Hidden away, a mile off the mainland, it’s a paradise of beautiful beaches and picture-postcard villages. The perfect place to reinvent yourself. To keep secrets buried.
But this summer, women are vanishing—in a chilling alphabetical pattern. First Alice. Then Beccy. Then Corinne. Each disappearance more mysterious than the last, leaving no trace behind.
As panic builds on the island, a hit true-crime podcast seizes on the story. Its magnetic host, Ross, arrives with questions, charm, and an agenda no one can quite pin down.
For Lily, each new disappearance brings her letter closer. And on Aurora, where some come to hide and others vanish without a trace, time is running out—one woman at a time…
A remote island accessible only by ferry. An island that is sometimes completely cut off from the mainland due to bad weather. An island where everyone knows everyone, and yet somehow, women are being abducted in what appears to be broad daylight without anyone noticing. What could possibly go wrong?
Apparently, everything.
To begin with, instead of traditional chapter numbers, each chapter is labeled with a letter of the alphabet, each one corresponding to the woman who will eventually be taken. It’s an interesting concept in theory, but in execution, it completely fell flat. For a book where women are disappearing with alarming frequency (sometimes only days apart) there was absolutely no sense of urgency. While the chapters themselves were short, but they lacked the tension that I expected from a novel like this. Instead of feeling dread build with each disappearance, we are simply told by Ross, who is on the island to record a podcast, that another girl has gone missing. And that’s… pretty much it.
You see, after being mentioned, those women are largely forgotten. They exist only as abstract ideas rather than real people. Even the police seem strangely indifferent, appearing only when the plot requires them to and disappearing just as quickly. While I understand that giving all if the missing women their own points of view would have been excessive, it would have made a world of difference to see at least a few of them in the moments leading up to their abductions, or better yet, to see things from their perspective while they were being held. That would have created real tension. Real fear. Instead, it was just a repetitive cycle of being told someone else had vanished, with no emotional weight attached to it.
And then we get to Part II, which somehow manages to make things worse.
Much of this section suffers from the same problem: we are told that important things are happening, but we never actually feel the impact of them. Lily’s so-called “big secret,” which had been built up through her constant paranoia in Part I, turned out to be incredibly underwhelming. After all that buildup, I expected something shocking, something that would reframe everything we thought we knew. Instead, it barely registered.
Zadie’s perspective was equally frustrating. Rather than adding meaningful depth to the story, her narrative became bogged down by her love life, which felt entirely irrelevant given the circumstances. Her personality didn’t help matters either. Her constant back-and-forth of not trusting Ross, not liking them, but still choosing to engage with him anyway quickly became tiresome. And when she realized she was next, it never occurred to her to leave a note for her partner, warn someone, or even attempt to protect herself in any meaningful way before she went off by herself. The lack of basic self-preservation made it incredibly difficult to take her seriously.
And then there’s the ending.
Without giving away spoilers, all I can say is… seriously?
After everything; the disappearances, the supposed mystery, that is the direction the author chose to take? It wasn’t just underwhelming. It was outright ridiculous. Not to mention deeply unrealistic. Instead of feeling satisfied or even shocked, I was left feeling like I had wasted my time. And that, more than anything else, is the most disappointing part.
This was a premise with enormous potential. An isolated island. A string of disappearances. A community cut off from the outside world. It should have been tense, atmospheric, and impossible to put down.
Instead, it was forgettable.
DISCLAIMER: I received a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher. This has not affected my review in any way. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are 100% my own.
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