Island Time
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: Romance / LGBTQ
Format: Kindle eBook
Date Published: 6/14/22
Author: Georgina Clark
Publisher: Atria Books
Pages: 416
Goodreads Rating: 3.48

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for providing a digital advanced readers copy of the book for me to read for my honest opinion.

Synopsis: The Kellys are messy, loud, loving Australians. The Lees are sophisticated, aloof, buttoned-up Americans. They have nothing in common…except for the fact that their daughters are married. When a nearby volcano erupts during their short vacation to a remote tropical island off the coast of Queensland, the two families find themselves stranded together for six weeks.

My Thoughts: The story is narrated by many characters, nine of them, from their own perspective, personally, I found it confusing at time to know who was talking about what and could not connect with any one character. The story seemed a little long with 70 chapters and over 400 pages; sometimes with a lot of chapters, the chapters are shorter, however, here some of the chapters are long, just making the book drag a bit. The book is classified as a romance novel, but I believe it would be better classified as fiction. Now for the good, it is a charming story. Stuck on an island, it really gives you an opportunity to reflect where you have been in your life and where you are going. I loved that it was a spin on LGBTQ. The setting was amazing, an island in Australia and the description was absolutely beautiful, and I felt really connected to the scene. I usually love Clark’s writing style so I would definitely check out future (and past) novels by this author.

Amelia is a hopeless romantic hoping to introduce her boyfriend (and hopefully future husband) to her whole family during a fancy weekend getaway on an island off the coast of Queensland, Australia. Her older sister, Matty, and Matty's wife Parker are planning to use the weekend as a stopover on their way to moving to Sydney, where they hope to start a family of their own. Matty and Amelia's parents, Jules and Glen Kelly, and Parker's parents, Ludmilla and Randall Lee, are also there in an attempt for the two families to get to know each other better and - hopefully - get along better. On the island with them is Liss, a French Canadian nursing a broken heart while working on the island, and Jorrah, a native Australian man on the council that oversees the island. But plans change when an earthquake triggers a tsunami, cutting the island off from the mainland and stranding the group for six weeks. Relationships are tested and new ones develop as the group gets to know one another and their island surroundings.

This book is a weird mix of serious drama, disaster fiction, tropical romance, and family dramedy. I didn't feel like it really nailed any of those genres and the various characters and perspectives made the storytelling somewhat choppy. It is clear that Clark loves Queensland and the islands there from the way she writes about the flora and fauna of the island - Max, a gigantic huntsman spider, is a highlight but don't google pictures, it is terrifying - but it doesn't always fit well with the rest of narrative. The tone is uneven, moving from the terror of a tsunami that almost kills the characters to a pretty cushy aftermath where food and water is still easily accessible and plentiful, from relationship high drama to romcom ridiculousness. The characters are not terribly sympathetic or likeable - I liked Glen and Liss but the rest were all pretty awful or one-dimensional. The book tackles important topics like queer identity and relationships and parenthood and there were some pretty good scenes - the Guess Who? game and Glen's transformation into an emotionally-present father come to mind - but this one just wasn't for me. It isn't a light read even thought it was marketed as a romantic comedy and the humor is often cringy. 2.5 stars, rounding down.

Thank you Atria Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read Island Time early in exchange for an honest review.

At this time for me this book was a DNF. I tried to get into it but it was so slow at the beginning and a little all over the place. Right not not for me but maybe another time.

I will be posting my thoughts today on my Instagram story @manas_library!

There is so much going on in this story that I loved. Starting with this family meeting on an island for a getaway and getting stuck. It was the perfect mix of family dynamics, finding new friendships and new loves, exploring an island and weathering the challenges. It wasn't at all what I expected but in such a good way. The characters were limited which meant I felt like I got to know them all intimately. I loved that they each had their own thing and it felt like I got to sit back and watch them become the people they were always meant to be. The author does an incredible job if detailing the island, the animals and the weather that allows you to picture this place perfect. Would highly recommend and will definetely be seeking more stories from this author!!!

The Kellys’ take their family trip to a small island off Queensland for some rest and relaxation. Not long after their arrival, a volcano erupts and suddenly the family is stranded for 6 weeks along with two employees.

This was a little different than I anticipated, I was thinking more romance and it is more a family drama/fiction. The story was told from multiple points of view including Amelia, Liss, Amelia’s parent, Amelia’s sister, and a few more. This book made me want to go on vacation, just not to a small deserted island. 😂😂

This was my first read by Georgia Clark and I went in totally blind.

I was immediately excited to learn of the setting, Lady Lush - an island off the coast of Australia. It was remote and quite exotic. Amelia Kelly and her sister have organized a beach vacation for their families to meet and spend time together. When a tsunami hits the island, the family is stranded there for six weeks. During the time on the island there are certainly some unexpected events. Each character struggles with who they are at heart and what they truly want to get out of their lives. This uninterrupted time on Lady Lush allows for lots of time for fights and fun, breakups and hookups. I really loved that Amelia just had a big open heart ready to love. I loved that the girls were nicknamed "Animal" and "Sausage". Lots of fun little touches like that. I will definitely read more books by this author.

Unfortunately I just couldn’t get into this one. The main character annoyed me from the first page and I just couldn’t get excited about picking the book up. Thank you netgalley for my free copy.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review

I really really wanted to love this book. And I tried really hard to but it just was not for me. One big plus is how lgbtq+ positive it is, but that was the most positive aspect.

Looking at the book one is sucked in by the gorgeous cover. I expected a rom-com with this one but it does deal with some really heavy, deprerssing stuff. I would recommend looking at trigger warning if you plan on reading this book.

Also there were wayyyy too many POVs to keep track of for me.

Unfortunately I can only give this one 2.5 stars :(

Loved this book! Perfect summer read/post-semester read. Georgia Clarke, you did it again. You created a story that allowed me to escape outside of my four walls.

I have truly loved Georgia Clark's other novels and, for whatever reason, had an extremely difficult time staying interested in this latest release. Timing is usually everything for me, when it comes to choosing successful reads, so I will likely return to this in the future; in the meantime, I will put this one down and try something different. The author's writing and characters are always enjoyable, but this story seems to move at a bit slower pace than some of her previous work.

The ocean waves splashed up onto the grainy sand, sending soft shimmers of sparkling water up the coast. A humid, tropical breeze lifted the hair from her shoulders, wrapping her in a calming embrace. The local wildlife rustled in the nearby trees, the lush foliage providing a home for many species. This place was paradise and all she needed was someone special to share it with.

Island Time is a romance set on a remote island where we get to meet two families who get stranded for six weeks due to a volcanic eruption. This leads to some tension and of course… love.

While I loved the setting and enjoyed getting to experience the island life and learning about its indigenous history as well as getting beautiful details about its wildlife… I found the amount of characters was just too much. There were too many separate stories going on and I would have rather had the focus on one or two of the characters. The main romance was also an insta-love, which isn’t my favorite. Overall the writing was beautiful, just a little over the top with all of the characters.

If you’re a tropical island setting, forced proximity, insta-love fan with a cute bisexual/lesbian romance… then you should give this story a read!

This book was SOOO much fun! I was so lucky to have been given an ARC of this one and soared right through it! It's actually one that I saw the summary for and sought out to request because I thought it sounded so good. I was absolutely not disappointed. I also really loved the cover for this one! Great representation of the characters!


The story follows a family along with their daughter's wife and in-laws. It's somewhat of a motley crew as everyone has their own quirks. Long story short, the gang heads out on a vacation together and wind up getting stranded on the island following a volcanic eruption. It's just the seven of them plus the island's caretaker.

Basically, the story is really about each character individually, how they get along (or don't) and how they manage their problems. I really loved how Clark chose to show each character's perspective. It really gave the reader a deeper understanding of the situations going on between characters, seeing them from multiple points of view.

There's a lot of drama, plenty of comic relief, a beautiful setting and relatable characters. I also really appreciated Clark's commitment to the island story, almost as it's own character. With two of the character's having a high interest in botany and bird watching, it made sense putting in facts about the environment. I loved being educated while being entertained!

This book got an easy five stars from me. It was interesting and fun with a unique writing style that kept me hooked! And OHHH the drama! I really have nothing bad to say about this (except Jules was definitely not my favorite of the bunch and made me yell a few times lol.) Looking forward to reading more from the wonderful Georgia Clark!

Island Time comes out Tuesday, June 14, 2022!

I really enjoyed Georgia Clark's previous novel It Had to Be You and how she expertly wrote such a large ensemble cast and interwove the narratives of so many different characters and couples--yet in Island Time, I didn't feel that happened at all. She had the same huge ensemble cast and nine POVs, whew! While like I said she handled the POVs of a large number of characters beautifully in her previous book, this time the POVs didn't change seamlessly, they didn't weave together well, and the transitions were a bit jarring. It didn't help that the characters were all pretty annoying, especially sisters Amelia and Matty and their mother Jules. It doesn't help that the book is 400+ pages either, and it really could have been edited down quite a bit, preferably with some of the characters gone so others could get more attention since as it is, you never really get to know anyone in the story.

Thank you NetGalley and Atria Books for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

-Review posted to Goodreads on 6/7/22

I wanted to really like this book. I got sucked in with the beautiful cover art and the LGBTQ+ theme. I thought it’d be a perfect book to kick of Pride month. Unfortunately, that is where the pros end for me.

I could not get into this book. The biggest con for me was that there are 9 different POVs and I quite frankly didn’t like any of the characters. The POV would change frequently and without warning, I had a hard time following who was speaking.

I give this book ⭐️⭐️.

Thank you to Netgalley for this ARC copy of Island time in exchange for my honest opnion.

First, I adore Georgia Clark.
There was so much going on in this book when all these characters are stuck on an island for six weeks!
So much family drama! And while it all gets resolved by the end of the book, I did not see those solutions being taken so I was surprised. Also, sometimes I liked the characters and sometimes I didn't. I think that shows an incredible depth of character development. (Light spoiler) Although, I still think Liss deserves better than Amelia...
I hope there is a sequel in the future just to see where all the different characters end up, I feel like they were all just starting new growth by the end of the book. Although my favorite character was probably Glen, ha!
Maybe don't read if you are stuck on an island...

The first half of this book was a slow burn. There was so many times I wanted to give up, but I pushed through the first half and it did get better. There were quite a few characters with a lot of unnecessary information about each character that took up a lot of the first half. The second half become more interesting and gives you those happy island vibes. Reading the authors notes gave me more of an appreciation for this book due to her writing Island Time while she was stuck in New York by herself during covid. She wishes she could of been home with her family which lives on an island like mun’dai. Thank you NetGalley and Georgia Clark for the advanced copy of Island Time, this book gave me a whole new appreciation for family during hard times.

Books about complex family dynamics featuring an ensemble cast tend to either land perfectly for me or make me want to rip my hair out. It all depends on the individual characters and, unfortunately, I mostly was in a continual state of annoyance with the ones in this book. It gets 3 stars due to being well-written and because the setting was amazing.

The plot revolves around the Kelly family (parents and two daughters) and the Lee family (parents and one daughter) taking a weekend vacation on an isolated Australian island. Matty Kelly and Parker Lee are married and the trip is supposed to help the two families grow closer. There is also the island caretaker (Liss) and an aboriginal man (Jarrah) who helps manage the island. A nearby volcano erupts unexpectedly and what was supposed to be a weekend getaway becomes a 6-week stay. As you can imagine, THINGS HAPPEN.

I liked about 50% of the 9 characters. I enjoyed the character growth of Glen Kelly and Ludmila Lee and the friendship between Randall Lee and Glen. I spent 99% of the book annoyed with Amelia Kelly, Matty Kelly, and Jules Kelly and was ambivalent towards Parker Lee and Liss. Jarrah felt a little too much like a “magical negro” thrown in by the author as a token aboriginal filled with wisdom. He never became a complete character in his own right except in relation to how the other characters responded to him. His attraction to Jules was completely baffling to me as was Liss’s attraction to Amelia who was supposed to be in her 30s but acted like someone in their early 20s. I could honestly write a thesis on my problems with Amelia.

The island setting was great. I learned a lot about a part of the world I knew very little about (thank you, Jarrah, for that). This book is billed as a romance which is misleading as, in my opinion, any romantic plots were purely secondary to the overall theme of family dynamics. I loved that the author wove two different LGBTQ+ relationships into this story and I think there are many people who will really enjoy this book but I had a tough time with the characters and, unfortunately, this is a character-driven novel.

The second book for this post is Island Time by Georgia Clark. This book is a new sub-genre for me. It is an LGBTQ+ romance. In the book, the Kelly family, who are from Australia, and the Lee family from the US are on a tropical island off the coast of Queensland together. Why are they together? Matty Kelly met Parker Lee in New York City. They fell in love and got married. While the parents are not so crazy about each other, they both love their daughters. Amelia Kelly is also with her family on the trip. As the story opens, she is waiting for her boyfriend to come to the island to join the family and, she hopes, announce his intention to marry her. While the island can accommodate more people, the Kellys and the Lees are the only guests at this time. Liss, is the staff person on the island, there to help if anything is needed and to give information about the island.

This trip to the island is a prequel to Matty and Parker moving to Sydney. Matty is scheduled to start her route to getting pregnant when they get to Sydney. Jules Kelly, Matty and Amelia’s Mom, is in support of this and has made most of the arrangements. Shortly before the trip, Jules announced to her husband that their marriage was over but that they would not tell the girls until they were all home from the island. Gary is not sure he agrees with this idea. He thinks it would be better to tell the girls the truth right away, but Jules has a more dominant personality and has always been the decision-maker. The Lees are not exactly the “roughing it” kind but they are doing this for their daughter.

Then a nearby volcano erupts and the families and the two island employees are stranded on the island for six weeks, the characters havea chance to find out more about themselves and each other. Right after the eruption, another staff person is on the island, his name is Jarrah and he is a member of the Aboriginal tribe that owns the island.

Alright, I think you need to suspend belief on a few points. First of all, they all seem to have phone and internet service the entire time. I found this hard to believe. Also, there was electricity most of the time. Since our electricity can go out in a big storm and need the power company to come out and fix it, I find it hard to believe that this remote island had power.

Getting past that, the time on the island gives the characters time to learn more about each other and themselves. Yes, there are TWO love stories that start on the island. One that shows some potential and the other hits a setback, but it could continue.

The book was okay. It held my attention and moves along fairly well. But it is a good summer beach read. It just isn’t boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy and girl kiss and makeup. It does show that all couples have issues and can resolve them or not.

So much potential in this one. But there was no spark and right away it was lacking something. Also, very early on the characters were extremely confusing. Incredible cover and great plot idea though. Would’ve loved a better execution.

Georgia Clark is the queen of ensemble romances! I was absolutely smitten by the magic and joy and authenticity of this delightful story about the Kelly and Lee families. What starts as a long weekend in a secluded tropical paradise ends up being a 6 week stay after a nearby volcanic eruption strands them. Forced to spend time together and pool their resources, each member of these families is undergoing their own personal transformations as well. I loved the explorations into themes of marriage, career, partnership, romance, starting over, and parenthood. As much as this was a romance, this story also beautifully empathized that your relationship with yourself is perhaps the most important of all and that it’s never too late to live the life you want to live. I was charmed and frustrated by these characters and ultimately left feeling hopeful with a smile on my face by their resilience. The vivid descriptions of the island and its equally stunning and powerful nature also captivated me and made the perfect backdrop for this story.

Thank you so much to @atriabooks + @netgalley for my advanced reader copy.