This was such a fun premise, a reality TV show full of washed up celebrities living together in a villa but one of them ends up dead.

Straight off the bat the characters are all awful and just terrible people and you know from the beginning which one of them has died and then the book goes back through each episode as you piece together what happened. I enjoyed the episodes, it really did feel like watching a reality TV show but I felt like the other part of the book which focused on the police investigation was completely pointless and gave absolutely nothing to the narrative at all.

There’s also a content warning section at the front which I understand people will appreciate but for me it spoiled quite a lot of the plot.

This was a quick read which a lot of promise but i’m not sure it quite paid off.

Thank you to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for the advance copy to read and review.

From reading the blurb of this I was excited to read it.

Sadly, this book didn't meet my expectations. I found the characters to be unlikable, the plot predictable and overall not an enjoyable read.

I imagine some people could get completed enthralled in this book. For me, I dislike when I can see exactly where a book is going as I like to be surprised. That could just be because I read a lot of books in this genre so often find it easy to see where a plot is going.

If you want something entertaining and not so big on being surprised then give this a try.

This is a story of 6 highly unlikeable characters thrown together on an island for the reality TV show 'Iconic'. Only 5 survive and the story alternates between episodes of the show, the police interviews of the contestants who survive and occasional tweets from the audience. I feel like I have binge read a reality TV series, while I don't like reality TV in real life I did quite enjoy reading it but found the ending disappointing.

My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book.

Thank you for the opportunity to review this ARC. This was a 4.5-star read for me.

I could not put this book down. It had me hooked from the first few pages. I love the setup of the reality TV show. The way the book was written and formatted, it really felt like I was watching it, and it had me invested wondering what would happen next. Then Things Went Dark caught me with the cover and font which is gorgeous and it kept me on my toes with the interesting challenges, scandals, betrayals, and alliances. Nothing is ever as it seems. Just when you think you know who did it, another curve ball comes along. At one point, as a reader you literally suspect everyone.
The multi-POV was well-written and easy to follow.

I love how you see how the characters play the game. One of the best parts is when we discover the reason for the title in the book!
There are so many emotions you feels in this book towards the characters. You love and hate some of them chapter to chapter. I loved the confession booth which made the reality TV setup that much more fun to read.

Knowing Rhys will die from the beginning is hard because you love him for most of the book and even after you see some of his darker side. Jerome is crafty and not my favorite for most of the book. I had big soft spots for Kalpana and Isko. Amarinta, I felt for her but also was a bit frustrated at how much she changed throughout the book.

The closing chapters were extremely intense and had me speed-reading to see what happens next. This was my first Bea Fitzpatrick book but it definitely won't be my last.

Not for the posted reviews - publisher notes:
The only formatting edit I would recommend is maybe a little marker indicating the switch from the episode to the investigation.
The only reason it wasn't a 5-star was I felt like the ending needed a little more closure with regard to Kennard and Cloutier and the investigation. Did they arrest anyone? What happened to the characters after the finale was aired?

I will be posting a video review on Tiktok later this week.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This novel was… okay. I found it really difficult to get involved with the characters as they were all just nasty people. It felt to me like the first 70% of the book went rather slowly and was dragged out, and then it ramped right up, and had a really rushed ending which finished abruptly.

No big twist at the end either that surprised me.

Overall, a decent read, but not the best I’ve read this year.

I’m struggling to find things to say about this one and I think it’s because I thought I’d like it a lot more than I did, instead I think I’ve just been left with a little bit of apathy…

The premise of the book was excellent and I love drama so I was very excited to dive in to this one and be sucked in to the scandal. I don’t really watch reality tv shows of this kind, or at all really, but I have found that I’ve enjoyed reality show element to books before. I was interested in how this was going to be formatted, if there was going to be any multimedia aspects like blog posts, interviews or tweets. What we got was a blend of a recap of the episode with interviews with the suspects that weren’t in an interview format you’d expect. It was all pretty boring and at times, with how it would switch up, confusing.

I think the best part of this was showing how abusive relationships work and how the abusers can manipulate and lie and isolate people from those around them. It was so well done. Fitzgerald had me rooting for the couple, and for him, and I feel for his game just as much as everyone — and then the true colours slowly started to appear…

The mystery was okay but nothing exciting OR enticing. It was just fine. The investigation didn’t really feel the story with any intensity and that part of the story fell flat too. It was all just very meh.

Six famous icons arrive on an island to participate in a reality tv show. With a lot of money on the line and secrets threatening to be revealed live in front of millions the stakes are high. When a controversial contestant dies on the show, the police investigate if this was suspicious or not.

The premise of this book, reality tv on an isolated island, has been a familiar trope recently, however the way this was written made this stand out and feel fresh in crowded market. I enjoyed the format of each episode being a chapter with the character’s thoughts included, although I wasn’t so keen on the police parts as I felt these offered little to the overall story.

The characters were created well and most were hugely unlikeable but very entertaining. I enjoyed exploring the extremes they would go to gain popularity and hide their secrets. The story covers dark themes, which could be hard hitting at times, however seemed authentic in showing how quickly things can escalate. Although I found these parts intriguing, I also found that it seemed some romantic scenes were thrown in for the sake of it and parts were far fetched.

I really enjoyed the majority of this story and was excited to pick the book up so I could continue to divulge the story but the ending let it down slightly for me, as it was abrupt and seemed unfinished. However, I would recommend this and pick up more by this author. This is a great book for those looking for a suspenseful, dramatic story with plenty of love to hate characters. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this copy in return for an honest review.

I normally devour a book that is formatted in a different than usual way, but this one lacked in something for me. I'm not sure what. I love it when we know there is a murder and we have to backtrack to figure out what happened, but this one was just a bit of a miss for me.

2.5

With shocks & drama just like a reality show, this book really draws you in. I loved the formatting with the 'live' tweets in-between episodes & police scenes.

I wish I could know more about how the world reacts when/if the truth is found out but the open-ended ending did seem fitting for the story.

The characters were complex & you could really hate some of them at times.

Would highly recommend to anyone who likes drama ✨️

A celebrity reality tv show set on an isolated island. What could go wrong? With every minute documented, when one of the celebrities dies it should be easy to see who did it, right?

A dark thriller set within reality tv and full of thoroughly unlikeable characters. Totally gripping.

3 Stars - Things did indeed go quite Dark

Trigger Warning: This review contains brief references to themes of death and abusive relationships in the book.

True to the author’s style, the book starts with a trigger warning list which is very much appreciated. **I highly recommend that anybody interested in reading this book looks at the trigger warnings before diving in**. That being said, I still wasn’t prepared for quite how dark this book got (though I don’t regularly read books of this genre, the author drew me to this book as I loved her first YA novel!)

*Then Things Went Dark* follows contestants of a game show stranded in a luxury house on an island. The book starts with a death and follows with the unraveling of an investigation and the events of the show as premiered live on TV.

The first 40% of this book I thoroughly enjoyed. I thought the writing style was clever and witty, exactly what I love about this author's writing. I loved the diversity of characters and wished we’d spent more time looking into their backstories, though at times I found their voices quite similar, so I had to read back to understand who was talking.

Past the 40% mark, the book became a lot darker, focusing primarily on the theme of abusive relationships, as well as other dark topics mentioned in the trigger warning section. Parts of this book made me really uncomfortable, which absolutely was the author's intention (in certain parts). Some of the twists were good (including the conclusion), while others felt less impactful; I did (partially!) guess the ending from very early on in the book, but I’m glad I wasn’t able to guess the true ending outright. Some characters seemed like they'd be really impactful, but ended up being somewhat underused (the detectives and the special guest especially). I felt at times as though everything in the book was ultimately laid bare with little ambiguity or space for the reader to infer things for themselves. The 'open book' nature of the characters links well to the setting of a reality TV show where everything is filmed (especially the testimonials), but it came at the cost of there being few sneaky and intelligent character moments that the reader didn't see coming (which in a mystery I would expect a few more of). The contestants wore their hearts on their sleeves and were very open with the game they were playing.

Overall, I like the writing style but I must admit that the second half of this book just wasn’t for me!

Thank you Michael Joseph, Penguin Random House, Bea Fitzgerald and NetGalley for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

(This review will be published on my Goodreads account a week before the publication, UK Publication being 5th September)


#ThenThingsWentDark #NetGalley

This is a book about reality TV .Six well known celebrities are competing for a prize of half a million dollars and they are on an island .Someone dies and it is shown to the nation !!! Even then the Police seem unable to find any clues .All the characters are self centred and frankly quite awful and are only intent on getting camera time !!! Everyone has a secret ,I don't like reality TV shows so no surprise I didn't really enjoy this book .Thank you to NetGalley for my ARC.

Then Things Went Dark is addictive reading … Toxic, vain and self-obsessed characters stuck on a reality TV show on an island… I couldn’t look away! Warning: DO NOT pick this book up if you need to get anything else done, as once you start it you won’t be able to stop…!!

A great idea let down by one dimensional characters. I kept reading, hoping for some sort of conclusion or redemption for the characters, but nothing happened. I’m not at all sure interpol would have rolled over so easily either. I was left with a sense that I’d wasted good reading time.

THEN THINGS WENT DARK is a spiralling tale of image-obsessed celebrities trying to become even bigger than they are, and the disasters that unfold.

The book alternates between the post-death police investigation - interviewing the suspects and trying to contain the situation - and the episodes aired. The episodes were an interest format, rapidly jumping between characters like scene cuts and interspersed with "voice over" reactions from the characters. I liked the voice overs, the way it was both more truthful and less as people were aware they were on camera and so giving "their side".

It's a great look at reality TV - the tensions and artifices, as well as the manufactured drama brought on by the high pressure environment and all the designed challenges. It's situation designed to bring out the worst in people, all for entertainment. It's honestly surprising that this hasn't happened in real life (probably because the TV crews in real life are less negligent.)

A big part of the plot revolves around a manipulative, controlling relationship, seeing it ramp up from a guy wanting a girl to isolating her in weeks. The intense, surreal setting of the island really helps highlight the insidious horror of such behaviour as there are fewer people around to attempt an intervention - and the producers have no intention of doing anything because the public seem to like the "romance" so won't hurt their views by acting.

The answer to "who killed him?" comes up at the very end, and it was very satisfying, but not for the reasons I expected. It just all unravels, live on TV but in the dark where it's hard to work out, and then left to the public forum to decide what happened.

This book waa a real page turner! I started it on a plane journey and finished it in two sittings. I loved the fact that it read both like a reality show with chapters being split into episodes, seeing all the characters say what they would as if it was a real reality show, complete with challenged and confessionals. I also loved the fact that at parts it read like a detective show with thr questioning and lawyers and detectives post show. I enjoyed seeing how things play out post Rhys’ death as they investigate his death, and the lead up from day 1 of the show.

I thought all the characters were well thought out, each one was different, each one had different secrets, different agendas or reasons for being on the show.

I found myself not trusting any of the characters, not just because I was trying ti figure out if Rhys’ death was an accident or not, but because they all had something to hide, and I found them all to be untrustworthy, which usually in a mystery book I have one character I root for, but not in this one.


I think that When Things Went Dark was great and was a brilliant mystery debut by Bea Fitzgerald, looking forward to what she will come out with next! I am giving this book 4 stars.

This novel was so good. I love books that feature celebrities and reality shows, so a book that features both of those things is an ultimate winner for me.

This was nuts, absolutely nuts. The characters were all deplorable - proper morons who love themselves and can’t see anything but their own vanity in front of them.

There’s Rhys, an actor; Jerome, an entrepreneur ; Theo, a rockstar; Araminta, a socialite; Isko, a chef and Kalpana, an activist. All starring in new reality show Iconic for varying different reasons that all spell out: let’s become even more rich and famous. It ends in tragedy, as you might expect, and boom! This is our novel as we figure out just what happened on this deserted island.

This was an addictive, amazing novel. I didn’t like anyone, tbh, but I liked the story and I loved the idea of the show Iconic. I flew through the book very quickly and I just couldn’t get enough of the scandals, the secrets, the lengths people will go…

I’d definitely recommend this book, it was so so good!

A deserted island and a group of celebrities. One of them has just died live on TV and the police are investigating the crime.

I was intrigued by the premise of this book and like the drama of the intro with a character dying live on TV. Sadly, it didn't live up to the promise.

I liked the author's voice and sharp writing style. The book felt youthful, current, and worked well as a pastiche of reality TV in free fall with a lawless descent into chaos. The idea of a group of obnoxious and unlikeable people unraveling works. I also thought that the mixed media format worked well.

Where this didn't work for me was as a thriller. The book didn't have enough suspense/twists and turns, and I found it hard to care about the characters or even about the crime. Most of the book felt like a takedown on a type of TV format and revolved around satirising a group of narcissistic contestants. It worked well on this level.

I hoped for a killer ending with a dramatic reveal but it didn't come.

The promotional information about this book sounded interesting but unfortunately the book did not live up to this description at all for me. I found all the characters annoying and one dimensional (was this intentional?). I did finish the book as I was intrigued to find out how Rhys died but the whole ending seemed to lack a purpose. Not for me I am afraid.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the advance copy of this book.

Someone dies live on air - Captivating and atmospheric.

Perfect for those who enjoy:
- Books based on reality shows
- Mixed media forms
- Twists and turns
- Atmospheric thrillers

With thanks to Penguin Random House, Michael Joseph and Netgalley for an ARC copy in return for an honest review.