I am currently developing a section of the school library that will present a diverse and eclectic range of contemporary crime and thriller novels. This genre has been so popular in terms of what is being borrowed, but I feel like the young people are sticking to 'what they know' in terms of titles or writers that they've already heard of or have seen their parents reading. My mission is to include more novels like this one and improve the range and diversity of fiction that they can choose from in order to expand their reading horizons. I absolutely loved this book. It kept me gripped from the very first page and without giving away any spoilers, was a dark, intense and satisfying journey. I think that the young people will love its distinctive voice as well as be gripped by the story and intrigued to follow it to its tense conclusion. I recommend this book to anyone who is looking for intelligent, credible writing with a strong hook that won't let you go. Treat yourself to We Shall Not All Sleep!

We are on the Island archaepelego off Maine in the 1960's.
The Hillsinger Family has a well established colonial home - Hill House on Seven Island. Meanwhile, the neighbours, The Quicks with father Billy live in a nearby holiday place.
This novel has a definite air of 'The Great Gatsby'. Lila Hillsinger is a very Daisy' type character who, with her sister Hannah Blackwell, had been very bright girls until Hannah married Billy Quick and became a political activist and Lila (who had loved Billy) had settled into the Hillsinger Dynasty married to James.
There is a subplot taking us back in time to where Hillsinger Senior was a senior official in the CIA, and topical references to communism, Kennedy and spies filter through the novel.
However, what happens on Seven Island is the main focus especially when Billy returns, after Hannah's death and a brief affair with Lila.
Other characters like Cyrus and Martha who 'work' for the Hillsingers are interesting and the plots with the children, particularly Catta, are excellent.
Imagery of the area, island flora and fauna and the sea are beautifully pitched and we can picture the islands (particularly the mysterious Baffin Island that hosts eagles and adventures) basking in the summer sun and heating up the family intrigues, young girls and boys growing up and love ebbing and flowing.

Possibly would have given 4 or 5 stars if the story focused more on a cohesive plot instead of trying to intertwine some less than interesting stories with some lovely narratives.

For me the standout of the book was Catta and his unintentional quest for freedom. A whole book solely about Catta would have been welcome. In fact a story solely about Catta and his relationship with the Old Man would have been welcome as well.

The weak story here was anything to do with Jim or James Hillsinger. Jim is a terribly uninteresting character that is just trying to best people at work and chooses to trade his wife to do so. James is just an all around horrible person and bully. We never really are given much info as to why James acts out so much and some of the things he does in this book are abhorrent. Since the author does not spend any time building James as a character his story is just prattle. Of course everyone is laughing at him, he's terrible.

Overall I enjoyed most of this book but I think it could have benefited from better editing.

This is a hard one to rate and my final decision of 3-stars doesn't really do justice to all the good stuff in this book - Nagy's lyrical writing, the sense that these characters have full and hidden lives to which we are not given access - but by the end I was left feeling at a loss as to how the various strands are supposed to coalesce and for me (possibly my fault) they remained disparate and frustratingly disconnected.

In the 'past' (yes, this is another fragmented narrative whipping between timelines) we have a story starting in the 1940s about American paranoia, the 'Red threat', the CIA, KGB infiltration, McCarthyism. In the present (1964) this spy story comes to its conclusion while the younger generation of Hillsingers and Quicks run wild on Seven, and an adolescent is abandoned on Baffin overnight in order to 'make him a man'. I had the nagging feeling that the book is trying to say something about generational change here but couldn't ever put my finger on precisely what.

The idea of the house as a kind of gladiatorial arena perhaps helps to pull the book together: there's so much tension in the story - between wives and husbands, sons and fathers, the 'ruling' families and their workers, amongst the children, and of course, overarching, between the US and Russia.

Nagy writes very well and I especially liked the way these characters have depths to them: they're subtly portrayed and just because we don't see into their souls, doesn't mean they don't have them - quite an achievement on the page. All the same, I was left perplexed by the end: it seems there must be a way to allocate coherency of a sort to this book but I couldn't find it. 3.5 stars really and I'd certainly read Nagy's next offering.

Reading this book is like alternating between several entertaining short stories: one about Communist intrigue with the CIA, another a love parallelogram between two men and two sisters, one about disgruntled servants at a manor, a Davy Crockett kind of adventure in the wilds, and several random mysteries. The main setting is coastal Maine in 1964, but there are flashbacks to earlier periods as well.

Two sisters, Lila and Hannah, marry two gentlemen whose families have something in common and conflicts of interest and a bunch of confusing and arbitrary rules on their island about what areas can be inhabited or where little kids should sleep, and I couldn't understand why only one child, Catta, was being singled out when there were others who seemed much worthier of punishment. Interesting thematics on morality, duplicity, lie detection, valor. Also I noticed a lot of characters experienced or were sensitive to amplified breathing.

This ambitious and complex debut novel is a powerful and compelling tale of two wealthy families who have lived on the same small Maine island for generations but who rarely mix, and although their lives are intermeshed in many ways, they maintain an uneasy, even hostile distance. The story is set over three tense summer days, but with many changes of voice and perspective and with many flashbacks. The reader certainly has to concentrate to keep track of what is going on and the large cast of characters doesn't help. But the author just about manages to bring it off and keep control of the narrative and overall I found myself swept along with the story – even if I did have to stop and take a deep breath at times. Original, unusual, well-crafted on the whole and with some interesting characterisation, this is definitely a book worth putting a bit of effort into.