Never Coming Home, by Kate M. Williams

Never Coming Home, by Kate M. Williams, has been on my TBR for a minute so I was excited to start the month with this one. A pretty easy, compulsive read, this is just what I thought it would be. Wildy unbelievable, but SO good!

Never Coming Home is all about a group of ten young influencers who travel to the invite-only resort Unknown Island for a weekend. No one over 21 is allowed and an angel investor is funding the trip so it’s completely free to those invited to visit. But if it’s too good to be true, well, then it definitely is. Unknown Island isn’t quite the destination social media portrays it to be (hello, Fyre Fest!!!) and gets shadier and shadier each minute the influencers step foot on the island. Everyone selected to visit Unknown Island is invited for a reason and nothing is quite as it seems. As the title suggests, some will never be coming home.

While I definitely expected to enjoy this one, I didn’t expect to be sucked in so quickly. I thought this would be more of a slow burn, but the tension ramped up early on and didn’t let down until the last few pages. Yes…this was incredibly unrealistic. And parts of it were head scratching. It’s a YA thriller, so I appreciated that while it was suspenseful and sometimes a little gory, it wasn’t gratuitous or over the top. It was just right.

This is a modern day retelling of “And Then There Were None” (Agatha Christie) and I enjoyed every second. It kept me on my toes and asking myself, “BUT WHO’S DOING THIS?!!?!?” the majority of the book. While I wasn’t blown away by the ending, I was surprised. I thought this was really well done and fun to read. Well developed, well told. All around a great, easy to read kind of thriller (without all the graphic blood and guts kind of junk). I could definitely see this being made into a movie. I personally recommend…especially if you like a good suspense!

4 out of 5 stars

TW: murder/death