by Tina Baker
SYNOPSIS
Everyone brings their secrets to the island...
On the beautiful and windswept island of Tresco, two worlds live side by side. The wealthy visitors come by helicopter to stay at their lavish time-share properties. The estate staff travel by boat, and work all hours to keep them happy, to keep the money flowing in.
But while the blue skies and savage waves make the island seem a wild paradise, under the surface the inhabitants are concealing more than they dare reveal. The truths about their marriages, their love affairs, and what they do in the darkness while their neighbours are sleeping.
As black clouds come rolling in and a storm hits the island, truths and rumours begin to tumble out, wreaking terrible damage. In the midst of the tempest, two women are attacked and one goes missing. The secrets of this fragile community can no longer be hidden if it hopes to survive. The islanders must finally reveal what they did in the storm, no matter the cost.
REVIEW
What We Did In The Storm is my first Tina Baker book and I think that the thing which struck me the most was that the style of writing was so unique. Everyone has that one friend who has no filter, just says whatever is on their mind no matter how outrageous it may be, and I have a feeling that Tina Baker might be one of those people! There were parts of the story which made me laugh out loud, parts which made me cringe and parts which shocked me. It was a combination of this no holds barred approach and the cast of characters who were unapologetically flawed which made this such an interesting read.
The story itself was a closed circle mystery with quite a large number of characters who were both regular time-share visitors to the island of Tresco, and the staff who lived and worked there full time. Sometimes having such a large number of characters to keep track of can be complicated but in this case, the characters were grouped together into smaller storylines running alongside the main mystery. Each of these separate stories were brilliant in their own right, some harrowing, some infuriating and some quite disturbing. As a result, despite the number of people and the fact that there were multiple timelines to follow, it never felt confusing and was a fantastic way to build the tension in the story.
I loved the island setting and an exploration of the darker side of island life. I've said many times in my reviews that I personally think it's much harder to write characters that you despise and in this case that was ALL of them! In that respect, What We Did In The Storm provided great character studies with a lot of dark humour, as well as being a solid, dark and at times, brutal thriller.
Thanks to Viper Books @ViperBooks for the opportunity to read and review.
Fiction: Mystery / Psychological Thriller
Publisher: Viper
ISBN: 978-1800811843
Pages: 400pp