LoveReading Says
LoveReading Says
Suspensefully structured, with the action slipping between two timeframes before they collide in an almighty climax, Alex Marwood’s The Island of Lost Girls is a devastatingly resonant thriller.
In the words of one of its key characters, the novel lays bare how “wealth is so seductive. Its glittering beams can blind one to the ugliest realities”. It’s an absolute page-turner that exposes the kind of self-entitled, dehumanising disdain the super-wealthy can have for those who are not. That said, in this case the abuses of power and money are being watched by someone who’s had enough of being silenced. Someone who has revenge to take.
In the mid-eighties, everything changes on La Kastellana when the new duke welcomes the obscenely wealthy to his traditional island, among them Matthew Meade with his super yacht and super-spoiled teenage daughter Tatiana. When 12-year-old islander Mercedes first meets Tatiana, she’s dazzled by her lifestyle, but it’s not long before she sees Tatiana for what she is. But no one says no to the Meades – the wealthy have a way of getting what they want, and this sense of entrapment is chillingly evoked.
In 2016, while Mercedes works as a housekeeper for the Meades, Robin has come to the island to search for her missing daughter. When the police close ranks around the duke and the Meades, Robin knows she must be on the right track, but she’s running out of time.
Chiming with contemporary revelations about the abusiveness of the super-rich, this punch-packing page-turner deftly interweaves island history and legends about sirenas, “the lost souls of impure girls, flung into the dark and transformed by the ocean”.
Joanne Owen
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The Island of Lost Girls Synopsis
Sun-drenched glamour and obscene wealth hide the darkest of secrets and lost girls in this ripped-from-the-headlines thriller.
1985
For twelve-year-old Mercedes, La Kastellana is the place she calls home. It is an island untouched by the modern world, with deep-rooted traditions - though that is all about to change with the arrival of multimillionaire Matthew Meade and his spoiled young daughter, Tatiana. The Meades bring with them unimaginable wealth, but the price they will all pay is far darker than Mercedes and the islanders could ever have imagined.
2016
Robin is desperately searching for her seventeen-year-old daughter Gemma, who has been missing for over a year. Finding herself on La Kastellana, the island playground of the international jet set, Robin is out of her depth. Nobody wants to help and Robin fears she is running out of time to find her child.
But someone has been watching, silently waiting for their moment to expose the dark truth and reveal to the world what really happens on the island of lost girls.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9781408725498 |
| Publication date: |
14th July 2022 |
| Author: |
Alex Marwood |
| Publisher: |
Sphere an imprint of Little, Brown Book Group |
| Format: |
Hardback |
| Pagination: |
469 pages |
| Primary Genre |
Thriller and Suspense
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| Other Genres: |
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| Recommendations: |
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Press Reviews
Alex Marwood Press Reviews
A stunning, genre-defying novel, poetic, immersive and as dazzling as the Mediterranean sun even as it pulls the reader through the darkest corridors of human behaviour. I was totally mesmerised, from the beautiful, slow-burn opening chapters right through to the gripping, stomach-churning finale. Alex Marwood is in a class of her own -- Lisa Jewell
A ripped-from-the-headlines thriller that is both compassionate and chilling . . . I couldn't put it down -- Mark Edwards Gripping, timely and beautifully written. Marwood blends story-telling prowess with characters so real that we inhabit their predicaments quite viscerally. The result is irresistible. -- Sophie Hannah
A stiletto of a novel: heart stopping and devastating -- Jenny Colgan
A blisteringly immersive summer read. Paradise has never been so dark and the world of the super-rich so terrifyingly believable. I'm still thinking about these characters days after reading -- Emma Styles
Author
About Alex Marwood
Raised by wolves, Alex Marwood passed her formative years in the lands beyond the Arctic circle, developing pack skills, excellent night vision and an ability to survive on raw protein. Ideally equipped for a life on Fleet Street, she then became a journalist.
Her first novel, The Wicked Girls, was published by Sphere, in 2012, and achieved widespread acclaim and word-of-mouth bestsellerdom. In 2013 it was shortlisted for an ITW award, and included in Stephen King's Ten Best Books of the Year list. It was published by Penguin in the US in 2013, and is shortlisted for an Edgar Allen Poe award.
The Killer Next Door, described by The Sun as "nasty, compelling and original", was released as an ebook in 2013, and came out as a paperback in June 2014. Alex herself is a figment of the imagination of the novelist and sometime journalist Serena Mackesy. If you're interested in a more truthful biog, an FAQ and other books, visit her website, here.
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