"all you had to do was wait.
Patience was a weapon."

Another worst nightmare read that was so good, I could hardly read it! While out vacationing, a family veers off the normal path of the vacation spots and finds themselves on a remote island looking for wildlife in Australia. They don't know the land, the heat or how it all works. To everyone's horror, an accident happens, one that can't be undone. And it puts this whole family at risk and on the run for their lives.

This book is like watching a really scary movie where you are on the edge of your seat and holding your breath, running right along with this group. This family has layers and they are slowly unraveled as they survive and push and try to live out each night on the island on the run. I loved the growth of each one and how you begin to understand them. The horror of it all was so well done, the tension consantly high. Heather was a strong character and one you loved to root for. This would make a great movie and I loved it!

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

I don't know. This one just didn't feel... feasible. Feasible at any rate. I didn't really have any feelings toward the characters at all, much unlike how I felt when reading The Chain. I know Adrian McKinty does well with a plot developing in one location, but this one wasn't as strong for me. Once getting to the plot point about Owen and the reasoning for his mental wall, it felt a little disjointed from what else was happening and had happened prior to that moment.

definitely not an island you want to visit....

Tom, his kids, and new wife Heather go to Australia for Tom's work conference... a little getaway they all thought...

this book was SO entertaining & such a WILD ride. i couldn't put it down! literally the hair on the back of my neck was standing up ever since they arrived on the island. i was so stressed the entire time, but i loved every second of it. not every book can make me feel that type of way, and Adrian McKinty - you did it!

i'd absolutely love to see this turn into a movie/mini series. i can picture it now!
5 stars all around.

This was an exciting book to read. I liked the action! I enjoyed the pace. It was very outlandish and rough at times. It was extremely painful to read about the dog. I think I would have enjoyed it much better without that part. But overall it was a fun book. Deliverance in the outback.

Another great thriller by the author of The Chain. This book had so many twists and turns and kept me on the edge of my seat. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

This was such a good thriller! It kept me guessing and intrigued the whole time! The characters were likable and well developed. I would definitely recommend this to everyone!

I had really High Hopes for this one because I LOVED The Chain. And it started off strong for me but dropped off pretty early. I might go back and read it again to see if I enjoyed it better but for now it is just 3 stars. Good but not Great.

Update: came back and did the audiobook. The audiobook def got my attention! The narrator was great and the added sound effects in parts just made ot come alive!! 4 Stars

Read if you like
🔪 Horror Movies
🔪 Being scared
🔪 Thrillers & Mysteries

This one was such a great and scary read! I am definitely someone that jumps and screams during scary movies and this one had me on the edge of my seat while reading just like a horror movie.

The characters in this one are written to be unlikable and I love that in a thriller. I feel like with most thrillers the more I dislike the characters, the better the thriller.

McKinty writes another action packed, adrenaline, heart pounding psychological thriller. I couldn’t put this book down and actually felt like I was in the story.!

One family of four, including a woman named Heather who had recently married a man with two kids. The kids aren’t particularly fond of her, and they all take a trip down under, when an accident happens—their lives are turned upside down.

Wow! What a crazy nail biter, stayed up until 1 am just to see the ending! Crazy fast paced, and heartfelt family story develops throughout it between Heather, our lead & the two kids. It was definitely one of those “Lost” meets “the hunt” vibes for me! Heather was incredibly witty, and definitely knew how to handle such pressure.


I was not honestly a fan of the consistent change of POV- it was aggravatingly confusing for me when Heather was the majority perspective. The pace was also slow moving at first- and felt winded. But I’m satisfied nonetheless!


Thanks to Little, Brown & Company as well as Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review!

3.5/5 A family is taken hostage on an island off the coast of Australia. This book kept me on the edge of my seat because the action is ongoing. I wanted the kids to die until about 70% because they were that annoying. There are cheesy lines and unbelievable action events but I was still enjoying the ride.

One of my Top Reads for 2022! Fast paced. Nail biting. Edge of my seat reading.

Tom and Heather leave Seattle for a medical conference in Australia. The kids demand to see koalas and kangaroos and in a moment of tension the family decides to venture via the O'Neill family's ferry to their Island. All hell breaks loose and the family is left fighting for their lives.

The book was ingenious. I felt like I was watching a movie. I could barely put it down and devoured it in under 24 hours. I highly recommend this for an intense read.

The Island by Adrian McKinty is a fast-paced thriller about a family vacation that goes VERY wrong. It's one of the books I read while on vacation, and I'm very grateful our trip had nothing in common with this plot!

When Tom Baxter, a recently-widowed 40-ish orthopedic surgeon, is invited to be a medical conference keynote speaker in Australia, he brings his new young wife, his 14-year-old daughter, and his 12-year-old son along for a family vacation. The relationships are new and would benefit from some bonding experiences.

All goes relatively well until their itinerary brings them to Melbourne, and a chance encounter leads the Baxters to a remote island populated by members of a single family. Then a terrible accident launches a horrific chain of events, forcing the Baxters to run, hide, and fight for their lives.

I was on the edge of my seat and read this only during the day to avoid nightmares. The action was nearly constant and (for me) was intense and "believable." There's characters you'll love to hate, and humans and dogs meet violent ends.

Hulu has the rights to develop The Island as a limited series. I hope it gets created ... I'll be watching some parts through a mask of my fingers! Thank you to Little, Brown and NetGalley for a review copy.

Heather Baxter is married to Tom, a widowed doctor with a young son and teenage daughter, when they travel from Seattle to Australia for Tom's business conference. They accept a boat ride to a private island off the mainland, but after Tom hits an island resident with his car, his life and his family's become endangered from the angry owners of the island.

The rest of the book is sheer terror and nail biting suspense as the family tries to escape from the island and its manic inhabitants. Without means of communicating to anyone outside the island, the family is in dire straits.

I liked that young Heather becomes the brave and resilient heroine of the book, thinking fast and thinking ahead in this action packed, often violent story of survival. A book not for the faint of heart, the action is often violent and brutal but extremely suspenseful.

I was so pleasantly surprised by this book! I really enjoyed The Chain, but the Island was even better. This is a super fast paced, action/thriller. This book truly feels like watching a movie! There were about 30-40 pages of buildup but after that this story really took off and did not let up until the ending. I will say the only thing I didn't love was the ending was very quick and only lasted a few pages, but it was still a really great story. I would definitely recommend this!

A great thriller! Quick and easy to read, keeps you on your toes throughout the whole story. Another great book from McKinty

THE ISLAND was a wild ride from beginning to end. A family vacation gone very, very wrong.
When Heather travels to Australia with her new husband and two step kids, it seems like a chance for them all to bond and move forward together. As they have travelled very far, the kids convince their dad to go to a private island to see koala bears. From here, well I don’t want to say too much because you should go in blind!
I finished this book in 24 hours, and even though it required some suspension of disbelief, it worked for this book, because I feel like you truly just need to enjoy the ride. It has a lot of nail-biting moments, how are they going to get out of this situation moments, and what, no way moments.
The writing ran through my head like a movie, so I am very excited for the adaption of the Island as I think it will be very exciting and suspenseful on the big screen.
Thank you Little, Brown and Company for the eARC through NetGalley in exchange for the honest review.

3.5 ⭐️

Heather is a newly married young stepmother on a work trip/vacation in Australia with her husband and two kids. One day, the kids pressure Heather and her husband Tom into seeing some animals on a very small island a family lives on that the general public doesn’t go on. With another couple, the family heads onto the island only for everything to start to go extremely wrong.

This was wild. First from the author and yes, you really do have to suspend disbelief. While crazier things have happened, this book is extremely unrealistic. For some reason, I couldn’t put it down once I got past the beginning and got into it. I stayed up way too late reading this one. For me, the best part was reading about Heather and her resourcefulness. The cat and mouse chase is the majority of the story and it kept me on my toes and interested. I liked Heathers relationship with the kids as well. The only complaint I really have is the writing/language. There were some parts or lines that for me didn’t need to be included, especially Carolyn’s and the fart comments. The kids did not always talk how kids talk, the writing generally felt stiff especially with those one or two word lines (I can’t think of the proper word for that). Regardless, this was an interesting, very different read for me and I was entertained and liked the ending. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the free preview in exchange for an honest review.

This was no Gilligan's Island and no three hour tour! Deciding they needed to see koala's Heather and Tom's vacation takes a sinister curve when the kids decide they must see koala bears. So, even though warned not to, they rake a ferry to Dutch Island and encounter the threatening and vile clan that live there. The O'Neals were a dastardly group but soon they would face Heather, newly married to Tom assuming a superwoman role to battle these horrible people.

Heather and the kids, sans Tom ,who was captured by the O'Neals, escape after being held captive and are out in the wild of this island's terrain. They overcame a plethora of experiences, being chased by dogs, the family with guns and wheels, and other myriad happenings. Implausible you say? Exactly! Heather becomes a superwoman, and soon proves fiction is a fine way to achieve that status.

This was a book that required the reader to extend their disbelief as far as the eye could see with binoculars! All in all however, I was not bored by this story as ridiculous as it often was!

So, if you need something to fill in some time, this might be the book for you. It is fast paced, improbable, and has a number of quite grisly scenes. Thank you to Adrian McKinty and NetGalley for a copy of this book which published in May.

An Exhilarating, Tense, and Spine-chilling Page Turner

The Island is the newest heart pounding thriller by Adrian McKinty, and it does not disappoint. Heather, a massage therapist and underappreciated stepmom, is on a family vacation in Austrailia with her new doctor husband and his bratty teenage kids. Heather doesn't have a proper education, but she has her head on her shoulders with plenty of survival skills. The kids are entitled and resent their new mom, while the father ignores their behavior. This changes as they become trapped on a private island inhabited by the sketchy O'Neil family, and Heather's parenting and survival abilities are put to the test.

"Perhaps they are worse than evil—they are bored"

This novel was filled with vivid imagery and dynamic characters brimming with depth. It is impossible not to root for Heather. I was on the edge of my seat with an increasing heart rate everytime the odds were against her. This was a wild ride from beginning to end. Everything about this story was unique and compelling. It's not everyday that I come across a genuinely original thriller that rocks me this hard. It's action packed and graphic with a surprisingly heartfelt end. There's one twist that was a bit predictable, but the reaction was not. The plot has an engaging design and is incredibly well written. It was interesting to learn that this book's setting is based on a real island. I also enjoyed learning a few pieces of Austrailian history, geography, and slang. For example, I learned about the bunyip, an aboriginal mythological man-eating monster. Somehow this part of the story makes Heather seem even more of a badass. Tired of your typical popcorn thrillers? Look no further because The Island is not your average B rated thriller. I for one, can't wait for The Island adaptation. I'd recommend this to anyone looking for a unique and heart racing thriller.

Thank you Little, Brown and Company, Netgalley, and Adrian Mckinty for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.