A good book should make you feel things. Things like joy, anger, hope and or satisfaction. This was such a book. At 38% I was raging. I could not believe what was happening! It had taken a huge unexpected turn and crazy is an understatement. Well written and exciting I was on the edge of my seat waiting to see how it would end. The story was about survival and control. Peer pressure and injustice. Esme Sears narrated this audiobook and did an excellent job.
I highly recommend if you love a suspenseful thriller.
Thanks HarperCollins Audio via Netgalley.

Thank you to NetGalley, Harper Collins Audio and Sarah Goodwin for an audio ARC in return for an honest review.

This book is absolutely incredible. I spent all day listening to do, I was totally captured by it. It had me gripped from the start. I was instantly engrossed and gripped. I have not been this obsessed over an audiobook before. It is dark, scary and gritty- a brilliant psychological thriller. I can’t recommend it enough. You are not left with any unanswered questions.

Stranded - Sarah Goodwin
Narrated by Esme Sears

I received an advance review copy for free thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK and I am leaving this review voluntarily

Eight strangers.
One island.
A secret you'd kill to keep.

When eight people arrive on the beautiful but remote Buidseach Island, they are ready for the challenge of a lifetime: to live alone for one year.

Eighteen months later, a woman is found in an isolated fishing village. She’s desperate to explain what happened to her: how the group fractured and friends became enemies; how they did what they must to survive until the boat came to collect them; how things turned deadly when the boat didn’t come…

This was unputdownable, I had to listen on to find out what happened to the residents of Buidseach Island. I listened to the majority of this in one sitting, it is such an interesting premise for a book.

I would highly recommend this book. A gripping story about survival, with pacing that just adds to the tense feeling that this book will leave you with. The timeline alternates between past and present which just makes for an intriguing storyline.

Rating 5/5

Stranded is a gripping psychological thriller set on a remote Scottish island. Eight people are chosen to be a part of a fly on the wall tv documentary, and are required to survive for a year in a hostile environment with few resources to help them. Tensions soon rise and personalities clash leading to shocking outcomes. The novel moves between the time on the island, and an interview with Maddie, (one of the contestants) after the show is over. It is clear from the interview sections that things became desperate on the island and not everyone came home.
I found this novel quite difficult to get into, mainly due to the many irritating characters who I struggled to connect with. Although I did find the book a little slow at times, it soon kept my attention and I was completely hooked by the end. I also wasn’t sure how the contestants had got off the island, and found the ending to be believable and well constructed.

I couldn’t put this book down. It was a weird concept, people sent to an island as if the world had ended and they need to repopulate the planet. But they knew it was just a show. What was so gripping about this book, was the way humans behave (often badly). As the characters get to know each other the leaders and the lazy ones become obvious. I don’t know why the main group took offense to Maddie, but they did and they made her life hell. I really liked her strength and tenacity- she didn’t let them wear her down. I loved the witch character, that may or may not be real. The myth behind the real story worked well for me.
All in all a very chilling, but very entertaining book. I listened to it as an audio book and felt it really helped bring the characters to life, the narrator did a great job on their voices.

**Listened to the audiobook**

I'm always interested in books on this subject matter. I adore the book 'Lord of the Flies' and this book felt very much along those lines. The reviews of this book have been excellent, so I was super excited to get started with this one. It started off really well, and got going very quickly - it was straight in there with the action. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for the later half of the book. I think the book was a little too long, so the pacing drifted off at times.

I really struggle with books with lots of characters, and this being an audiobook, I found it even harder to keep track. I think this may have ruined my enjoyment somewhat as I couldn't 100% follow it at times. However, I liked the structure of going back and forward in time, resulting in a a slow reveal of the how things would end for our central character.

The narrator was fine, but it would have been useful for maybe more narrators for all of the different characters. This may have helped me keep up with them all.

Overall this book was OK, but nothing to rave about for me.