Absolutely loved this. Emer has arrived on the island of Vinalhaven to look after ailing elderly Susannah who has pancreatic cancer. Coping admirably with a difficult old lady who insists she doesn't need anyone, she is quickly pulled into Susannah's past through the discovery of letters tucked into the quilt on her bed.
Both Emer and Susannah have secret pasts. Emer has left the Boston hospital where she nursed abandoning her doctor lover Lars. They were together on the night Emer's sister Orla died and she has never forgiven herself for not being there for her. In letting her sister down she feels she does not deserve any happiness with Lars. Susannah too has lived with guilt over the murder of her younger sister Kate at the hands of a brutal husband; something which totally changed the direction of her life and a promising career in teaching.
Written from both women's aspects and moving between present day and the 1950s/60s not only does it solve a mystery, it also details Susannah's life as a Harvard student at a time of huge social change in America. Highly recommended.

This story was so good! I was caught up in it from the very beginning! I liked Emer's story but I LOVED Susannah's, I really wished it was her and Kate's story and it went back and forth between them. I think Susannah's story was the only one that was really developed and that may be why.

I read this book in two days because it was really good. My only problems were the organization and some little things with the writing but it can be overlooked with such a great story. And I love Maine so the setting is great.

𝐑𝐄𝐕𝐈𝐄𝗪: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐈𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐆𝐢𝐫𝐥𝐬 ⁣
𝘣𝘺 𝘕𝘰𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘦 𝘏𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘰𝘯⁣
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Thank you @netgalley and @bookouture for my first digital ARC! ⁣
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Overall, I liked this story. The setting is particularly well-done and I loved the imagery of the island. Although the theme of family secrets is a pretty common one, the plot was good and kept me engaged with a few curveballs. Where the story fell a bit flat for me was regarding character development. Susannah was a fascinating character, and I absolutely loved her, but Emer was frustrating at times, and I think if her motivations had been explored a bit more she would have been more sympathetic. I had a similar problem with Susannah's mother.⁣
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This was a good read though, and I do recommend checking it out! ⁣
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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐💫3.5/5⁣
(rounded up to 4)
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#constantreaderbookclub #constantreaderreviews

Sister's

The Island Girls is a story of sisters and their love for each other. It is about a beautiful island off the coast of Maine. It is about cancer and the hurt it can cause. It is about relationships and the complications that come with them.

Emer and her sister Ora both from Ireland are close with each other, especially after the death of their mother from Cancer. When Ora gets cancer Emer, a nurse, is there for her sister, however, on the night Ora dies Emer was with her boyfriend Lars and she is haunted by that knowledge. She should have been with her sister. This causes Emer to take a job on an island off the coast of Maine to take care of Suzanne who is dying with pancreatic cancer.

Emer finds letters hidden in a quilt from Suzanne's sister Kate and reads them. She also helps Suzanne type up letters for her nieces that she raised when her sister died when the girls were very young. The letters tell a story of two sisters that were close. Kate marries Mathew who is an abusive husband. Suzanne has never liked Mathew and leaves the island for college. Suzanne meets Eva and has a relationship with Eva while at college. The marriage to Mathew and Suzanne and Eva's relationship strains the ties between the two sisters. When Suzanne gets a letter from Kate saying she is leaving Mathew and needs her help Suzanne travels to the island. When Suzanne gets there the two girls are hiding under the bed, Kate is dead in the front yard and her mother is in her room. What happened that night Suzanne keeps a secret and never tells anyone.

When Emer comes to work for Suzanne she meets Henry who takes her on tours of the beautiful scenic spots on the island. One night when they go for a walk to an isolated spot Henry isn't so nice. Suzanne rescues her and secrets are revealed. Emer and Suzanne both bare their hearts and as Suzanne's girls gather around her Emer travels to New York to be with Lars.

It was a good story, I loved the descriptions of the beautiful places on the Island. The love between both sets of sisters. It was sad at times, but a good story all the same. I thought it was well written, the content was sometimes hard to read, but it was life and life is what it is not always what we want. People are all different and that is what makes each of us so unique.

If you are looking for a good story you might want to consider this book. I did enjoy reading it.

Thanks to Noelle Harrison, Bookouture, and NetGalley for allowing me to read an advanced copy of the book for an honest review.

3.5 stars for me.

The Island Girls is a book about sisters and the bond they share.

Susannah comes to Vinalhaven Island to care for Emer who is terminally ill.

The author draws you in slowly to the story with a well written descriptive aspect and interesting characters that you want to get to know.

Once I got into the story I was curious to see what would happen.

This was my first book by Noelle Harrison and now I will certainly read her other books.

Thanks to Net Galley and Bookouture for the opportunity to read The Island Girls.

Unfortunately, this was predictable, one dimensional, and underwhelming. I desperately wanted to love it, especially the storyline of Susannah in the 60s, but rather than being a nuanced exploration of the role of women in society at that time, it just felt like a lot of whinging. Also, I found a fair few of the characters to be very flat and underdeveloped. All in all, I found that while the synopsis promised a riveting tale of mystery and intrigue, the book itself failed to deliver.

The story introduces us to Emer, a nurse who is unable to cope with the death of her sister and runs away to Vinalhaven Island to nurse a stranger, the terminally ill Susannah. It starts predictably enough with Susannah not happy with her niece hiring a nurse to look after her and giving Emer a hard time, but it soon changes into something much more interesting. The bonds of sisterhood are explored as the story unfolds of Susannah and her sister Kate, mirrored by Emer and her sister Orla. The constraints placed on women in the 60s is explored as Susannah craves education and a life beyond marriage and babies. The storyline was well-paced and well thought out and I enjoyed the story. However, I did struggle a bit with the male characters in the story as they were a little one dimensional. Overall an interesting read. Great descriptions of the island and of Boston.
This was my first book from this author, and I intend to read more.
Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review
#NetGalley #TheIslandGirls #Bookouture

I received this from Netgalley.com for a review.

The story drifts back and forth from Susannah as a young woman and terrible events that happened to her, and elderly Susannah who is now terminally ill and still trying to cope and come to terms with her past.

The blurb hints at mystery and intrigue which (in my opinion) was not adequately layered and built up to keep the story interesting. This story was predictable and felt very flat thus the characters stayed one dimensional.


1☆

I am a sucker for stories that take place on just about any coast. Add in some family drama and I am hooked. This novel did not disappoint me. There are many story lines all going on at once, including differing time periods, points of view, and locations, yet I never got lost. The small bits of foreshadowing did not ruin anything for me as sometimes happens in other books, but just made me feel like I was confirmed in a suspicion about someone or something I already knew. As each layer of each story is removed, I felt closer to the characters, and the locale is at times a character by itself. This story is a good roadmap of how families can drive us crazy while drawing us close at the same time. I feel fortunate to have been given access to an advance copy for review.

“The Island Girls” by Noelle Harrison set on Vinalhaven Island, Maine is a compelling story about the love between sisters. First off, what struck me most was author Noelle’s descriptions of Vinalhaven Island and how much it makes me want to visit the island one day. She is very descriptive of the island and various places on the island.

Her story set in two different time periods between two sets of sisters Susannah & Kate and Emer & Orla shows the bond of sisterly love and how the bonds of sisterhood never fade despite time and distance. Both Susannah and Kate lost their sisters at an early age and they meet at the end of Susannah’s life in 2011. Susannah and Kate’s story unravels as she dictates to Emer the letters Kate sent to Susannah while she was away at Harvard at the end of her life as she battles pancreatic cancer.

The story flowed well and despite a few typos in the advanced copy I received it was one that was hard to put down from beginning to end. Noelle Harrison does not disappoint in this story, the first of what I’m guessing many I will read by this author.

I did receive an advanced copy of the book however all opinions expressed are solely my own and not influenced by receiving the complimentary edition.

With thanks to bookouture and netgalley for an arc a new Author to me a highly enjoyed this wonderful warm and inviting read good story line excellent characters makes a great book.

This book was so good. I didn't to put it down! The characters were well rounded, and the storyline sucked you into it and made you feel like you were really there. The author did an great job telling this story.