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An excellent thriller unravelling the tale of two young American women, friends for life, and their harrowing trip to Far North Queensland Australia – a trip of a lifetime and one that is also driven by secrets – facts hidden that will in fact come to change the entire complexion of the journey, pitting both main protagonists on an unrelenting collision course with danger.

When Ivy McGill, a somewhat insecure NYU college student and our first-person narrator, hooks up inappropriately into what becomes a long term relationship with someone she does not really know at all, her life suddenly becomes a desperate struggle for escape. And escape she seeks, as far away as Australia, and the waters beyond, when she signs up to crew on the sailboat of a strangely private father/daughter pair, accompanied by their gorgeous and mysterious new chef, in what Ivy hopes will be a freeing (and perhaps romantically pleasurable) anonymous hiatus.

Accompanied by her friend Regan Kemp, a beautiful sharp-tongued model who will stand by Ivy, and what she believes to be right, whatever the cost, the girls diversion quickly descends into a terrifying interlude of sea and storm and all-around confusion, in which no-one is whom they seem at all, peril lurks around every salt-encrusted doorway, and the basic survival of both (or even, either) girl is tantalizingly made questionable by the authors addition of a cleverly ambiguous future-time subplot involving detectives and a grisly crime.

I loved this book – my second read, both a five-star, by this talented author – a nonstop literary ride, extremely well-crafted, and thick with tension and atmosphere. This chaotic swirl of questions, drama and suspense held my attention rapt, topped only by a terrific dazzler of an ending that this reader absolutely did not see coming.

A great big thank you to #Netgalley, the author, and the publisher for an ARC of this book. All thoughts presented are my own.