This book should win an award for the most bizarre reads of the year!
The Baxter's have traversed the world from the US to Australia. While Tom attends a slew of medical conferences, his new young wife Heather will entertain his kids to the best of her abilities. A task made even more difficult given the children are reeling from the death of their mother. Understandably, they’re not nearly ready to accept Heather into their already made family.

As the kids are begging to see any of the in the vast wildlife of Australia, Tom and Heather Finally relent .They’ll travel to a small private island despite the warnings from those who will ferry them across the waters.

But one unfortunate mistake on this isolated island now has the family running for their lives!

I’m actually stumped on what to say about this book. So absolutely different. So totally original. I was magnetically drawn to it despite the fact it was so very disturbing. Much like a train wreck people slow down to gawk at.💁🏻‍♀️. A guilty pleasure, if you will. That was me…reading this book.

I won’t risk revealing more than that. For full shock value go in as blind as possible. Just be prepared for something so vastly different than your average, everyday thriller.

A buddy read with Susanne that we both laughed at the craziness of it!

Thank you to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company

Thank you to Little, Brown and Company, Adrian McKinty and Netgalley for letting me read this one early. You’ll find this one on shelves May 17.

I loved McKinty’s previous book, The Chain, so when I was able to snag an early copy of this one I was so pumped. Just like The Chain, McKinty raised my heart rate immensely with The Island. This book is fast paced, filled with such great atmosphere, and very hard to put down. It’s also about to be a series on Hulu. I highly recommend thus one! Go get your preorders and library holds ready, my friends.

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 everything. The discover a remote Dutch island looking for photos and memories and end up finding so much more.

This book will leave you physically, mentally, and emotionally drained. I literally feel as though I have run a marathon over the course of this book, and I am very out of shape! When Heather and her new husband and his two kids travel to Australia all they are hoping to see is some cool Australian wildlife. Unfortunately in the process a terrible accent occurs that changes the entire course of their vacation. Heather is forced to become a mom and a warrior all at once. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and it has made me very aware of how oh little I know and that I would be certainly the first voted off on survivor.

Do you suffer from anxiety? I normally don’t – I’m pretty chill about most things. But this book? Oh my god, it made me anxious!

This is just the kind of book I love. You have a family who is simply in the wrong place. They know they shouldn’t be there, but a mix of privilege and whiny kids means rules get broken – and when they do, it all goes to hell quickly!

I can tell you that, as situations ramped up from bad to unthinkably horrible, I was a wreck. I can still feel my muscles tensing up just thinking about being in these situations! And along with the action, McKinty gives us characters that have depth. I was so worried about them.

This is a winner of a book – a fast-paced, heartbreaking, adrenaline rush of a read!

Can’t wait for the author’s next offering.

• ARC via Publisher

An American family takes a dangerous detour in Australia.

I enjoyed The Island a great deal and I think it will be really popular with the public. It's a perfect summer novel--a real page turner that blends action, suspense and heart.

Heather Baxter is a 24-year-old who recently married Tom, a widower with two children. Massage therapist Heather is not having an easy time adapting to her role as stepmother. Teenagers Owen and Olivia are still mourning their mother and not accepting the new person in their father's life.

Tom is set to speak at a medical conference in Australia and the entire family goes along. Out for a drive, they decide to take a trip to see the wildlife on Dutch Island, a former prison island now inhabited by a single family. Unfortunately, a car accident leads to terrible decisions and soon the Baxter family is being hunted with no way of escape.

I've already promoted this book during an online book event. Any reader who likes fast-pasted thrillers or enjoys movies like Die Hard or Jurassic Park will be completely riveted by this novel.

Adrian McKinty has delivered yet another thrilling ride. After an initial story building and scene setting, this book takes off with a jolt and continues through the last word. For those looking or an un-putdownable thriller, I would highly recommend this when it comes out in May!

Tom brings his new wife, Heather, and his children, Owen and Olivia, along on a business trip to Australia. When the kids request an adventure to see koalas, Heather and Tom could not resist. They venture to the island, inhabited only by the O'Neal family, and begin to look around. When a tragic circumstance changes the course of their visit, they find themselves at the mercy of the O'Neal family, who would stop at no limit to protect themselves and the life they have built.

This was an action-packed, heart racing thrill to read. Everything from the remote island setting, to the gripping story line full of twists and secrets, to the character development throughout the story had me captivated. I really enjoyed this book and would certainly read anything else Adrian McKinty has in store in the future.

Thank you to NetGalley and Orion Publishing Group for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I read The Chain a few years ago, and it has stuck with me, because the plot was so original. Since then, I’ve pressed the book into several hands because I couldn’t stop thinking about it and wanted to discuss it with others. While The Island lacks the originality of The Chain, the Australian setting sets this book about a family finding themselves on the run from a vengeful family apart from other books like it. This book kept me guessing, and I had a hard time putting it down while reading the last third of the book. If you haven’t read The Chain, I’d definitely recommend it, but The Island is a fast-paced thriller with a satisfying ending.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This reminds me of his last book I read, The Chain, in a good way. Brutal depictions of violence but the premise was not one I read before. Yes, it can be compared to Deliverance and other revenge hillbilly books. I really liked it and the pace is quick! Would definitely recommend. Thank you Netgalley for the ARC.

I loved THE CHAIN and couldn’t wait to read this one. Tom is a bigshot surgeon, who took his family to Australia where he was speaking at a conference. The two kids want to see koala bears, so he pays a couple of guys to take them over to their island…..where bad things happen. An Australian DELIVERANCE is the best description without giving anything away. A fast read!

Seriously?? It's hard to believe this was written by the author of The Chain... Don't get me wrong, the writing in and of itself is not bad. McKinty has a knack for pulling readers in, even against their will, with fast pacing and gruesome "what if" scenarios - but even when I tried to read it with all sense of plausibility thrown out the window i struggled. The plotline is absolutely ridiculous and it's almost impossible to believe (even for the sake of the narrative) that anyone could be this arrogant and foolish at the same time in the modern world.

This nigh impossibility, coupled with a set of beyond unlikable characters (and I'm talking about the victim/heroes), made for a read that rolled my eyes so far back in my head I'm still not sure my vision is working properly... This felt like one of those '80s horror movies -completely over-the-top (hopefully intentionally) and designed to maximize the creepy meme-supportive factor at the expense of everything else.

Contrast it with The Chain, which was horrifying in its own right but in an utterly believable - even though it really wasn't in hindsight - way that made me cringe and question what I would do in the protagonists' situation even as I prayed to every god I could think of that I'd never find myself there... there's no way I'd find myself on The Island, because I've read a book and watched a movie and read the news in the past 25 years. The utter implausibility of two adults taking their children on to a random island in the middle of the Outback on the word of two strange men they don't know made this a stretch for me from the get-go. Add in the multi-faceted layers of horror that piled on thereafter, and it only compounded my original feelings. I couldn't even suspend disbelief long enough to enjoy this as an insane pastiche. From start to finish this was WAY over the top and didn't work for me at all...

Book: The Island
Author: Adrian McKinty
Publisher: Little Brown and Company
Pub Date: May 17, 2022

I hate to say it but I didn’t enjoy this book. I really tried. I didn’t connect with the characters and I didn’t enjoy the dialogue between them. I skimmed it for the most part because to me it became very repetitive. Reviews said it was gripping and pulse pounding….I didn’t find either to be true. I loved The Chain by this author so I had high hopes for this one but it fell flat to me. The plot was predictable and the ending was wrapped up way too neatly.

Thank you Little Brown and Company and NetGalley for this sneak peak! Publication date is May 17, 2022.

It wasn't for me, but it was overall entertaining.

I really liked the premise, and the descriptions were great at building atmosphere and bringing you right in to the environment.

There are a number of sequences that require you to suspend your disbelief. I had issue with a lot of the dialogue, it rang as childish. There were several characters that seemed to just be walking clichés. Somehow the island family is sharp and cunning, but make the stupidest decisions for flimsy reasons.

For me, it felt like a checklist had been made of Scary Situations, then the plot had been arranged to squeeze them all in -- sometimes with quick fix-its, like the author realized the direction it was heading wouldn't work and rather than go back and rework it, they just pivoted and moved on.

The exotic vacation gone wrong is a familiar plot — except this is not about pickpocketing or getting lost or a missing passport or awful weather (or getting COVID and being quarantined for 5 days which would be a contemporary vacation nightmare). In “The Island,” widower Tom and new wife Heather, plus two kids, get into unimaginable trouble in seemingly civilized Australia, and not in the middle of the bush — just 10 miles from Melbourne — on a private island during a naive quest for cuddly things like koalas and jumpy things like kangaroos. It’s a bit like visiting the Western United States and going to Montana and expecting to see antelope playing and bison roaming as you drive around. Sigh. Google “directions to the zoo” dear protagonists. Like in “Deliverance,” the inter-related bad guys speak English and they are terrifying enough to make you forget Australia also has carnivorous crocodiles, giant spiders, venomous snakes, and poisonous cane toads.

Heather, once separated from Tom and trying to protect two almost teen stepchildren (who are still grieving for their late mother) emerges as the one we root for — the suspense was incredible and kept building. From the quarter point on, it was a terrifying chase with fatal consequences if they get caught by the crazies. 5 stars — McKinty has again delivered a memorable thriller that will keep up at night until you finish it.

Thank you to Little Brown and Company and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review!

Literary Pet Peeve Checklist:
Green Eyes (only 2% of the real world, yet it seems like 90% of all fictional females): YES Heather, the wife, has green eyes and Ivan, the ferryman, has “boozy” green eyes.
Horticultural Faux Pas (plants out of season or growing zones, like daffodils in autumn or bougainvillea in Alaska): NO I really can’t comment on what horticulture is in Australia — it seemed as frightening as the big spiders.
There goes a Tesla (in present day books, someone owns an electric vehicle): ALMOST Not a Tesla, but Tom rejects an electric vehicle to go off into the bush. Good idea and bad idea — he had to settle for the car without vehicle collision aversion (which he whines about a lot, considering the plot points).

Thank you NetGalley and the published for a review copy.

This book was a lot of fun to read - full of non-stop action and it was fun to see the MC come into her own and start trusting herself and just how powerful she could be. There was a lot of suspension of belief of course - like, seriously finding the craziest family group in all of Australia but that’s how any horror movie works anyways, so it wasn’t too far out there.

Overall, really great read - you are in for a crazy ride with this one!

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of The Island.

The premise sounded like a thrilling ride, and it was, though the narrative was formulaic with a scoop of Deliverance.

Heather is a young stepmom to Olivia and Owen, and new wife to Tom, a respected doctor.

When the family of four takes a detour to check out koalas on a remote island in Australia (never a good idea!), an accidental hit-and-run leads to a series of horrific events that find Heather fighting for her life, and her young family.

The Island reminds me of those horror/thriller movies where the heroine is underestimated and taken for a silly girl because she's young and beautiful, the bad guys having no idea she's not who she really is.

That's Heather in a nutshell: her childhood was anything but ordinary, but an unorthodox upbringing with military parents have taught her a thing or two about survival skills and weaponry.

Still, there are plenty of moments of disbelief:

Are these island folk really that dumb?

Do they really not know anything about this island, like where the caves are?

They have a drone but not many of them seem to have any tracking skills?

Sometimes, it appears Heather is just lucky.

I liked how Heather's character evolved on the island, realizing she was now responsible for two children, how her bond with the children got better, how they trusted her, especially with that revelation about their dad. I sort of saw it coming.

I read a lot of thrillers/suspense books and I can almost guess when a twist is coming, and what that twist might be.

This was a good read, though I felt the brief chapters about Heather's friend was unnecessary.

This is such an incredible thriller…..I devoured it, and can’t wait for the next exciting novel. I was a huge fan of THE CHAIN, but this latest novel is next level. Bravo!

From the Best Selling Author of The Chain comes a new and explosive new thriller. The Island grabs your attention on page one and doesn’t let up at all.

Heather Baxter is still getting used to being married. A girl from a small island, she moved to Seattle and became a massage therapist. This is where she meets Tom. A doctor whose wife died in a fall down the stairs of their home. He has two kids, Olivia who is fourteen but looks like sixteen, and Owen who is eleven. Oh, they hate Heather. They are rude and spoiled and for some reason, medicated.

When Tom is invited to Australia to speak at a convention of other doctors the kids beg to go and maybe this is what they need to come together as a new family. It is not.

The kids are bored, Heather is sick of them and Tom is sketchy from day one. When someone tells them about Dutch Island, the kids beg to go after being told of all the koalas on the island. But the island is not open for company. There is one ferry that takes people out and back. But only the family who lives on the island. But of course, they all beg to go, and soon a German couple is asking as well.

Shortly after landing, they are told to be back by a specific time. There are no phones or internet on the island and they need to be off the island. But a horrific accident puts them on a collision course with the insane clan who lives there and suddenly Tom is gone and Heather turns into John McClane of Die Hard.

Sick and tired of being underestimated, Heather takes control of the situation in a way that had me wondering if she was secretly CIA! There was so much tension in this book, you could feel the heat and smell the fear.

I loved Heather. They never saw her coming. It was thrilling!

Soon to be a Hulu series.

NetGalley/May 17th, 2022 Little, Brown & Company

This was good! I do think it felt a bit formulaic, quite a bit like the Australian movies it referenced at the beginning of the novel (like Wolf Creek), but not to its detriment. It read in a way that feels very much like it could easily adapt to a movie/TV series. I also read the author's previous novel, The Chain, and they both got the same rating from me. I like both of them (the writing of this one more, the premise of the other more), and I look forward to reading more from Adrian McKinty.

(Maybe it's worth noting, for some reason, this book was titled "The Chase" on my Kindle when it downloaded.)

I was a huge fan of The Chain and had really high hopes for The Island. It did NOT disappoint! When a family vacation veers off course, things turn deadly. Stranded on an island, with no way to contact the outside world, their only hope is to outsmart the inhabitants of the island. I LOVED this book and would highly recommend to anyone who loved The Chain, or just a good thriller.

Heather Baxter is on a work vacation in Australia with her new husband Tom, a widowed Doctor, and his two children. A trip to a secluded island to see the wildlife ends with a tragic accident and the locals are out for blood. No way off the island, no cell service, and a deadly hunt… Heather must use what skills she has to survive the harsh environment and protect her new family.

The Island is a thrilling survival tale set among the harsh Australian bushland. A young woman, Heather, has traveled with her husband and his two teen children to Australia so he can attend a work conference. Heather loves her new husband but is finding her new role as wife and mom a bit difficult as the children don't really like her. The family makes an impulsive decision to hop over to an island with some shady characters...what could go wrong? They have an accident that ends with them trying to survive the harsh environment while running from the locals who are out for blood. This is a "new to me" author and the premise for this novel hooked me however, I didn't enjoy it as much as I had hoped. One of my main issues was that the characters were very unlikeable which made it difficult to really care about their safety or if they made it out alive. I will warn that there are several graphic depictions of violence (torture, murder, etc.) as well as discussions of rape (including that of a teen girl) that some readers may find disturbing. Although this novel was a bit far-fetched, even for a fictional tale, it was exciting enough to keep me entertained.