Need a thrilling read? Take a trip to The Island; Hulu is making the book into a limited series.
It was a big decision: Stick with watching the feelgood Hallmark Christmas movies that will soon come to an end or tear myself away to dive into a not-so-feely, yet intriguing novel I discovered on TikTok?
I agonized over this quandary more than I am comfortable admitting, but in the end, my curiosity got the better of me; I was going with The Island.
Written by Adrian McKinty (my first time to read this author), The Island was the New York Time’s Best Thriller of 2022.
Stephen King called it, “Unrelenting suspense,” while T.J. Newman gave it a curt “extraordinary.”
One of those fancy book reviewers even called it “pulse-pounding.”
They weren’t wrong; my pulse never stopped pounding.
The Island centers on Heather Baxter, a 24-year-old woman who marries Tom, an older widower with two difficult children still stinging from their mother’s passing.
The newly-formed family takes a trip from their home in Seattle to Australia, where Tom, an orthopedic surgeon, is set to give a presentation.
When the kids become bored during the working vacation, they beg Tom to take them to see koalas and kangaroos and end up on a remote Dutch island run by a tightly-knit clan of locals.
Big mistake.
A deadly accident followed by a string of bad decisions quickly turns the family’s vacation into a vicious nightmare; one that has them fighting for survival on a remote island far from the reach of WiFi.
After whipping through the first half of the book, I got spooked enough to put it down.
I crawled under the blankie and prayed for deliverance; hoping the Sugar Plum Fairies would start dancing in my head rather than a family of four trying to escape the dark clutches of “Ma,” who you should expect to see in your nightmares.
That woman is bad.
Hulu has acquired the rights to develop The Island into a limited series and I can hardly wait.
Here’s a little YouTube trailer about the book you might find interesting.
Anyway, 2024 could bring an online book club to Beneath the Surface News. Let me know if you're interested.
Meanwhile, download a copy of The Island to your Kindle and plan to be thoroughly entertained.
