A group of employees and their CEO celebrating the sale of emotion tracking AI algorithm, crash onto a not-quite-deserted tropical island.

For those who do survive, they come across a beautifully stocked private palace. The house however has more secrets than anyone might have guessed


This book is for fans of Black Mirror, and I think that it was delivered. However, my biggest complaint was that these people all survived this plane crash, but there’s really no explanation really into what happened with the plane. Why did they go down. But the people who survived just carried on like nothing had happened. I would be a mental mess; on the verge of a breakdown, you can guarantee that. The characters were detached and showed sociopath tendencies. Kristen was a great character and full of depth. It was interesting to see the flashes to the past so I could get to know her more. Really added a lot of understanding.

This book is most certainly a twisted read and one that will make you wonder, and keep you guessing until the last minute.

Glass Houses is a mystery that explores the darker parts of technology and human behaviour. When a start-up team for an AI emotion mapping algorithm are involved in a plane crash, they land on a deserted island, with only a handful of the passengers surviving. On the island, they find an abandoned house with all the latest technology installed but remain unable to contact the outer world. One by one, they start to go missing, and the house they are using as a refuge feels less and less safe by the day.

This book took me a while to really get into. But by the time I was halfway through, I was hooked! Initially, I struggled with the switching between past and present chapters as I didn’t feel I could fully understand either timeline as I didn’t feel I had a deep enough understanding of them. However, as I read on, the events became clearer and I was able to enjoy Glass Houses more. The timelines were woven together well and the book ended in a fantastic crescendo.

"It's always more comforting to believe in conspiracy than chaos." – Glass Houses by Madeline Ashby

⭐⭐⭐/5

⚠️ cw: death, fire injury, sexual content, sexual assault, medical content, toxic relationship, domestic abuse

In the near future, social media dominates people's lives, tech companies pop up like mushrooms, AI is everywhere, and misogyny is still a thing. We follow Kristin as she ends up stranded on a deserted island with her coworkers after their company won an award for their emotion-mapping AI technology. It soon turns out the island is not as deserted as they think, as they take shelter in a mysterious black box-shaped house. Soon, people start going missing, and Kristin starts to form a theory.

I was drawn to the book by its premise and cover, as I had never heard of the author before. The writing flows easily and it's witty, funny, and packed with some great one-liners. The chapters about the stranding are separated by flashbacks to the past, starting from when Kristin joined the company.

This could have easily been a 4⭐ for me, given the concept and execution, if it wasn't for the fact that I spent a big chunk of the book being confused at what was going on and who was speaking. This is probably partly my fault, as it took me a while to finish this and I kept reading it before bed, but it's also due to the fact that there are a lot of names, a lot of time jumps, and very few reminders of who's who.

The ending, while interesting, also felt a bit too far-fetched for me, and not sufficiently signposted, which ended up taking me out at the point in the book when I should have been the most invested.

Overall, if you want something that explores the role of social media in our lives and of minority groups in tech in a way that is both funny and serious, and don't mind doing a bit of legwork creating your own list of characters, then you will probably like this one! Maybe there's still time to add a dramatis personae?

A near future suspense thriller with a start-up tech company crashing on a deserted island just after their millions-making acquisition. What has really gotten them there? Who is the bad guy in this situation? Flashbacks and a unreliable narrator keep you guessing until the end = I really enjoyed this one!

I wanted to love this book so much, I really did. Everything about it appealed to me because I just love sci-fi thrillers, but this fell flat for me and I was ultimately disappointed with it.

I was confused A LOT and it made me feel like this book was too smart for me. It felt like there were things I was supposed to already know and understand without ever having been explained to me. Several times I went backwards to reread something because I assumed that I had missed important information, but there was nothing there to erase my confusion. I also didn't particularly care for any of the characters, I couldn't relate to them and there wasn't anything that endeared them to me. I wish more of the world had been explored further, we are never told when exactly in the future this is set and it seemed like the reader is just expected to understand more about the state of the world than is ever explained and that was frustrating for me. Had more background been given and more time dedicated to world building and less time given to somewhat unnecessary flashbacks, I think the book would've felt more cohesive.

All that said, I did enjoy the story and I was committed enough to finish so that I could figure out what was going on. I thought that the commentary on data selling, privacy and currency all related to our dependency on technology was startlingly relevant, but the twist at the end seemed to come out of nowhere and ultimately seemed unnecessary to the story - it felt added purely as a way to add a layer of shock.

While this one might not have been a hit for me, I do think a lot of people will enjoy it, especially if you enjoy smart, snappy sci-fi with intelligent and relatable social commentary.

I tried to get into this one, but I really struggled with the dialogue in the beginning. I am still really thankful to Tor Books, Madeline Ashby, and Netgalley for granting me advanced digital access to this one before August 13, 2024.

I don't think I'm smart enough for ths book. Seriously. Glass Houses is such a sharp, pointed novel, and I have no doubt Ashby has genius level intelligence.

At the beginning of Glass Houses, a private plane crashes on a deserted island, and the survivors, all part of an AI tech start-up, discover (and enter) a beautiful home. Then people start dying. Kristen, the main character, is a badass, which has helped her progress in her career as a woman in tech, and we follow her story closely in the present as well as in chapters that flashback to her past.

This novel is a thriller, a mystery, a romance, and speculative fiction all rolled into one. Ashby explores heavy themes with finesse: power, gender, good/evil, the role of technology, love. The plot is suspenseful. The characters are gritty. The prose is divine. It's a bit crass, a bit convoluted, and a bit confusing, but again, I think that's just because I'm not smart enough for it.

This novel had it all: interesting and creepy characters, a deserted island, mysterious deaths, and multiple plot twists. Even though most of the time I couldn't put the book down, sometimes I found myself losing interest in the plot because of how predictable some of the revelations were, despite the fact that some of them were unexpected. More explanation of the world would have been helpful; the author provided us with so little information that I occasionally got lost and found it difficult to understand how their world functioned.

Of all the characters, I enjoyed Kristen's character the most, but I do wish we would get to see more of her thought process and the way she grew up. I think it would help us understand her character more, and it would help me determine if she really was a sociopath or if she just went a bit crazy (I believe I know the answer).

I also wish we would get longer chapters about their lives on the island instead of the long chapters about the BEFORE. At times, I found myself skipping over some parts of the past because they were too long and didn't really offer the insight into Kirsten's life I was looking for.

Overall, I would really recommend this book to fans of mystery. It will have you hooked from the beginning until the end!

I would like to thank NetGaley and Tor Publishing Group for giving me a chance to read this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Big thank you NetGalley and to the publisher for the chance to review this book pre-release. I enjoyed this read SO much. I went in with nearly zero expectations, and was very pleasantly surprised! The whole premise felt unique, and actually a little nostalgic for those who grew up watching Smart House on Disney. This is my first read by Ms. Ashby, but it certainly will not be my last! A more formal review will be available on my IG/TikTok and Goodreads.

You know how your work place makes you do mandatory fun? Well imagine yall are on a plane to mandatory fun, when it crashes. Suddenly you are stuck with several people on an island that has a futuristic house. Yall don’t know how you’ll survive and the complexities of this house. This was such a great book. Something I can see being made into a movie or tv show. While it was great, it was EXTREMELY hard to keep up with ALL the characters. By the end I had forgotten some of them. The writing is fantastic , and you can see the research in some of the things discussed in this book.The commentary about sell of data, use of social media, the different issues with our current dependency of technology are great. This novel is the mixture of Lost and Black Mirror. It will be publish on my Fable, Lemon8 and GoodReads

tech turned terror • rating [4] 🛩️🛩️🛩️🛩️

When a company trip turns into an actual practice of the “what would you bring on deserted island” icebreaker, main character Kristin has to fight through the chaos to find out the real agenda of the trip and survive. This story centers around a technology that is maybe not far into the future - an artificial intelligence that is able to map and quantify emotions. This book was a sci-fi Black Mirror/Twilight Zone meets murder mystery Poirot meets Lost - and it definitely retained my interest until the end! It was maybe a little hard for me to wrap my head around the technology of the story but I loved the character development around Kristin - richly complex but satisfyingly kick ass! It was a fun read for sure.

Big thank you to Netgalley and Tor for my e-arc of this book. All opinions are my own!

Really, really enjoyed this one. The near future "Black Mirror-esque" world was spot on. I do think tech companies are partially to blame for a dystopian societal collapse! Believable and a perfect match for my tastes. This book could have been very dark, and it absolutely has it's moments of darkness, but there were moments of satire that had me laughing out loud. The tone here really worked for me, and drew me into the story. There are some great twists and turns - some of them surprising and others pretty clear from the beginning. I'm normally not a big fan of modern thrillers because the twists feel cheap to me. This book did not feel cheap. It felt intentional, smart, and the twists were a welcome continuation to a story that was already good rather than a big reveal you have to sit around and wait for. Endings are hard to land. I did want a little more from this ending but overall, this is a winner for me. A compelling and tense story that also has a lot to say about the ethics and safety of a heavy tech world and future. Definitely recommend it and I'm excited for others to read it!

Wow, this book was compelling!

The pacing was fast and steady. The characters were interesting but also mysterious enough that the twists were believable.

The plotting was good and well structured. I kept wanting more, and turning pages.

The twists sped up and got more and more pleasing.

I really enjoyed this story!

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher, Tor Publishing Group for an advanced copy of this science fiction mystery about a woman who thought that the worst thing that would ever happen to her was in the past, but finds that her present might be much worse.

Tragedy strengthens people in many ways, and leaves mark sometimes physical and sometimes so deep that no one sees it. Shared tragedy makes people think there should be a bond, but people compute events differently. One person might go on to start a business, and maybe some other things. Some might just want to be alone, or keep people at a distance, and not get involved. Surviving is different for people, and surviving sometimes isn't thriving, its just getting by. The biggest fear is that something even worse might happen again, something that will test all those defenses that one has used to pass through life. And hoping that one can survive again. Glass Houses, is a mystery thriller set in the near future that is even more broken then the world we have now, dealing with technology, the cut-throat business world, and the fact that no one can believe their eyes anymore.

The time is the near future on an island that has just had a plane crash on it. Kristen is the Chief Emotional Officer, as her boss calls her, with an ability to handle most problems promptly, not matter how strange. Kristen however has no idea why the plane crashed or how, only awakening covered in blood, mostly not her own. A dip in the ocean causes her to find a body, and her boss Sumter, who also says he has no idea why the plane crashed, but wonders if it could have been corporate sabotage. Sumter's company had just completed a new AI system, an Emotion mapping algorithm that could change everything. Until the plane crash. Sumter and Kristen both share a childhood full of pain, but for different reasons. One that has left scars on Kristen that are both visible, and deep inside. A house and other survivors are found, a house, with lots of technology, and but no way of calling out. And with a lot of odd quirks. Kristen assumes the worst and is soon proven right as things start happening, and the people who survived the plane crash get smaller and smaller.

A bit of Agatha Christie but more The Decagon House Murders with the added twist of technology and business culture. The story is twisty and told in both the past and the present by Kristen who can be a little annoying sometimes. Kristen is smart with problems, but poor in reading people, and can seem not just distant but very removed from situations. This has to do with both her past, and being a women in business, which even a bit into the future is still very anti-female. The world is interesting, like I stated sometime in the future, where things are running even worse than now. The science might be a bit for regular thriller readers, but I liked that aspect and found it an interesting addition to the plot. The story works well, though the leaving of a few character is not quite the loss that it appears, as some of them could grate on the nerves. A taut thriller full of surprises, and quite a bit of oh wow moments.

Glass Houses launched itself to the top of my "oh my god I want to read this as soon as possible" list immediately, so I was thrilled to receive and ARC from TOR and, in a startlingly odd turn of events, was not disappointed! It was even close to being a 5-star read for me. I would actually suggest going into this book as blind as possible, because there are elements of it that move between genre boundaries that I feel are most rewarding when they are less expected. Overall, a fairly smart, pointed and fun read!

The best part about Glass Houses is the world building: Ashby creates a kind-of dystopian world that isn't really elaborated on but feels chillingly real and increasingly imminent with every off hand comment and bit of information given to us. Unexpectedly, most of the action occurs away from settings where a lot of this world building would be realized or seen on page, and I both like and am frustrated by this choice. On the one hand, this distance keeps the worldbuilding tantalizing and strong: like a horror movie monster, it's the kind of thing that feels like it may crumble if elaborated or focused upon too extensively. On the other hand, I'd love to see so much more of it. Despite the stranded nature of the main plot, there is a strong thematic and narrative fit between the two that keeps them from feeling disconnected from or incidental to each other.

There is a great deal of biting social commentary in this novel, and it mostly works! Ashby appears to have put a great deal of thought into technology and the political economy and social and political worlds in which it is produced and operates, and it comes across quite well for most of the book - it feels neither preachy nor underbaked. A lot of the observational or thematic points are salient and powerful and manage to not come off as trite or jejune, which a lot of similar types of stories tend to end up being. The social commentary does feel a touch more tired and superficial towards to end, but by that point I was invested enough that it only slightly turned me off.

The plot itself was engaging and a fun ride to be on, even if it's pretty apparent early on where this is all going. There are a couple plot elements that I didn't fully understand or felt were underdeveloped or unnecessary, mainly the main characters past as a serial killer; I've given this quite some thought and I'm not sure what exactly this adds to the narrative or themes beyond being something shocking and unexpected to reveal. I wouldn't have an issue with that necessarily, except it feels a bit out of nowhere and isn't developed well enough to give it the necessary heft or believability in my opinion, although I am totally open to the possibility that I'll have a different opinion on this once I read through this a second time, which I intent to do.

I wanted to really like this book and I was sucked in pretty early. It was a quick read but there was so many different parts moving throughout this book. There was a lot of plot holes and assumed things the reader should know. The story line of the plane crash on the island with people starting to go missing was the main story line in this book. The tech company parts were way too granular and very hard to comprehend.

_Glass Houses_ by Madeline Ashby is a science fiction mystery/thriller set in the technologically advanced future, written with measured pacing, distant characters, and details of the tech industry specifically focused on the mistreatment of female workers. Kristen is the chief emotional manager at a company run by the rich and eccentric Sumpter, when the plane the employees are on crashes on a remote island. Kristen and the rest of the employees struggle for survival, with flashbacks to before the crash and Kristen’s handling of difficult situations. While Kristen is a distant character that the reader may not feel connected to, she has an intriguing story and the plot keeps the reader enthralled.

Madeline Ashby comes through as usual with this fascinating look at a near-future start-up whose development team crashlands on an island -- an island controlled by a powerful (and not benevolent) entity. Plot twists, social commentary, and a great look at tech bros.

This was probably one of the most unique reads of the year for me. Thriller with a great mix of sci-fi futuristic vibes in there as well. The pace was consistently fast paced and kept you moving through this story. Following what I personally felt were well developed characters in this eerie atmosphere and storyline. I loved our character Kristin.

This absolutely 100% gave me the best Black Mirror vibes and I was here for that! I love the secrets the island keeps and the home they stumble across and love the flashbacks in time throughout this book which do not leave you lost and confused && happen at the perfect moments in the book. This is going to be a summer thriller favorite once released in August! I need more from our author!!!! Put this on your TBR immediately.

Pub Date: August 13, 2024

Thank you @netgalley , @torpublishing and author for the arc in exchange for my honest review.

This book ended up not really being for me, but I think others will enjoy it.

It is advertised as "for fans of Black Mirror," and I can see how it has Black Mirror vibes.

A team from a tech company ends up stranded after a plane crash. They find an odd large glass house on the island that has everything they need, and it is a little too convenient. Someone knows more than they are saying about what is going on.

My issue was mostly that I had a difficult time following this book. There is a lot of futuristic technology involved., which didn't bother me. The plot felt a little jumbled and things felt like they were just happening with no real build up.

The ending also wasn't entirely clear to me.