For some reason this book just dragged for me. Despite being tagged as a mystery/thriller it felt very low stakes. While a change in POV or timeline typically doesn't bother me, I often had no idea who was who and where we were in the plot. I found the characters very forgettable.

Saltwater was a great story. It was a little slow at first but really picked up and got very twisty and interesting. Couldn’t put it down by the end

Set in beautiful Capri, Saltwater tells the story of the extremely wealthy Lingate family, who rerun to this island paradise every year. On Capri, young mother, Sarah Lingate , was found dead be.ow the cliffs in 1992,, leaving behind her three year old daughter, Helen . Although Sarah’s death was judged an accident, the family , particularly Helen, remains skeptical, wondering is there was a murderer amongst them.

The story focuses on the year they return only to find Sarah’s missing necklace in their villa. She was wearing it the day she died but it was not there when her body was discovered. The mystery deepens with many twists and turns, some believable and others more of a reach. While the plot had great possibilities, I found myself overloaded with too many characters none with whom I could connect. The book simply did not hold my interest consistently.

Two stars for a story with potential that just wasn’t my cup of tea. Thanks to NetGalley and Random House-Ballantine Books for an advance readers copy in exchange for my honest review. Publication date was March 25, 2025. Perhaps you will like it better than I did.

Thirty years ago, a playwright falls to her death off a cliff in Capri.
The story is told in multiple timelines.
So many family secrets!
Saltwater is a slow burn mystery with plenty of family drama.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this book for my honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

Sarah Lingate is found dead in 1992 at the bottom of the cliffs on the island of Capri. Helen, her daughter was three years old at the time of her death, and she has some lingering suspicions things are not as they seem surrounding her mother's death. One the 13th anniversary of her mother's death, someone sends the Lingate family the necklace Sarah was wearing the night she died. Will Helen get the answers she wants surrounding her mother's death, or will she regret digging for so long to find out exactly what happened the night Sarah died?

This book is full of mystery, deception and twists. The story did get a little slow in the middle, but the ending made up for that! I thought I had this one all figured out, and I absolutely did not in the last couple of chapters. This was a good thriller, lots of suspense. I would definitely recommend picking this one up!

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing - Ballentine for this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

The ending! OMG the ending! The entire book was okay but the ending was something special. Definitely keep reading until the end.

TLDR description:
A summer thriller where rich people behave badly, and family members don't have each other's best interests at heart.
Here be relationships, drinks, and bodies on the rocks.

TLDR review:
At the halfway point I thought it was going to be a three star read for me, but then more and more kept happening, it all kept going further off the rails, and it truly shocked me. Highly recommend for a perfect summer thriller!

✨My rating: 4.25

Themes:
- Social class
- Family dynamics
- Secrets and lies
- Living life on your own terms

Emoji Vibes:
⛱️🛥️😵🍷💰⛰️

For fans of:
- Rachel Hawkins
- Sally Hepworth
- May Cobb

Thank you Ballantine and PRH audio for the review copies! A mesmerizing plot for fans of moody atmospheric drama and mystery and for anyone liking a layered slow burn read about bad rich people and intrigue. Katy Hays has a knack for revealing the dark/bad side of the rich and privileged and I found this a stronger book and plot overall than her earlier book The Cloisters but I think this one is also for fans of a slower burn moody style that I associate more with fans of Sally Rooney and similar reads, not quite my kind of book. But to be fair, this is a good read, strong writing and an interesting plot so I recommend it for many readers! What I did like was the way the plot developed through newspaper stories and drop ins that moved the story along efficiently, adding to a bigger sense of intrigue and mystery.

Read if you want kind of a mystery style bad rich people story that leans more into the slower character themes and style with Rooney, Dolly Alderton.

Saltwater is Katy Hays’s follow-up to The Cloisters. The novel takes place on the Island of Capri — a location which is both glamorous and physically threatening, surrounded by sheer cliffs. The novel focuses on the old-moneyed Lingate family — brothers Richard and Marcus, Marcus’s wife Naomi, Richard’s daughter Helen, and Marcus’s assistant Lorna — and takes place during two time periods: the present, and thirty year’s prior in 1992 when Helen’s mother Sarah was found dead at the base of the cliffs below the Lingate’s palatial vacation home. The locals believe that someone in the family had something to do with Sarah’s death, but no arrest was made at the time.

The first 75% of the novel is filled with unanswered questions, both in the past and in the present. It is a very slow burn as the chapters are narrated by different characters and during different time periods. While this structure causes the book to drag, it is also a perfect stylistic device given that the main characters only present their public faces to the world, and it soon becomes clear that they routinely lie or withhold information from others.

The pace of the novel picks up considerably during the last quarter of the novel, and there are numerous twists and turns, some of which seem more plausible than others. Overall, however, I found the novel to be well-written, intelligent and suspenseful. 4 out of 5 stars. Highly recommended.

Thanks to Ballantine/Penguin Random House and NetGalley for providing me with a complimentary copy of this book.

This one wasn’t a top fave, but the ending? Absolutely wild. The twists totally caught me off guard—I didn’t see any of it coming. I really enjoyed the way the story unfolds through multiple perspectives and a dual timeline. It kept things intriguing and added depth to the narrative.
Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

While this is full of twists and turns, especially a big one at the end that I didn't see coming, I felt bored throughout this entire book. I was interested in the beginning, we are getting a back and forth of timelines, one of the present with Helen, and the past with Sarah, leading up to how she was found at the bottom of a cliff in Capri.
But I quickly found myself uninterested and just finishing because I hoped for a great twist. Which to be fair, we did get. I just wasn't interested in anything else that was happening.

In 1992 there was a mysterious death of Sarah Lingate below the cliffs on the island of Capri. Her death was ruled an accident although many question if her husband and perhaps his family who are very wealthy, may have had something to do with it. Every year the family returns to Capri and now on the 30th anniversary of her death the necklace she was wearing the night she died turns up at the villa. Sarah’s daughter Helen wants to know what really happened to her mother. A thrilling, murder mystery. Loads of family secrets and in an isolated setting. For me the characters were just okay. The story and pacing was a bit off for me. Overall it was a good read.


Thank you to Random House Publishing Group and NetGalley for the ARC.

Credit to Katy Hays for this: Saltwater is a much better written and better plotted book than most of the “rich people murdering each other while vacationing on the Mediterranean” novels that have become very popular over the last year or two.

That said, because it isn’t an original concept, this probably needed to be more unusual in structure or detail, and it mostly follows what is becoming a tired formula in contemporary fiction.

Hays’ first novel The Cloisters was not without flaws, but it employed a lot of really original material and had exceptionally well-rendered atmosphere. Saltwater occasionally remembers that it takes place on Capri (and when it does, the sense of place is lush and evocative), but for the most part it feels like it could be taking place in any sunny vacation destination.

The pacing is excellent, and the premise for the mystery works fine. I had no issues with the structure for most of the narrative, but things come apart pretty significantly at the end. In efforts to hit readers with a “shocking” twist, the story ends up beggaring belief in a way that feels silly and unnecessary.

I won’t go into details here so as to avoid spoilers, but let’s just say that one unlikely surprise of a certain breed feels far-fetched but at least entertaining, while two instances of the exact same unlikely surprise feels absurd and like pandering to twist junkies at the expense of quality of story.

A great family thriller! I loved how it weaved the timeline and was a little puzzle. I do think the cover was giving something lighter but was definitely dark. It reminded me of God of the Woods.

This book was sooo good! I could not put it down. And the cover is gorgeous! Thank you netgalley for the chance to read the advanced copy!

Ugh...32%? That's it? I've been reading this book for what feels like forever.

Honestly, if I wanted to listen to a bunch of obscenely wealthy people bitch, whine, and complain about how tough they have it then I'd just turn on the news.

My only positive takeaway is that Capri does sound lovely.

This story takes place on capri, Italy where 40 years ago, Sarah Lingate is found dead below the cliffs. The family returns to their villa every year for a week. Although her husband, Richard was a suspect in her death, no evidence to prove it ever surfaced and her death was ruled accidental. This year, however, the necklace that Sarah was wearing turns up at the villa.
The family members are richly described, totally unlikable. They are old money, entitled people who are ruthless. This year, they bring along Lorna, who is friends with Sarah and Richard's daughter, Helen, who was 3 when her mother died and Helen and Lorna are determined to discover the truth about Sarah's death.
This book was a twisty tale with red herrings, secrets, and tension reminiscent of The Talented Mr. Ripley. Nearly every character could have killed Sarah, although the most likely person was ruled out. It was a little long and there were a few chapters which I thought were filler, and didn't do much to move the plot along. The last few chapters had my head spinning!
I received the ARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher, and am leaving my opinions voluntarily.

An extremely well done thriller that left me wondering, guessing, and, ultimately, satisfied. This book is about a rich family that had a hard past and a murder allegation, and that’s about all you need to know going in. It’s a story of fighting for independence and freedom. The characters were all compelling and some a bit shady. There’s a really solid mystery that had the perfect amount of tension to make me want to keep reading at every available minute. I was hooked from beginning to end.

This is a twisty, sleek novel containing two mysteries: an unsolved murder from the past and a missing person in the present. It revolves around a rich, power hungry family who will stop at nothing to protect their prestige and the daughter who is desperate to escape their grasp. Set on the beautiful island of Capri, it’s full of family secrets, devious ploys, and hidden motives.
After a bit a slow start, I did find myself tearing through the last half! I was pretty surprised by the many twists- though I found some to be a bit of a stretch. You will enjoy if you like a slow burn and are okay suspending disbelief!

Thoroughly enjoyed this thriller highlighting the pitfalls of wealth. Set in the Italian island of Capri amidst the rich and famous, family dysfunction is on full display. Told from multiple perspectives, this book was a roller coaster. Ultimately we read about the impact of wealth on the individual and the family and to decide whether the impacts are worth it. Fun read with lots of twists!