I'm afraid the formatting is so bad ( there's a number on every line) I could read much of this. I did try but it's just too tiring and hard to follow/ Sorry as this has no bearing on the story!

it sounds really good - a game show on an island in the middle of nowhere. Killer trapped with contestants. Love this kind of thing. Will read later on for definate!

Unfortunately this is the second kindle book on NetGalley that I’ve been unable to read recently due to the formatting. There are numbers throughout the text which made concentrating on the novel impossible. I read a few pages before giving up.
It’s such a shame that this happens with Netgalley proofs as it means writers are unable to receive fair reviews here.
Obviously the rating I am giving is not reflective of the quality of the novel but the formatting of it.
I hope the issue can be remedied.

This is the fourth book I've read in the past 12 months based around the premise of a reality show gone wrong (the others being The Holy Terrors by Simon R. Green, The Escape Room by L.D. Smithson, and The Traitors by C.A. Lynch). It's a pitch that I'm really drawn to but thus far I can't say I've found an execution of it that I actually enjoyed. Isolation Island is my latest attempt to scratch this particular itch. Here's the blurb:

IT'S A PRIZE ANYONE WOULD KILL TO WIN...

Ten celebrities have arrived to take part in the most gruelling - and lucrative - reality survival show ever devised: two weeks completely alone on a remote Scottish island, in the depths of winter.

With a production team that seems incapable of keeping them safe, a gathering storm and the unrelenting gaze of hidden cameras, the contestants are stretched to the limit as they try and outshine their fellow competitors and hide their darkest secrets.

But when a contestant winds up dead, it soon becomes clear that the players are not just fighting for the prize, but for their lives.

Reviews for this book quite frequently compare it to Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, which was one of my favourite books I read last year, and the blurb promises a thriller in which a killer is on the loose and the isolated characters have to fight for their lives. That's not really what I got.

The murder in this murder mystery doesn't occur until nearly two thirds of the way through the book, and I spent much of the time leading up to it waiting for it to happen. Had this time been spent getting to know the characters, giving them all motives for the murder yet to come, and really rooting us in the world then I would have been fine with it, but weirdly it's not until after the killing takes place and Lauren (our investigative reporter main character) starts to dig into things that we really begin to get a sense of who these people are. Because of the comparisons to And Then There Were None I was also expecting that once the killing started nobody would be safe, but it seems that the people making that comparison either didn't read this book or haven't read Christie.

Murder mysteries - and especially those trying to work in the same space as Agatha Christie, the best to ever do it - require that the writer has a very firm grip of events. Christie's characterisation is often lacking but you always know that the plot is locked down as tight as it's possible to be. Every detail matters, and if you pay enough attention you can maybe hope to piece things together. That's unfortunately not the case here. At times Minchin seems to lose track of the situation she's set up. On the night of the first proper eviction from the reality show, for example, the contestants are instructed to pack their belongings and they line up with "their bags in their hands". The problem, of course, is that we saw a member of the production crew burn everyone's clothes and belongings on the beach before they arrived at the monastery, so nobody has a bag or any possessions to pack into it. The only things they own are the robes they're wearing and wooden toothbrushes that have been given to them, and I don't know why anybody would bother to pack them up to take them home.

This lack of attention to detail also extends to our sense of the timeline of events, and how little sense we get of time passing in any meaningful way. At one point Lauren worries about how she might be blamed for the death and how she has no alibi for the time it took place, telling herself that "she had been on her own most of the day, walking along the cliff path, replaying the events of the night before". But when we see this take place a few chapters earlier it's in a sequence that lasts for barely a paragraph and gives the impression that her walk lasts for a few minutes before she heads back due to poor weather, and as we move towards the climax Lauren tells us "she was walking for around an hour". This sort of thing happens regularly, where we jump from morning to evening with no real connective tissue, so that we start to lose track of how much time has actually been spent on the island and how far removed events are from one another or how long things take. And though this seems like a small quibble, it's on these sorts of details that murder mysteries live and die. The reader needs to be able to feel like they have all the clues needed to solve the mystery to hand, and that's impossible when the facts of the case keep changing in ways that feel like mistakes rather than intentional revelations.

I'm being fairly critical here but with all of that said, I still found myself gripped and wanting to keep reading. Once the murder actually happens and the plot starts to move the book is much more impressive, and the reveal at the ending is seeded in a way that allows you to predict it a page or too earlier and feel smart about solving the mystery, despite the lack of any meaningful clues in the rest of the narrative. The writing isn't flashy or particularly impressive - it's downright clunky in places - but it's got that page-turning thriller quality to it that kept me up past midnight wanting to know what was going to happen next and where this was all going, and the ending was satisfying enough that I came away feeling that I'd enjoyed it despite being critical in the first half. This is the sort of book I'd pick up in an airport and read on the plane at the beginning of a holiday and would think that I'd got my money's worth before leaving it at the hotel book swap. Of the handful of "reality TV gone wrong" murder mysteries I've read this year this was by far the best.

Thanks to Netgalley and Headline for this ARC.

Read the blur, and it seemed right up my alley more for the murder and mystery storyline.

Needing a break from read one particular genre I thought I would try one of my other favourites mystery and thrillers....and boy this didn't disappoint.

Famous people are left on the island on the outskirts of Scotland to live for two weeks whilst battling to win their dream reward, all while being filmed for a tv series.....but someone dies whilst on the isle.

You can't write too much without giving something away, but this debt novel is definitely worth a read. A lovely quick read that manages to keep you engrossed. In the story, you don't know who is going to die, but you can work out who is involved....a nice little twist at the end, too. If I had to be picky, I would have liked there to be a bit more to the ending of the story, but that hasn't stopped me from enjoying the book. The characters ate great the storyline fast flowing, and you never get confused by the plot. It is a great first fiction book by this author. I will certainly pick up more books by Louise Minchin in the future

Minchin is known as the former co-presenter of BBC Breakfast. It’s a debut novel that makes the same mistakes as all debut novels, but is too chaotically structured to be a truly entertaining read.

The title is a fictional reality show, Celebs have to perform tasks, with their heart’s desire as the prize. Lauren is a TV documentary maker. She’s joined by a soap star, twin bloggers, an ex pop star, two athletes, a Hollywood icon and an action movie star. But Lauren is there with her own agenda.

I know that sounds oblique, but to say more would spoil potential enjoyment of the novel. The key incident in it takes place about halfway through and from then it accelerates to the end at confusing speed. The characters aren’t fleshed out enough, even through it is fairly obvious who they are based on. One exits the novel early, for no apparent reason.

Michin’s writing style is curious too; with a use of present tense with sentences and descriptive passages that are just too verb heavy. With better editing and structure, she’ll write a better novel. But it’s a book that doesn’t make the most of its Traitorous, Faustian concept. It’s published by Headline on September 12th and I thank them for a preview copy. #isolationisland.

Wow this is a fantastic read. I was hooked at the very first page and I read it all in one sitting. Louise has written an absolute belter of a thriller. Slightly like Then There Was None and a really horrifying Big Brother type setting. This is one of my favourite reads this year. If you like breath holding thrillers you will love this.

Unfortunately the formatting of this ARC makes the book virtually unreadable as there are line numbers at the end, or in the middle, of every single line. An unforgivable error from whoever was responsible for the formatting of the book for Kindle readers and a real let down of the author. The book started well, but I was only 11% in when I decided that I couldn't continue with the formatting as it was. This scoring is representative of the publisher's formatting NOT the actual author's work

I can't review this properly as it's unreadable. There are numbers at the beginning of every line, in the middle of lines, and lists of them in gaps. It makes it very jarring to read. I couldn't concentrate. I understand ARCs aren't perfect but this is ridiculous. The author has been let down by whoever decided to send the book out in this unreadable state. My rating is reflective of this and not the actual book itself. It's a shame as I was looking forward to reading this.

'Isolation Island' is a strong debut thriller from Minchin. I loved the concept, it is reminiscent of actual reality shows whilst also feeling unique and fresh. The setting of a remote, Scottish monastery is great and helps add to the sense of being isolated and trapped. The characters are celebrities who have all been offered the chance to win a prize personal to them so the enter Isolation Island. The characters were good and definitely an eclectic mix. Minchin sticks to what she knows by having a journalist in there and there are a few characters reminiscent of Minchin's stint on I'm A Celebrity...
As I have said the premise is good and there is a lot of action and drama throughout. There are some strong twists in this book as well which helped add to the excitement. My main negative is that some of the descriptions, particularly early on, are too lengthy and it hampers the pace of the book. This aside, and I thought 'Isolation Island' was a promising debut.
Thank you to NetGalley and Headline for an advance copy.

I was so excited to started this but I just couldn’t get past the first chapter as their is a isssue with the book
Every line had a number at the end and it was just a nightmare to try and read

I will be buying when released

I would struggle to be able to review this book due to issues with the file/download. The issues stopped the flow of the book. The issues are:
- Numbers down the side of each sentence
- Stop/start sentences on different lines
- No clear definition of chapters.

I’m not sure if it was a file/download issue but there were lots of gaps and stops/starts which ruined the flow. I would love the chance to read a better version as the description of the book appeals to me. I would be more than happy to re-read the book with a better file or as a physical book as the book topic and genre are of interest to me. If you would like me to re-review please feel free to contact me at thesecretbookreview@gmail.com or via social media The_secret_bookreview (Instagram) or Secret_bookblog (Twitter).

I've award stars based on the art work of the book cover as well as the book description.

I’m a celeb come Traitors come And then there were none. I struggled to get into this right at the start - some of the writing seemed a bit creative writing studenty - but after it got going it was a real page turner. I found myself thinking about it when I wasn’t reading it and charged through it in only a couple of days on top of a full time job and 2 young kids!

All that said I predicted the culprit very early on and found the characters all very one dimensional and basic. I honestly didn’t like any of them, including the ‘heroine’ who irritated me throughout with her prissy righteousness.

There was certainly some well achieved suspense in parts but the ending felt cut a bit short and anticlimactic.

A decent first novel or this genre and I’d definitely give a subsequent novel a go.