Alex Marwood has done it again - she has crafted a sly novel that slowly reels you into the dark secrets of what happens to women....

Via two timelines, we learn about island life near Greece, in the 80;'s when a young girl is paid to be a playmate of a very wealthy family and again in 2016 when the wealthy daughter returns to the island and her past paid friend is forced to serve her.

Mercedes was only 12 when her family agrees to a contract for her to play with Tatiana. What might sound like a dream, becomes a cold reality as Tatiana does not play nicely nor treat her toys and her staff well. Many years later Tati returns with a wealthy client and Mercedes is forced to be at her every beck and call. Along the way we meet Robin, a desperate mother searching for her 17 year old daughter who she thinks may be attending a party on the island.

Marwood draws you in with tales of wealth and sunny carefree days, all the while hinting at a very dark and secret plan. If you love mysteries and thrillers and beautiful islands and tales of the rich, The Island of Lost Girls is for you!
#harper #theIslandoflostgirls #AlexMarwood

This story has alternating timelines 15 years apart. In 1985 in La Kastellana 12 year old Mercedes meets 13 year old rich girl Tatiana. The friendship quickly crashes and burns. 15 years later Robin searches the island for her missing daughter Gemma. Girls have been coming up missing there for a while.
This book was very entertaining and hard to put down.
Thanks NetGalley and Harper Perennial and Paperbacks for this ARC that will be released June 13, 2023!

3 stars

This was quite a slow moving book. I’m not sure I would call it a thriller but maybe close. The writing was good, and the story was not quite what I expected, but very solid and kind of sad and too real. I’ll definitely be looking into more of Marwood’s books.

This book was just so-so for me. I figured out the premise and it never felt like anything happened. It was a chore just to finish.

The Island of Lost Girls was my first book by Alex Marwood and it will certainly not be my last. I would hesitate to call this book a thriller but I was certainly captivated by it. At the beginning of the book, Mercedes finds the dead body of her long lost sister Donatella in the ocean. As the book unfolds, we slowly learn how Donatella ended up dead. The book is a searing portrait of sex trafficking. It shows how the rich and powerful lure the most vulnerable of young women (targeting one as she was shoplifting cosmetics). They are promised modeling careers only to be used and abused by powerful men. This story will certainly stay with me for a while.

I definitely did not realize where this book was going when I first started it. Totally threw me for a loop. I would have given this five stars, but the first half of the book was slow moving and a little jumbled.