Well, that was a blast! Not to spoil things for you, but this is a book that rips you from a outing with the kids to murder, torture and all kinds of horror in little more than a couple of days. I'd have said perfect summer reading, however as a lot of this is set on a hot beach, it might just feel a too close to home if your holiday is on some far-flung isle.

I'm a long-time fan of McKinty and found "The Island" and the recent "The Chain" great reads, but they are nowhere near as satisfying to read as many of his earlier books. Yes, these two novels are grand stories, intelligently told, but I don't think that they show the best of his smart writing. I've always loved his sharp, sassy, gritty style and its great sense of place and time. He uses cultural, political and social references adeptly to bring his stories to life wherever in the world they are set. As good as they are, I feel these strengths are missing in both "The Island" and "The Chain" - and whereas the earlier books kept me guessing right to the end, I've figured out too much too soon in "The Island". Perhaps I've just got to know McKinty's style too well?

Go ahead, read "The Island", then do yourself a favour and raid the back catalogue.

5 stars!

Absolutely loved this bookand struggled to put it down. This gave me wolf creek/ Horror movie vibes.

Heather, Tom and his kids, Olivia and Owen are in Australia for a conference where Tom is a guest speaker. He's a knee surgeon. The kids grow bored and want to see some of Australia's famous koalas. The family hire a car and head out to find some wildlife and meet 2 men who claim to come from a private island full of Koalas. Tom buys his way onto the island and they ferry over. Whilst exploring they accidentally run over a deaf woman and Heather (stupidly) decides to hide the body and run. Needless to say the body is discovered before they get away and a the Family of the island are NOT a forgiving bunch. What follows is a survival story that keeps your eyes glued to the page. Highly recommend and cannot wait to read more from Adrian.

Nothing I haven’t read before. Does not need the lyrical, poetry style writing dotted in randomly every other paragraph.

80% in it kicks up a notch and keeps your interest but ultimately, this book feels like nothing new. Sorry to compare but The Chain was definitely much better in premise and writing.

A visit to a small private island off the coast of Australia - sounds idyllic right? But as scenarios go, this one’s an absolute nightmare!

24 year old Heather Baxter has recently moved from Seattle and met and married Tom, a widowed doctor. He’s older than her and has two kids, teenager Olivia, and 12 year old son Owen. They live in a beautiful house, are financially sound, but although Heather tries her hardest, the kids won’t accept her after losing their mom in the last year.

Tom has to attend a conference in Australia, and it’s decided that the whole family will go. Heather hopes it will give her the chance to bond with the kids. However, during their trip they visit Dutch Island, owned by the O’Neil family. The island is normally off limits to outsiders, but after much pleading by Olivia and Owen, a couple of members of the O’Neal family take them across on their private ferry with the warning not to travel too far inland, and be back for the return ferry by a certain time.

Whilst driving round the island, a tragic car accident occurs that turns this dream vacation into the worst nightmare that you could ever imagine!

This is, without question, a heart pounding, edge of the seat, thrill a minute, intense battle for survival! A kill or be killed situation. A slightly slow start, but once it gets going, you’d better hold on to your hats! Highly recommended.

This new thriller from Adrian McKinty is a fast-paced novel set in Australia, where a dream day out turns into a nightmare.
Tom is over from the USA for a medical conference along with his wife Heather and the two children from his first marriage.
Keen to see to see wild life on a family day out they end up being invited to a private island where something happens to put them all in danger.
It is a tense exciting read but sadly not for me. It was too implausible and because I couldn’t warm to the characters of Heather and Tom it was difficult to feel empathy for them.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an ARC

This is not my normal read but I had just read The Chain so thought I would give this a go. My word it was very tense and stomach churning at times and you are thinking the worst is going to happen the whole way through. The characters are generally unlikeable at the beginning but I’m guessing that’s the point to see how their relationship changes and grows throughout this traumatic experience. It’s very Wolf Creek and quite graphic so if you’re squeamish I would avoid. Thanks to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Another decent page-turner from McKinty! I absolutely loved The Chain, so I was thrilled to see a new novel coming.

While the concept of The Island is quite different - one woman’s mission to save her family from a cult-like bloody thirsty set of island dwellers they’ve wronged - it had all the gore and survival instinct I expected.

Hugely enjoyable and definitely difficult to put down, my only complaint is that occasionally, the story line felt quite far fetched. I read it with an air of ‘yeah that would literally never happen’. That said, fiction is all about escapism, so who needs realism on a demented Australian island?

I read The Chain last year and really enjoyed it so was looking forward to this one, I was sold by the description.

Heather has recently married Tom, a successful surgeon, recently widowed with two children. The family accompany Tom on a work trip to Australia and on a day trip outside Melbourne, they are offered a short trip to a private island to give the children an opportunity to see some Australian wildlife. A split second decision with devastating consequences. An accident on the island leads to terror and chaos, Heather and the children must run, hide and ultimately fight for their lives.

This was a fairly outlandish story but I went with it until about a third in when one of the characters started talking out loud to his dog about where the family could be hiding. I'll be honest I wavered at this point and considered putting this book down but I continued reading and I am glad I did, the book improved immensely as it went on and was extremely fast paced, edge of the seat tense and turned in to a proper page turning thriller.

There were a couple of scenes that were just a little too graphic for my taste, one image in particular was described in too much detail for me and I am currently trying to scrub it from my brain.

Had it been slightly more realistic it would have have been a stronger rating for me but elements were just too outlandish at times. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the writing, the pace and the twists. A decent read, well drawn characters but tipped a little too far into the absurd and graphic for me.

A brilliant tale of survival.
I requested this after reading 'The Chain' by the same author. I loved that book and was hoping I'd enjoy this one. It did not dissapoint! The characters in this book are original and diverse. It was smart to write this primarily from a step parents point of view, this added a dynamic dimension to the story.
Overall an interesting read, I look forward to reading more from Adrien Mckinty.
Book reviewed on my Instagram

'The Island' is the new tense, pulse pounding thriller from Adrian McKinty.
Heather, her newh husband Tom and two stepchildren are visiting Australia. Tom is attending a medical conference and during his few hours of downtime, the family opt to go on a trip to see the local wildlife. When the trip proves unsuccessful, Tom and Heather decide to visit a small island in the hope of appeasing the disappointed children. However, a reckless decision results in tye beginning of a true nightmare and the family are left to fight for their survival as the stakes become increasingly high.
This is an incredibly written thriller, and grabs your attention from the opening paragraph and does not let up until the final page. The unravelling of the family relationships (both with the Baxter clan and the erm, islanders) throughout the story is fascinating as we watch their interactions and wonder just who can be trusted.

A private island in Australia is the setting for Adrian McKinty’s latest thriller, The Island. There’s a classic blended family scenario: the second, much younger, wife Heather who is vilified by her stepchildren - 14 year old Olivia and 12 year old Doug - and the high achieving orthopaedic surgeon Tom Baxter who is taking them from Seattle to Australia for a holiday/conference. The kids are desperate to see some wildlife so Tom pays over the odds for time-limited access to a private island where the O’Neill clan live. A tragic car accident sets into motion a chain of events where the O’Neills play an increasingly dangerous and violent game of cat and mouse with the Baxters. There were times when I felt the violence was too graphic but this was tempered by the great scenic descriptions. The Baxters are a hard family to like - the kids behave like spoilt brats and Tom likes to think money solves everything. Heather alone is the most relatable. I did wonder how much Carolyn added to the story and concluded that it was nothing. This is a fast paced read and, despite the violence, very absorbing. The title is a bit meh! Thanks to NetGalley and Orion for the ARC.

The island was such a pleasure to read, such a beautifully written, atmospheric book , everything about this book is just so perfect and beautiful, the writing, the characters, the world building and the story. I was so ecstatic at how good a read this was and it completely blew me away. Thoroughly, highly and wholeheartedly recommend this to everyone and can’t wait for more.

Wow! What a ride! This book grabs you by the neck and drags you along with it. I was gripped, and rattled through it in no time.

It's not always a comfortable read - there were times when I wanted to do the equivalent of hide behind the sofa - but it is beautifully written, with many poetic descriptive moments, though these don't so much relieve the tension as heighten it.

Great characterisation all round and the best main protagonist character arc I've come across in a long time. That woman really does change.

Brilliant.

This book takes you on a journey that makes you feel the heat and smells of an Australian outback,gripping and exhausting and exciting is the feeling you get from every page of this great book,
Respect to Adrian Mckinty who manages to make you feel like you are a member of the family in the book and makes you feel the experiences of going on a journey which is so well told in the Island,
Great character building and an experience you won't forget.
Will stay with me for days.

A new author to me and lots of good reviews so I was very keen to read this book. The reality was very different. Interesting prologue and then things slowed down. Some great characters which were well drawn. The language of the book was a huge drawback for me. Very confusing. Mostly American with some very strange and odd phrases but then a smattering of other dialects thrown in for good measure. Having read another book set on an island recently I couldn't help but compare the two. The violence in this book was over the top and a bit much for me. The ending stretched credibility to the, well beyond the limit really. The author's notes followed straight on from the story so I was somewhat confused as to where the book actually ended. formulaic is a word that springs to mind. Surprisingly slow paced for most of the book when I wasn't being assailed with violence it dragged
Not for me,

I had high hopes for a book by an author new to me. The book started off with an interesting plot but half way through seemed to slow down and became a little unbelievable and boring and not really scary. I plodded on and sadly was not that interested in the outcome.

From the author of the bookstagram fav ‘The Chain’ comes The Island, a heart pounding, page turning new thriller.

If you are a fan of horror films set in the back and beyond with a not quite right family (think The Hills have Eyes, Wolf Creek etc etc) then this is the book for you!

Tom and Heather, along with Toms two children Olivia and Owen, head to Australia for a conference where Tom is a key note speaker. They travel across Australia on a sight seeing tour but never see a single Koala. Owen obviously not happy with this demands to take a trip to go and see one (I mean you can’t go to Australia and not see a koala right?). Off the family go to try find a koala and then…well…it all goes terribly wrong! A couple of gentlemen (I use that what lightly) offer to show them the island that they live on which apparently is full of koalas. One condition is that they only have 45 mins and they mustn’t go near the farm house where Ma’ lives.

I am sure you can predict what happens isn’t a good thing, it would be a pretty boring book other whys, but honestly I couldn’t put this book down once it got going. I just had to know what happened next.

It read like a film, which is how I felt reading The Chain was like, which must be Adrian’s signature style.

Sure it wasn’t the most original ground breaking story but sometimes you just want a jolly good enjoyable read and this is what this is exactly what this book was.

Thank you to Netgalley and Orion for a copy of the book in return for an honest review.

I gave The Chain five stars so I was keen to read this novel and it didn't disappoint. It's a story of ordinary people against impossible odds with lots of twists and turns - one of those 'just one more chapter' books.

So, Adrian McKinty does it again – a five star rollercoaster page-turner.

Just so creepy- has my skin crawling from almost the beginning!
Tangled up with the O'Neills on their private island the fate of Heather and her family hangs in the balance as they are pursued mercilessly for revenge and for money.
The tension just keeps on growing throughout this book. It is clever and it is relentless and the horror stays with you long after you slam the cover shut.

I was given an ARC of this book and it felt like I held my breath all the way through it – so tense and suspenseful.

The story is about a family who visits Australia and through the pleas of the children, rides on a ferry to an island so to see koalas and other animals; big mistake.

The family is Tom and his young second wife, Heather and her two step-children. The children do not accept Heather, so relationships are not easy. Then disaster strikes and decisions have to be made. The folks on the island are insular, to say the least.

Cat and mouse chases begin.

The writing style is brilliant – fast-paced and filled with action. I did like Heather the best because of her tenacity, determination and bravery. The children were spoiled brats and I didn’t like the husband. As for the islanders... The descriptions gave a fantastic sense of place, which, I thought, brought even more realism to the story.

I did wonder why the children (14 & 12) were described as ‘little’ as if they were toddlers but yes, they were still children.

Not one to give spoilers, I will say that this was a fabulous, breath-stealing story and I was engaged from beginning to end.

Highly recommended.