Loved the reality show idea but with murder. This book was twisty and a pretty fun read. I look forward to the author`s next read.

I received an advanced copy of this book from LBA books.
This book reminded me of a recent reality show I watched called the vault. Players compete and go against eachother for prize money.
In this book it starts out as the most iconic six people competing for money on an island for onw month with no outside contact. They are in their own world. Stcuk with eachother. They are watched 24/7 and anyone can view them live. The six "icons" compete for viewers popularity, daily and weekly challenges. With two standing out more than the others, Ryes Sutton and Araminta. Ryes is nothing more than a backup actor claiming to be the best where as all the other contestants can be seen as true icon status. Ryes doesn't care though. He seems to let everything roll off his shoulders and smile at life. He quickly shows his true colors and brings the majority of the house to hate him. This ultimately brings him to his demise. Everyone is so sick of him and how much of an a-hole he is, someone switches his pills for one's he is allergic to. Someone switches his cigarettes for one's laced with coke. Ryes claims he has never touched a drug in his life. Between a possible allergic reaction, being high, a punch to the face. Ryes falls to his death off a cliff. If he had been less of an ass the grasp of someone's hand wouldn't have let go on that cliff. The person who saved him in the water wouldn't have pulled him under bringing him to shore.
So who is the most iconic after all? Who wins this prize? Well I see it to be no one else but Ryes.

Overall the book seemed dragged out and needed more of an interruption between the show, tweets, and role of the cops.
The book ends with no one being nailed for the murder or Ryes, when really they all played a part, they all should feel guilty, but why should iconic people feel anything?
The last episode reveals all.

Thank you NetGalley and SOURCEBOOKS Landing for the eARC.
Unfortunately I didn't like this book at all. Reality TV is not something I watch, but thought a book with spoiled celebrities and a murder on an island could be fun. It wasn't. I found the people horrible and the story too long and boring. Definitely not for me.

The writing style has been controversial in the reviews I’ve seen, but it really worked for me. I’m not sure it needed to be 400 pages, but that definitely did help build the tension.
The ending made everything make sense, I just wish it kept going a bit further into the future. I’m greedy for answers I suppose.

This was such a breath of fresh air, I didn't expect to love as much as I did. This was fast and kept me binging until th every last page

This needed more tension, for sure, but the real problem is that none of the characters have a single redeeming quality. I found myself thinking the show runners should have just stopped delivering food and let it play out...

2.5 - not gonna lie, I’m kinda bummed. The premise of this book sounded so fun, mixing a reality show with a murder mystery, but it ended up falling flat.

1. The reality show didn’t sound like one that people would actually care about in real life? The challenges were so bland and had such a frivolous point system. the show started with only 6 cast members, with no clear indication that people would be eliminated at all, and yet they were repeatedly worrying about being sent home? The entire premise just doesn’t feel strong enough to reach the Love Island, Big Brother, or insert-whatever-staple-reality-show’s status, like it’s portraying it does. Also… I just really didn’t care about *any* of the cast members. And it’s hard to feel invested when you aren’t rooting for any of the characters

2. The formatting took me out of the story every chapter. Switching from the island to the Tweets to the police station always felt kind of jarring and made me wish the story was blended better. I get why including the police investigation is important, but I really did ~not~ care about the drama subplot the police offers had. It just felt like it further pulled from the main storyline without adding any real value.

3. The ending?? That’s it?? The book felt like it was dragging on until I hit 70%, then by the time I was on the last few pages it all wrapped up and just said bye! 👋 It didn’t go back to the police investigation or anything, making me feel like the story isn’t actually resolved. Sure we find out what happened to Rhys, but the story itself somehow feels open ended (but not in an intentional way).

Overall, I think the book really had promise - I just don’t think it was executed as well as I hoped :/ nonetheless, thank you to NetGalley & Sourcebooks Landmark for the opportunity to read this arc

This was a cool premise but the writing style fell a bit flat for me. It centers on 6 young and famous/quasi-famous people who join a reality show on a remote island to win a prize. All 6 characters are truly unlikable but it's kind of neat to have a look behind the curtain of a reality show like that. We know from the beginning that one of them dies, so the story cuts between the action on the show to social media posts to the police investigation into the murder. The story flows between these 3 areas without any break, which I found jarring and somewhat distracting at times.

As mentioned, these characters were all pretty awful and though the book gave us some insight into their inner thoughts, it didn't make them any more likable. I also found the challenges they were asked to do to almost seem like an afterthought- I wish the author had put some more effort into coming up with appropriate challenges. Though I did get into the book more in the second half, I was still a little bored at so much inner narrative versus action, and I didn't think the parts about the police investigation added anything to the story. The ending was somewhat satisfying and I felt like it tied up loose ends.

Overall, I didn't love this one but it mostly held my interest and was a unique play on the island reality show trope. Thanks to Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This novel picks up the trend of reality shows featuring young people sequestered on a remote island and runs with it. Six people are transported to an island off Portugal to compete for the main prize in “Iconic”. The group includes a celebrity chef, an actor, a frontman for a band, an activist/social justice warrior, a tech bro, and a socialite famous for doing nothing – sounds about right! And just like those reality shows, the contestants all have secrets they would prefer not to discuss. All the key elements of a good reality show exist on the island…sexual tension, jealousy, greed, deception, mistrust and anger. It is a toxic mix which results in a sudden death which Portuguese investigators consider suspicious. But can they figure out which one is the killer before the network airs the finale?

This novel sounds like a guilty pleasure and it is! Humans are voyeurs and we love to observe others behaving badly, which this book delivers. Sex? Check. Manipulation and betrayal? Check. Greed and sabotage? Check. The plot is reminiscent of an Agatha Christie novel. Can you guess which one? No spoilers so I cannot give it away. I quite enjoyed this novel and I cannot think of a better one to take on beach vacation. So if you are planning a fall beach getaway, pick this one up when it comes out in August 2024.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for providing this book, with my honest review below.

Bea Fitzgerald has written an exciting mystery with Then Things Went Dark, full of unlikeable characters and a fascinating plot.

Centered on an island off the coast of Portugal, we meet six contestant on a reality show competition that make up the personalities of the show, Iconic. All have some things to hide as we know from the start a murder has occurred on the show. We follow perspectives of the episodes (all characters view points), social media from the fans, and the detectives investigating the case. There was no one to root for amongst the cast but it made the story more fascinating as you wished anyone and everyone could be implicated at several different points.

It’s hard to go into more details with spoiling some things, but suffice to say this is worth the read if you want a more unique premise to your murder mysteries and to get drawn in to some of the dark sides people have. The only thing I didn’t enjoy was the subplot going into the detectives activities not directly related to the mystery, as I found it unnecessary. Recommended for locked room murder mystery fans and those who crave a good thriller.

This is full of drama but pretty anticlimactic. I was entertained because I love reality tv shows and that’s what this book is about however the purpose of the show made no sense to me and the point system with the random challenges would not be something people would actually watch in real life. 😂 Also, island thrillers are so overdone right now!!!

This riveting thriller takes reality TV to a whole new level, offering a salacious edge that keeps you on the edge of your seat. The cast of hot-headed contestants, hungry to prove themselves on a desert island reality show, sets the stage for a dramatic competition where losing is not an option. However, when one of them dies on camera, the remaining contestants find themselves at the center of a crime that millions witnessed.

The narrative expertly navigates the aftermath, with the best friend, rival, girlfriend, lover, and sworn enemy left standing as suspects. The tension builds as the world watches, and the contestants must grapple with the weight of secrets and motives. The author skillfully explores the complexities of human relationships, jealousy, and the consequences of living in the spotlight.

'Then Things Went Dark' is a thrilling ride that keeps you guessing until the very end, showcasing the dark underbelly of reality television and the price of fame. A must-read for fans of suspenseful and salacious mysteries.

Six celebrities (after a fashion) land on an isolated island off the coast of Portugal, cameras following their every move. There's a lot of money on the line—and they all have their reasons, financial and otherwise, to be there.

What they can't predict going in: Not all of them will make it out alive.

What they really should have predicted: Everyone, surviving and not, will be pretty miserable by the end.

We all know the basics of this plot—what is a locked-room reality television show but a chance to watch people being forced into uncomfortable situations while we chomp on our popcorn? As a rule, I don't enjoy most reality TV, but...I enjoy reading about a lot of things that I don't enjoy watching, so here we are.

The book shifts back and forth: the days the cast spends on the island, and the aftermath, as they're being interviewed (repeatedly) by Interpol. Interpol has a tougher job than usual—because the whole world, more or less, has seen this death play out and the events that preceded it, and the whole world (again, more or less) has opinions. At its best, the book makes for incisive commentary on reality television and how society views the participants; there's an epic amount of Schadenfreude in the commentary we see from the show's viewers online, yes, but there's also the way the show itself delights in exploiting every raw nerve and doing its utter best to tear the contestants to the ground. "Iconic", that's the stated goal—but iconic for what reasons, and at what cost?

Now...to enjoy this book properly, you have to enjoy reading about unpleasant people being unpleasant. I did not take that into consideration when I picked the book up, and that was definitely to my detriment while reading. (My preference is to be hoping with bated breath that the characters *won't* die rather than hoping with bated breath that they'll *all* die, and soon...) This is mitigated somewhat by the social-commentary angle, but even then it's hard to find characters to root for. (About the borderline satirical B plot, between the Interpol agents—the less said, the better.) Now, whether finding a character to root for is the *point*...well, that's another question entirely.

There's a whodunnit angle here, but I'd say that that's also rather besides the point. I guessed at some, but not all, of the details of how things would turn out, but I think this is better read as something much more meta than a simple 'who is guilty, who is innocent, and who might or might not get away with murder'.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Then Things Went Dark is like Daisy Jones and the Six meets Cara Hunter's Murder in the Family. If you like stories that are told across a variety of formats — like TV episodes and social media commentary — you should definitely check out this book. The multiple POVs and cast of unlikable characters did make it a little hard to stay engaged, but the mystery was still very fun to unravel.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

An enjoyable twist on the reality TV show/trapped on an island together tropes. I can't say I enjoyed the characters--every one of them was terrible on their own, let alone together, but the writing and concept kept pulling me along to want to know how it all ended, and find out who killed Rhys.

Then Things Went Dark appealed to me because of its reality show premise and its murder mystery element. Unfortunately, it fell flat in its execution. I struggled with the narrative style, more tell than show, which prevented me from forming any real connection to the characters. I found the jumps between episodes and the murder investigation to be sudden and jarring. I wish there had been some sort of page break or different format, like the social media posts, to help with that shift in perspective. I also found the plot to be a bit slower paced than other murder mysteries which made it hard to focus my attention and reading felt like work. Overall, while I was intrigued by the plot, the story failed to pull me in.

Thank you to Netgalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Then Things Went Dark truly reads like a reality tv show in book format. Filled with scheming, secrets, scandals, & betrayal, none of the characters are particularly likable, which is pretty typical with most reality tv. The drama is half the fun! It was a little difficult to follow with the unique formatting: jumping between the “tv episodes”, the investigation, the social media comments, etc. The drawn out commentary and dialogue caused it to be a slower moving read, but the mystery and build-up of the whodunnit style story kept me intrigued until the end. I’d read another reality tv style ARC recently so there was some concern about the lines blurring, but this one had such a unique premise and writing style that it really held its own.

Thank you to NetGalley & Sourcebooks Landmark for the opportunity to read this digital ARC in exchange for my honest thoughts.

This book grabs your attention so fast and holds onto it through the entire book. It is so well written with so many twist and turns - you don’t know what is going to happen until it happens. Great characters and story.

Then Things Went Dark reads like a juicy reality TV show. None of the characters were particularly likeable which is necessary for this type of story, but this also makes it hard to be fully invested in the story. Normally I try to find at least one character to like and root for, but I just couldn't in this book. Yet at the same time I couldn't stop reading this book to find out what happened.

I'm not a huge fan of reality TV shows and I think this book will be more enjoyable for those that enjoy the drama and unlikeable characters.

Thanks to Netgalley and SOURCEBOOKS Landmark for a digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

The premise of this book sounded so amazing, I was so excited to give it a try. Unfortunately the multiple POV's did not work for me in this one and some things were just highly confusing. None of the characters are likeable and the writing style just did not do it for me.