I don't think I will never not like a Jane Harper book. The mysteries are never that compelling nor particularly thrilling however they are un-put-downable.
I still can't put my finger on what makes them so addictive, maybe it is the author's voice, maybe it is the Australian setting, maybe it's the small-town quiet feel they all have, either way, Jane Harper is a complete auto-buy author for me.

4* making it a great read on my scoring system. It’s a slower paced entertaining read.
🎧audio book version. The narrator is very good. Easy listening.
Keiran returns home with his girlfriend Mia and their baby.
He is living with the consequences of bad choices he made as a teenager when lives were lost including his brother Finn trying to rescue him from caves during a storm. When he was young his friend died in the sea in mysterious circumstances, now a woman has died.
He is still making bad choices as an adult taking his baby to the dangerous caves, leaving her on the beach alone while he goes swimming. Why he would do that when he could have left her with Mia is beyond me. Perhaps a misplaced trust of the historical safety of the area?
It’s a very good story, with things being revealed along the way.
My only negative is that I found the telling of the story too slow in places and found my attention drifting on occasion.

This one started out strong and I was excited to listen as I loved the narrators Australian accent and easy listening voice. But that’s kind of where it ended and I’m not sure what to say about it. I found it a bit long and drawn out and it really didn’t keep my attention. I found my mind wondering and then I’d have to rewind. It really lacked drama and the suspense that urges the listener to continue on. I felt like it was just going around in circles. Wasn’t for me...

Thanks to Netgalley and Hachette UK Audio for the opportunity to listen and review this ARC that was published on the 23rd of Sept.

An audio book review for The Survivors by Jane Harper. Kieran, his wife and child have returned to his hometown of Evelyn Bay, Tasmania. Twelve years previously two people died in a storm and the local community still hold Kieran accountable for it.
Not long after his return, a young woman is murdered and gossip begins to circulate and memories come flooding back to haunt. Is there a connection?
There are red herrings and clues in this audio book to keep the reader guessing. However, I did struggle a little connecting with some of the characters and the story was very complicated at points. But Jane Harper’s descriptions are second to none - the caves, the ocean, the beach - I could imagine it all!
The narration was performed by Stephen Shanahan which was excellent - a perfect union for a Jane Harper book. Thank you to Netgalley and to Hachette audio for my gifted copy.

The Survivors is set on the coast in Tasmania where Kieran returns to his hometown, a local community that was devastated after a previous tragedy. The audiobook is read beautifully by Stephen Shanahan. I love Jane Harper's atmospheric writing and she beautifully conjures up a sense of place. I did ultimately find this disappointing, it was slow paced and I was unable to connect with or care much about the characters .
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the digital audiobook.

Kieran Elliott is returning to his childhood hometown with a wife and baby in tow. His reunion with former friends is a happy one, due to the brief contact they have maintained, but he has more conflicted emotions about seeing his family again, due to his father's early onset dementia, and the town itself is a place he is far from eager to revisit, due to the memories that resurface and the secrets that are buried there.

I was fully absorbed by this intriguing title. The tragedies of the past gloomily blanketed current events before present mysteries occurred to transcend them. These multiple enigmas all formed a tight whirlwind of puzzles, confusion, lies, and deceit, around the central cast of characters, and it wasn't until right at the novel's close that they became close to escaping from it. I had a few theories I was certain were correct, but the conclusion had me as shocked as Keiran himself, with the revelations that were divulged to him.

I listened to this title via audio, which was the perfect format for me to digest the book. The narrator spoke in an Australian accent that both aided in my immersion of the setting and also helped me to form clear images for each of the characters.

DNF at 25%- im not sure why i couldnt get on with this book,ive read all of Jane Harpers other books and really enjoyed them but with this one i really struggled to distinguish between the characters and it made following the story impossible from me, i didnt no the difference between Ciaran, Liam and Sean (sorry if those are spelt wrong i was listening to the audio) Maybe it just wasnt for it and thats ok, i dont want it to reflect badly on the author so i wont be rating this book on Goodreads

Slow burning tragedy, that's well worth reading or listening to.
It's well written and was narrated perfectly.

Thank you Hachette UK Audio, via netgalley, for gifting me a copy.

Alas, figuring out the murderer's identity in the first 15% made this book kind of a drag.
Having highly enjoyed Jane Harper's The Lost Man, The Survivors felt by comparison vaguely uninspired. While the setting is just as atmospheric and vividly rendered as the ones in Harper's other novels, the characters and mystery were very run-of-the-mill. In many ways it reminded me of Tana French's latest novel, The Searcher: we have a not-so-young-anymore male protagonist who thinks he is a regular Joe and a crime forces him to reconsider his past behaviour/actions/attitudes. The Survivors begins with a juicy prologues that is meant to intrigue readers but I was not particularly lured by it. A lot of the dynamics in this novel seemed a rehash of the ones from The Lost Man and The Dry. Our protagonist, Kieran, returns to his small coastal hometown where a violent crime brings to light secrets from his own past. Kieran is happily married and a new father, and there were a lot of scenes featuring him being a soft dad and they just did nothing for me. I guess they were meant to emphasise the gulf between teenage-Kieran, who acted like a typical Chad, and father-Kieran. The 'tragedy' that irrevocably changed his life did not have the same emotional heft as Nathan's family struggles in The Lost Man. Kieran tells other characters that he feels guilt-ridden but...it just didn't really come across. Anyhow, Kieran returns to his home, he catches up with two best-friends, one is a bit of a loudmouth and kind of a douchebag while the other one has always been the more sensible and mature in the trio. The discovery of a young woman's body lands the community in crisis. There is a lot finger pointing and gossip on a FB-knockoff. Kieran, who is not a detective nor a crime aficionado, wants to know what happened to this young woman as he seems to be acting under a sense of misplaced obligation towards her (and her death reminds him of his own tragedy). While he doesn't starts snooping around he's lucky enough that he happens to hear people's private conversation, which often reveal something essential to the mystery. For some bizarre reason the person who is actually officially investigating this young woman's death confides in Kieran, which...I had a hard time getting behind (job integrity? None).
Anyway, chances are you've read this kind of story before. Maybe I wouldn't have minded this type of boilerplate plot if the characters had been somewhat interesting or layered. But they remain rather one-dimensional. Dick guy acts like a dick because deep down he's insecure. The cold mother is cold because she's still suffering the loss of her son. Artistic woman fears she will never leave her 'dead-end' job and 'make' it. Kieran is they type of character who is blandly inoffensive. After the trauma he experienced and now that he is a father & husband he realises that as a teenager he acted badly. Most of the conversations he has with women seemed to exist only to make him reflect on 'toxic masculinity' and the harm caused by the 'boys will be boys' mentality. And these realisations he has about sexisms seemed forced. Also, Kieran is meant to be in his thirties...and he comes across like a middle-aged man. I understand that there are people in their thirties who may as well be luddites but really? Kieran's voice just wasn't very convincing.
The male side characters like that writer, Kieran's friends, and that impertinent young guy, were rather dull. The female characters were so obviously meant to be 'strong' and 'empowering' but that didn't really make them into realistic or likeable characters.
The culprit was obvious, so I did not feel any real 'suspense' or curiosity. Sometimes, even if you know who did it, you can still be able to enjoy the ride...but here I just wanted to get it over and done with. The murderer was extremely underdeveloped and their explanation at the end was very Scooby Doo-ish.
All in all, this was a disappointing read. While it wasn't all that bad, and the story had at least a strong sense of place, I expected more from Harper.