Somewhat predictable LGBT destination thriller.
When her fiancée, Eszter Farkus, dies while visiting a quiet island in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico on a 3 week trip, Abby decides to travel to Isla Colel herself to retrace Eszter’s steps and meet the people she had spent time with before her death from anaphylactic shock. The island, decimated by a hurricane, has no real tourism and only a few expats live there forming a transient community. Abby meets them, trying to understand what happened, and finds that things aren’t adding up. Everyone is hiding something and keeping secrets. Abby starts to believe that she hasn’t been told the truth of what Eszter was doing on the island and how she died.
This was quite slow and nothing happened as Abby shuffles around chatting up the people who knew her girlfriend. I didn’t really like any of the characters and there really was no tension or suspense as they were talking, talking, talking. Abby doesn’t speak Spanish which makes it hard for her to question the locals, and she’s not certain that Rita, Pedro, Amari, and Brady are being truthful. How did Eszter come to find this place and was she planning to come back home to Abby and get married? It really wasn’t very compelling and the plot was quite thin. No surprises. The conclusion was disappointing.
I was able to listen to the audio book while also following along in the e-book ARC provided by the publisher. There was a cast of narrators for this production including Dani Martineck, Imani Jade Powers and Natasha Soudek. But no male voice. I disliked whomever voiced the Eszter character but the others did alright considering the lack of real drama and uneven pacing. I usually enjoy the immersive experience of doing the formats simultaneously, but I did end up putting the audio aside and just read the last couple of chapters.
This is a standalone and is not part of any series.
Tags and genre - destination thriller, expats, LGBT, island
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