Jane Harper is back with another Australian Mystery story. This time in the Tasmanian coast.

Jane Harper does it again. Set in Evelyn Bay on the Tasmania Coast, Kieran Elliot has come back to his hometown to help move his father into a care facility for Alzheimer’s. While home the murder of Bronte rocks the quiet coastal town, regrets, and opens up old wounds that were left from twelve years ago.

Twelve years ago, Evelyn bay suffered from one of the worst storms in it’s history. Aside from the phsyical damanage the storm also took 3 lives. When Kieran gets caught in the seaside cliffs during the storm, his brother Fin and partner set out on a rescue mission to save him, only to drown themselves. At the same time Gabby, a 14 year old girl, goes missing. It’s only when her backpack shows up days later that the town decides she must have been a causality of the storm as well.

Rocked by a sense of guilt at the death of Fin and Toby, Kieran heads to Sydney where he attempts to rebuild his life. It’s only when he returns though, that he sadness he’s not the only Evelyn Bay resident still coping with the tragedy of that fateful night.

The murder of Bronte, on the same beach as that storm, takes the reader back into the past to truly learn what happened during that terrible storm. Told from Kieran’s perspective, Harper’s, realistic depiction of grief and lost is overwhelming accurate. I could feel the sadness dripping from the story and the narrator’s accented and soothing voice gave such depth to Kieran’s character.

While Kieran is our narrator, each of the characters woven into this story are flawed and written with such depth. I felt that each of them had a secret, making each of them slightly unreliable, which of course adds quite a bit of mystery into the story. While character flaws tend to be overdramatic, Harper paints each person we meet with such care that you can’t help think this is based on her own raw emotions.

This book is heavy on grief. I felt that Harper really captured what lose is; which is a never ending battle of ‘what ifs’ and emptiness. Because of this, The Survivors is a slow burn thriller. It’s still page turning but you want to continue reading to continue your connection with the characters rather than just to find out whodunnit.

I’m a huge Jane Harper fan and The Survivors is probably my favorite book from her currently. Highly recommend picking this one up in February.

AMAZON | GOODREADS |★★★★

The Survivors hits shelves February 2, 2021. Huge thank you to Macmillan Audio for my Advanced Audiobook in exchange for my honest review. If you liked this review please let me know either by commenting below or by visiting my instagram @speakingof_books.