Nature survival thrillers are one of my favorite subgenres and after seeing this being compared to Ferencik's Into the Jungle, I immediately requested a copy on Netgalley. I think this comparison did Deep Water a disservice as I went into it expecting a fast paced fight for survival on a deserted island and was very thrown off when I realized this was just weird island politics.

Aside from the fact that it took FOREVER for anything to happen, even when things went down I was never on the edge of my seat or even invested. The characters were all extremely annoying and the main character was so naive it hurt. The villian was SO out of place, I feel like he would have fit better in a historical novel.

Overall, this completely missed the mark with me.

Overall I liked this book. It hooked me from the beginning and I was eager to here Vee's story. I do feel like the island part dragged on a little, but when I was thinking "can we just get on with it", the action started to pick up. When I got towards the end, I was worried there was too much book left and the end was going to be needlessly drawn out, but I nice plot twist added additional story. I do feel like there were a few loose ends that I would have like resolved and that's why I left three stars. I don't want to leave spoilers, but I feel like there was a constant "mystery" throughout the book that never got explained and had I been given that explanation, I likely would have given the book four stars

Gosh, I wanted this to be a lot better than it was. The beginning was interesting but the ending was so disappointing and anti-climatic. The worst thing a thriller can do -- for me, anyway, is having a non surprising twist and then just kind of meander to a meaningless ending. I hate to say that this book fell victim to just such an occurrence. Hope you have better luck!

Deep Water comes out later this month on May 31, 2022, and you can purchase HERE.

"Everything ahead of us?" she tried. "We're rolling beneath the stars?"

Centered around newlyweds Virginie and Jake who decide to leave the city to sail to a remote island to start their new life together. The book pulls you in pretty quickly at first, but then becomes a slow build thriller that is at times too slow. I was bracing myself for a little more excitement based on the description, but overall it was a fun storyline with a few twists. I love a descriptive setting and this book definitely had that.

Jake and Virginie are a newlywed couple. Before settling down they decide to sell all their possessions, purchase a boat, refurbishes it and set sail on a year long adventure. It’s obvious that this couple is totally naive with regards to boating. They rename the boat which any boating enthusiast knows is bad luck. The young husband Jake is afraid of the water and does not swim! Seriously who in their right mind would take a year long voyage, on a boat and is afraid to get into the water? They stop at a port to get supplies and hear of a pristine island that is 5 days away. The island has no amenities and no cell services and they must live off of their supplies, the sea, the island coconuts. They meet a couple Vitor and Theresa that decides to also head out to the island and of course they are not the happy couple that they pretend to be. I didn’t like any of the characters and actually came to dislike Jake who is not the evil villain in the story. I found this to be much too unrealistic for my taste.

Deep Water by Emma Bamford is a recommended tale of a newlyweds trip gone disastrously awry.

When a yacht is sending out a distress signal in the Indian Ocean, Royal Malaysian Navy Captain Danial Tengku orders his crew to aid the boat. On board is a British couple, Virginie Durand and her gravely injured husband Jake Selkirk. As Jake is rushed to receive medical help, Virginie tells their story to Captain Tengku and confesses that what happened was all her fault and she killed them. After this foreshadowing, the novel jumps back in time when newlyweds Virginie and Jake bought their yacht and were planning to travel to Thailand. Then they heard about Amarante, a tiny, remote island with unspoiled beaches, and decide to change their plans.

The couple arrives on Amarante, and finds there are already visitors there. Pete and Stella are a Canadian couple, and Roly is from Australia. They’re soon joined by the wealthy, enigmatic Vitor and his girlfriend, Teresa. At first things go well, but then Virginie and Jake have engine problems, and tensions begin to rise between couples.

The synopsis written for this book does not do it justice and is misleading. There is no dark spell of the island with creeping evil. There are human failings and frailties. If you enter the novel with the perspective that it is a trip that has taken a terrible turn it will help your appreciation of the novel and result in less disappointments.

Virginie is telling us what happened on the island that lead to the distress signal. Captain Danial Tengku is listening to Virginie's recount of what happened before she tells the full story and then afterward, once they are found. His own internal monologue and reactions are added to the opening and concluding chapters. Her account of their time on the island moves too slowly for any real tension or suspense to build as it mostly feels like normal disagreements and tension that could be found among any group of people.

The writing is very good, enough that I kept reading, experiencing vicariously life on a remote tropical island. It is not quite good enough to make this slow paced novel a thriller. By the time action/suspense does pick up, the novel is basically over. This will appeal to fans of novels that feature remote islands where the people provide the danger, or the guilt.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Simon & Schuster.
The review will be published on Barnes & Noble, Edelweiss, Google Books, and Amazon.

Deep Water by Emma Bamford tells the story of Virginie and Jake who sell everything and buy a boat and sail to a uninhabited island. This was quite the story and very believable. Vee and Jake do go through a lot for early in their marriage. The dynamics on the island were interesting. Reminded me of Lord of the Flies. I will recommend this book. Thank you for allowing me to review this book.

A Navy vessel comes across a woman and her bloody husband, with tales of being stranded on an island that's not what it seems. What seemed like a dream turns into a nightmare.....

Have I read this before?

Yes, twice. Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins and Stranded by Sarah Goodwin--both of which did this 1,000,000% times better.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read this book.

I was so, so excited for this book. A thriller set on a remote, unhospitable island in the middle of the ocean, with a comparison to one of my favorite environmentally-focused thrillers, Into the Jungle?! Sign me up! It starts off with a bang: a Malaysian navy ship gets a distress call from a catamaran, a woman saying her husband is injured and in dire need of medical attention. The ship sails to them in choppy waters and executes a dramatic rescue of the couple. They find some passports on the catamaran, but none of the passports belong to the couple. When they bring the two on board the navy ship, the woman is in shock and can't communicate what happened to them. Eventually, she calms down and tells the story from the beginning...

And zzzzz. This had the potential to be so high-octane, with tensions between the other individuals at the island mounting slowly, the fear of being stranded, the danger and history of this tiny, uninhabited island all serving to contribute to the thrill. But it wasn't that at all. The tension really came from the couple we meet at the beginning arguing and not trusting each other - the rest of the characters and the island were so tame and minor. I slogged through this hoping for a more entertaining ending, but it wasn't that at all. Super disappointed.

For a book that's shockingly similar to this concept with much, much better execution, I would recommend Rachel Hawkins's Reckless Girls. That book had all of the action and dramatic elements I mentioned above, with a great ending and lots of twists.

Thank you to Gallery Books for the ARC via Netgalley.

A mayday is heard over the ships radio and Captain Danial from a Navy vessel responds and rushes to the yachts aid. He sees a yacht stranded in the Indian Ocean. Aboard is a woman and her badly injured husband. She tells the captain that it is all her fault and she killed them all. The captain can't get much more from the distraught woman, but the registration papers aboard the yacht do not belong to the woman or her husband. The captain leaves some of his crew to search the yacht for answers and when they discover another person, the story becomes even more of a mystery.
Sometimes a paradise island is not what it seems.
I really enjoyed this book. The characters were easy to identify with and the words flowed well. I think it was make a terrific movie.
Thanks go out to the author, publisher and Netgalley for my ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC. This book was really slow in parts and it was hard to remain interested in it, I got maybe to the halfway point before I had to give up.

I can’t say I like it or hate it. It was very slow in most parts and I was losing focus. And the ending took a long time for me to get there. Some readers might find it enjoyable if you like slow burn thriller about a newlywed leaving city life, bought a boat and starting a new life with twists.

Deep Water by Emma Bradford is a psychological thriller that has your attention from the first page until the last. Jake and Virginie realize their dream to sail to exotic and remote places while still young. When they land on a beautiful and remote island with beautiful beaches and clear water, they think they have found Paradise. They discover a few other people living there who have established a code of conduct as they share resources. At first all goes well, but it doesn’t take long before a crack develops among their friendships. Jake and Virginie find themselves fearing for their lives as they discover what “remote” means. I highly recommend this book for readers who love a psychological thriller.

*Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review. Pub date: May 31, 2022

A navy ship comes across a small sailing yacht in distress in the middle of nowhere—an unconscious man and the wife who signaled for help are brought aboard and when the Captain questions what happened, Virginie can only manage to say that it was all her fault and she killed them all. We then travel back in time to Virginie’s narrative of the months leading up to this point. This tale is gripping at first and will have you tearing through the pages to figure out what happened—unfortunately the middle 50% dragged on as we got into daily life on Amarante—with Virginie’s naïveté increasingly frustrating. I loved coming back to present day to get back to the Captains perspective and the final twists are a page turner.

Deep Water by Emma Bamford

Published: May 31, 2022
Gallery/Scout Press
Pages: 320
Genre: Psychological Fiction
KKECReads Rating: 4/5
I received a copy of this book for free, and I leave my review voluntarily.

Emma Bamford is the author of the thriller Deep Water, due in 2022, and the sailing memoirs Casting Off and 
Untie the Lines. She is also a journalist and has worked for the Independent, the Daily Express, the Mirror, Sailing Today, and BOAT International. She spent three years living on yachts exploring the world, which has inspired much of her writing so far.  She lives in the UK and is working on her next novel.

“Paradise ends when guilt begins.”

Virginie and Jake are newlyweds, setting out on the adventure of a lifetime. They’ve bought an older yacht and are going to sail. When someone mentions a remote but beautiful island, Virginie wants to go. She yearns for the gorgeous beach and peace. When they arrive, they are surprised to find two other boats already there. Joining this ragtag group started as a peaceful community. Until the fourth boat arrived.

I enjoyed how this story was told. The mix of formal and informal storytelling and the mixing of past and present. It was beautifully told.

The characters were all well defined, and I loved the adventurer spirit they each embodied in different ways.

The idea of setting sail and living on a 36 foot yacht does not sound appealing, and I enjoyed how in-depth this novel went in explaining the various ways to care for a boat.

The scenic descriptions mixed with the historical stories were stunning. I could also feel the heat on my face and see the remains of the prison.

This was a slow burn, with several fast-moving scenes. The intensity went from zero to one hundred several times and kept me glued to the pages.

This is a story about fresh starts, forgiveness, and letting yourself live. It’s a story about love, friendship, and adventure. It’s a story about hope.

Giving up their mundane life at home a couple gives up everything for life on the water in paradise. But their experience is anything but that and things start to go horribly wrong.

This book had a lot of potential. I hadn’t read a book with this type of backdrop of yacht living so I was excited! The biggest problem that I had with this book was that whenever there was a point of view change it would sometimes take me a while to figure out the point of view the story was being told from, especially towards the end. I think this happened for me because the book was separated into parts based on destination instead of by character. Towards the end I was just skimming because I wanted it to be over and I hate to say that, I so wanted to love it! Thank you NetGalley and Scout Press and Gallery Books Group for the chance to read this book!

I really found this book difficult to become full immersed in until about 80% through the story. The book was well written but dragged out in many places. The characters for the most part were easy to empathize with although there were several with unsympathetic qualities. The storyline was interesting but I would have found it more enjoyable as a novella.

The trip of a lifetime! The thing you have always dreamed of...getting on a yacht and cruising to your deserted island paradise. Just the thing that Vee and Jake are excited to do until the unthinkable happens. I liked the premise of the book, although it reminded me somewhat of Reckless Girls by Racheal Hawkins. It also seemed to drag in the beginning for me, I put it down several times to read another book before coming back to it. It is scary that even when a group of people are on their own, they always seem to feel the need for some kind of rules, for keeping everyone in line. Instead of enjoying themselves, there is always a leader who sets tasks for others and tries to think of ways to punish them if the chores are not carried out. So however secluded you think you are, isn't it really just like being at home? Nothing changes. Society is always there to cast a pall on things. Did I feel connected with the characters? I don't think that I really liked any of them, except for the dog. Thanks for the chance to read it.

I was super interested in this book when I received it, and the first few chapters were promising, but then it just... stopped being interesting, I guess. The description of the islands and the other boats reminded me a little bit of Reckless Girls, but definitely not as well done. I didn't like any of the characters, and in particular thought Virginie was kind of an idiot. I guess this fits into the "slow burn" category, but for me nothing really happened and I didn't like that. I wish more attention had been given to the mysterious ruins on the island, as they seemed just kind of glanced-over. I also thought the last chapter was real annoying and I rolled my eyes a lot.
I would not recommend this book to others.

Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery Books for the ARC!

I'm a sucker for books on deserted islands because I know it will never be a delightful experience for the characters! Virginie and Jake set sail for an island they've never heard of instead of Thailand after meeting a stranger in the local bar. When they arrive, they meet three other couples and instantly form friendships as they begin to socialize and can't believe their luck in paradise. But of course nothing is as blissful as it appears and soon there are minor spats and not following "the rules" they have all agreed upon. Charm turns to creepiness as Virginie senses something isn't right and longs to repair her relationship with her husband...but you know how these things go! Swim in blind and enjoy this romp...oh, and be careful planning your next vacation!
Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC!