edge of my seat.

The book is centered upon a family of four who travel to Australia. Tom Baxter, who recently lost his wife, and is now married to young massage therapist Heather is planning to attend the work related conferences. His kids Olivia and Owen, who are very reluctant to their father's relationship to Heather, join the trip. The kids' demand to see koalas during the trip would ultimately change this family's whole life and led them to two strangers that take them to an island that they can see and photograph koalas. The two strangers are charging an exorbitant amount, which leads Tom to split the price with a Dutch couple that accompanies them on the ferry to the island. The family and Dutch couple finally have access to the island, which is normally off-limits to any outsiders, and are given 45 minutes to tour and take photographs and return back to the ferry.

As Baxter family begins driving through the island, suddenly a woman riding a bike appears on the side road. Tom attempts to brake the car and alert the bike rider of his presence, but ultimately, hits the bike rider, and projects the family's lives to be forever changed.

I already had quite high expectations going into this book after reading The Chain. The premise of The Chain led me to believe that The Island was going to be a book unlike any other I have read before. And honestly, McKinty did not disappoint. I went in blind to reading this book and I was nothing less than shocked throughout the entire thing. Usually, during thriller novels that I have read in the past, once I've hit the halfway to 2/3rds point of the book, the story beings to drag as the author is working up to the finale. The opposite can be said of this book, as The Island kept up on the fast pace of plot intensity until the end. I finally was able to let out the breath (that I didn't know I had been holding) in the final chapter.

If I ever am in a life of death situation, I hope I am slightly as resourceful and badass as Heather, Oliva, and Owen.

Thank you to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company Publishing for sharing this free ePub in exchange for my honest feedback!

Let me start this review by saying that if you are sitting down to read this book right now, make sure you have your emotional support water bottle next to you. I cannot put into words how thirsty this book made me and as you read it you will see why. I would say 40-80 ounces would suffice.

The Island by Adrian McKinty was amazing, and I honestly have never read a book like it before. It was fast-paced and absolutely thrilling. The book opens and we have our badass 24-year-old heroine Heather and her husband Tom who is an older widower that has two children, Olivia and Owen. They have only been married for about a year, and becoming a stepmother to his two pre-teen children is proving to be quite the challenge for her.

Heather has humble beginnings and comes from a very small town. When her husband and the kids broach the subject of a family trip to Australia, she is excited to get out and see the world and hopefully continue bonding with the kids. Only this trip turns out to be full of HORRORS that none of them could have ever imagined.

Without giving too much of the plot away (because you absolutely must go out and pick up a copy for yourself!) Heather is quickly thrust into survival mode and is responsible for keeping the two children alive on this island from hell. They are stranded with no water, food, cell phone, weapon, transportation, and most importantly, no connection to the authorities!

Heather is an underdog and you just can't help but root for her and the kids. Just like a biological mother would do for her children, she goes above and beyond to protect them and risks her life multiple times for them. WOMEN ARE THE STRONGEST SPECIES ON THIS PLANET.

I won't give away the ending, but just trust me when I say you have to read this story. I can't really compare it to anything else, but if I had to, it was like a mixture of the TV show Lost and the movies Mad Max and The Hunger Games.

Who can you trust? How long can you survive without food and water? What lengths are you willing to go to protect your family? Will the whole crew make it off the island in one piece? You've got to read The Island by Adrian McKinty to find out!

This book is not for the faint of heart--it made me wince a lot--aaaanddd I loved it! This fast paced book goes from zero to sixty in the first few pages and never lets up. The setting on a small Australian island was perfect, the bad guys (and gals) had a good bit of a Deliverance inbred theme going on, and a female Rambo was of course super pleasing. I could easily visualize ev.er.y.thing., and appreciated the fact that the author didn't overexplain anything. I was guessing and jawdropping all the way to the end.
Thanks to Little, Brown and Company and NetGalley for my advanced e-copy. :)

I really wanted to like this book but most of the characters were not like able at all. The father and children were the worst. I could not move past how they treated the wife/stepmother.

I really enjoyed this novel. I was a fan of The Chain, and this one did not disappoint. I would recommend to a friend who needs a fast paced read over a vacation.

Okay, so, I’ve always said Australia is the one place in the world I’ve never desired to travel to because it seems like just about everything that lives there is designed to make you die a terrible death, but this book also reminds me of Australia’s bloody and violent past, it’s present-day issues with racism and misogyny, and highlights (ever so briefly) the dangers of gaslighting and how it can erode away at your instincts and inherent will.

At its heart, “The Island” is most simply described as a crime thriller, but I actually think it verges kind of close to being a horror novel, too. If anything, it might almost straddle that fine line between thriller and horror that some novels do, which is fine by me. I like my thrillers taute, hard, fast-paced, violent, and no-holds-barred. This book starts out tense with some exhausting and questionable family bickering, leads up to a questionable decision made in haste, and from there it’s quite like one of the best kinds of thrill rides: up and down, slow where it needs to be and fast when it needs to be. The pacing is exactly correct and what very, very little filler there is fits in with the story and either calls back to the main story or will be relevant shortly in front of you as you read.

There is a small cast of main characters, a large cast of supporting characters, and a very large cast of what one might call corps de esprits. The cast of main characters is exactly the right size and each one is fleshed out distinctly and gets the appropriate amount of page time. The large cast of main characters is indeed very large, but we don’t need to know as much about them as we do our main characters. Even so, they are distinct enough from one another I had no issues telling who was who as I read, which can be an issue when a supporting cast is all-white and as large as it is. Even the scattered corps de esprit characters are easy to determine one from another, which is a grace not one usually gets when there are this many people who have names and have speaking lines in a novel.

This was a sharp, smart, and cunning novel that pulls no punches with its characters or with the reader. It was a great read I devoured. I highly recommend it.

Thanks to NetGalley and Little, Brown Company for granting me early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. Thank you to Little, Brown Company for also sending me a complimentary physical copy of this novel.

I Know What You Did Last Summer meets The Most Dangerous Game in this very solid edge-of-your seat thriller.

With her new husband Tom slated to attend a medical conference in Australia, Heather tags along on the trip in an effort to bond with her stepchildren When a sightseeing excursion takes a disastrous turn, Heather will do everything possible to protect her family.

The narrative mainly follows Heather, with the odd chapter devoted to other supporting characters. The motives of the cast aren't particularly complex, but especially with Heather we get some interesting character development. As she grapples with surviving both the titular island's terrain and its inhabitants, Heather's mental and physical limits are tested. Dealing with heat, dehydration, dogs, and human elements the plot takes unexpected turns and resolutions that feel new and inventive.

I very much enjoyed the short chapters and non-stop action. The conflicts occasionally brush the borders of the unbelievable, but never fully cross over. The climax is maybe a touch too rushed and neatly concluded, but otherwise generally satisfying. If you like your beach reads engaging and exciting, this would be an excellent choice to throw in your suitcase this summer.

CW: Murder, Torture, Animal Deaths, Gaslighting

3.5⭐️ This book was definitely fast paced and at times edge of your seat, but in the end just a little too bizarre for me. The characters are annoying and too many side stories. I still don't understand why Heather's friend was relevant to this story. I liked how Heather overcame her struggles with the kids, but in the end, this book just wasn't for me. The writing was great and I think it will appeal to others. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

If you have read The Chain, and loved it, then you should read The Island. Similar to The Chain, The Island is a pulse pounding race against time to survive. It is suspenseful and terrifying.
I didn’t fell any sort of love for the characters, but that’s totally ok. The chase is bigger then the characters. You have the crazy, backwoods islanders who have a whole The Hills Have Eyes vibe, as well as a bit of Deliverance, and the innocent but not so innocent intruders they are chasing. Those intruders are a wealthy couple and their two kids, all of which are used to a life of privilege and technology. Putting them on a barren island of scortching heat, no food or water, no electricity while getting shot at and hunted by angry ATV driving locals who answer to “Ma”… yeah this is an excellent horror movie in the making.
I read this so fast, and enjoyed every part of it. It is exactly what you need for a quick terrifying escape away from everything else you’re reading. Don’t go into this hoping for some sort of moral enlightenment or happy ending. It’s a wonderfully wrong game of hide and seek, where the seekers plan to kill.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an ARC of The Island by Adrian McKinty.

This is the second book I have read by Adrian McKinty and I enjoyed it just as much as the first one The Chain. These books are always full of twists and turns and the book never ends where you think it is going to.

Holy fast paced! I’ve never flown through a book so fast. This was my second book by Adrian McKinty & definitely my favorite. I loved Heather and her deep will to keep pushing in the face of murder obsessed lunatics. The twists kept coming (moment of silence for Tom) & I couldn’t turn the pages faster! The whole O’Neill family is full on batshit and I couldn’t get enough! I will recommend this to anyone and everyone!

I was given this book by NetGalley for an honest review -
Heading for their family vacation to Australia - which is a working vacation for Tom. They accidently hit a women on her bike killing her.
The island holds locals that are extremely dangerous - Tom is shot by the husband of the woman killed on the bike.
Heather and the two kids escape but how will they get home - no water - no food -
Follow along for the unbelievable tale of survival. You will be on the edge of your seat!

I got about 30% into this book and then had to put it down because it wasn't great for my mental health at the time. Very anxiety, don't like. However, I picked it back up and then powered through the rest of it. Once you get past that initial tension, then it's...well, not relaxing, but still not as stressful as I imagined it would be.

Good Lord, this is a terrible review. Anyway, the point is, I ended up liking it a lot more than I thought I would.

I’ve seen “The Chain” swirling around for a while now, but never got the chance to read it. I was excited to see that “The Island” was on netgally. I enjoyed this one a lot! It kept me engaged throughout, and I love that one of the main characters was a bad ass female. I did not even realize that it was almost 400 pages. Usually those books drag for me but not this one!