Jane Harper has done it again: this is a great mystery, and a perfect Sunday afternoon read. Set against the harsh yet beautiful backdrop of Tasmania, Harper takes us into a small town mystery (her specialty) in the present and the past. This is a great pick for readers who aren't into gratuitous violence, and are interested in character development and understanding the human psyche. It's a satisfying and captivating read, but one you can enjoy after dark.

A small town on the Tasmanian coast. An intense storm 12 years ago that led to two deaths and a disappearance. And now — the inexplicable murder of a young, well-liked, visiting artist that is somehow connected to events of the past. With Harper’s expert pacing and character development, we witness small town life through two lenses: one where everyone seems an irreproachable member of a tight-knit community and the other where each feels like a reasonable suspect. Through a maelstrom of online community postings, we see how the anonymous amplification of suspicions and accusations can bring a community to its knees. As with all Harper’s books, it is just about impossible to put down.

I have never read anything from this author but several of my friends have and highly recommend her. This book is a winner. Young man and his family return to an isolated sea area where the murder of a young woman brings back the past and family secrets. will recommend

I discovered Jane Harper's writing when The Lost Man caught my eye on the library New Books shelf. Her writing style seemed perfectly suited for that story and setting; I could feel the aridness and see the wide open space of the parched landscape. I almost inhaled that book and her other two novels. The plots were cohesive and well-paced and the characters engaging.

The Survivors was a different kind of read for me, though. I struggled to keep the many characters straight in my mind, and the switch between past and present wasn't always clearly signaled for the reader. I would have liked to have a list of characters and their relationships. I also had difficulty "seeing" the landscape of the shoreline with its beach and caves.

All that being said, I am glad I read this book. Harper knows how to write a satisfying and surprising mystery and I did want to read to the end to find out what had happened. It's possible that reading the book in hard copy form will be a better experience, and I will be rereading it when it's published.
#NetGalley, #TheSurvivors

Like most readers, I cannot help but compare "The Survivors" to her exquisite debut novel, "The Dry," or her second and third novels, "Force of Nature" and "The Lost Man." And while I am a huge fan of her writing, and a huge fan of her small Australian towns and townies – their fates so entwined with the beautiful yet deadly landscapes in which they reside – I think the central mystery of this novel falls flat.

The pacing felt slow, meandering, the protagonist not a detective or investigator, merely a stakeholder in the town and its people, and not even under suspicion for the murder. I love Ms. Harper's fascination with secrets, but felt that the ones uncovered here did not lead us satisfyingly from one suspect to the next – perhaps because we were so removed from the actual investigation, instead stumbling upon information haphazardly as Kieran talks to various friends and townspeople.

I think the other-worldliness of the Australian Outback contributed much to Ms. Harper's previous novels, the weirdness, the provincial ruralness of everyone knowing everyone's business and history, eking out an existence in a deadly landscape, ravaged by climate change. It made her writing unique, a setting seen only rarely in literature. I feel something was lost in the move to the Tasmanian coast, a coastal town with sea caves being something common the world over (see the plot of Locke & Key for instance), and it made "The Survivors" feel like I'd read/seen this story previously.

TL;DR Jane Harper is terrific, this book is fine, her others are better.

Well, this seals the deal for me. Jane Harper can do no wrong. This, her fourth novel echoes the theme present in all her previous works: Secrets can’t stay hidden forever. And if it’s Jane Harper revealing each secret, in well-paced prose that nonetheless fills the reader with a palpable feeling of dread, then all the better.

Harper’s The Survivors, on the surface, is as unhurried as the small oceanside town of Evelyn Bay where the novel takes place. The prologue, however, sets the stage with a scene that practically cackles with dark electricity, as it almost-but-not-quite describes a horrific event. The characters are introduced one-by-one, and I don’t how she does it, but Harper fleshes out each one until you can practically hear them breathing. The backstories are filled in – but are they? Herein lies the true genius of the author: you think you know everything there is to know about a person, or a place, or an event, but what you don’t know is missing is what catches up to you and changes your world forever.

Others will summarize the story better than I can, but readers hesitant to pick up another mystery in a glutted genre should know this: Harper’s books are quiet masterpieces that will still shock you. It will not be with gore and guns, but with the slowly dawning realization of what your fellow man is capable of.

Friendships and families torn by tragedy will unravel old secrets with new uncertainties. Harper’s flawed, well-intentioned characters make it difficult to discern who is innocent until the very last pages.

I have enjoyed Jane Harper's previous three books, and was anxious to read "The Survivor's" based on her track record of writing great stories based in her homeland of Australia. What I got was was a bit different - a mystery set in a coastal town in Tasmania that took place in both the present and 12 years ago... but I did find it enjoyable, although, not perhaps as much as her previous works. In "The Survivors', we have the tale of a town dealing with the death of a young waitress at the beach, which may or may not have been related to the death of a 14 year old 12 years previously on the night of a horrendous storm which also claimed the lives of two local diving instructors on their boat and shattered the local community. There are a LOT of characters to keep track of in this novel, but it all makes sense by the end, and the reader comes away with a sense of mystery solved and pieces falling into place. I received a free copy from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest opinion.

Jane Harper crafts another intriguing thriller, centered on the past, memories of young adulthood, and returning home. Kieren, returns to his home town in Tasmania, a remote seaside tourist village, to help his mother pack their house for a move. His father, Brian, is struck with dementia, and Kieren returns with his girlfriend and infant daughter to find the situation more dire that he knew. When a young waitress is found dead on the beach, and connections appear to be made to the disappearance of a teen girl during a storm more than a decade prior, secrets within the town bubble to the surface as Kieren tries to resolve his own guilt and spotty memory of the tragic events of the storm. Well crafted and intriguing, will certainly please fans of Harper's earlier work and readers who enjoy psychological fiction.

"The Survivors" is a richly plotted murder-mystery novel set on the remote island of Tasmania. While certainly a different setting than Harper's previous novels in the Australian Outback, "Survivors" maintains an immersive feel with a clear appreciation for accurate social and cultural dynamics.

There are many characters to keep track of: Kieran (the protagonist who lost his brother Finn in a storm over a decade ago), his partner Mia, their daughter Audrey, Kerian's childhood friend Ash who is partnered with Olivia (also goes by Liv), Sean who manages a local bar and employs his nephew Liam, Kerian's parents Brian and Verity, and Bronte - the unfortunate victim whose body washes up on the beach in the opening of the book. Oh, and there's also a girl named Gabby who disappeared a long time ago, around the same time Finn and his friend died at sea.

Once you get all of these characters straight, the plot moves quickly and the clues slowly start to piece together. This is where Harper truly shines: small clues start to connect and weave a fascinating story with complex and nuanced characters. If you've enjoyed her previous novels, this one won't disappoint. However, I would say that it is much darker and sadder than what I've read of hers. I read the last page feeling incredibly burdened and low-spirited. This book is much more than an entertaining mystery, it's a window into trauma and toxic masculinity, and the long-lasting effects of grief.

This was my least favorite of Harper’s novels so far. None of the characters were very likable and the story seemed to drag along. A story of a murder on a beach that may be connected to the tragedy of a missing girl during a storm 12 years earlier.