This review is written with thanks to pPigeonhole for the opportunity to read and review What We Did In The Storm.

Blurb:

Everyone brings their secrets to the island…

On the beautiful and windswept island of Tresco, two worlds live side by side. The wealthy visitors come by helicopter to stay at their lavish time-share properties. The estate staff travel by boat, and work all hours to keep them happy, to keep the money flowing in.

But while the blue skies and savage waves make the island seem a wild paradise, under the surface the inhabitants are concealing more than they dare reveal. The truths about their marriages, their love affairs, and what they do in the darkness while their neighbours are sleeping.

As black clouds come rolling in and a storm hits the island, truths and rumours begin to tumble out, wreaking terrible damage. In the midst of the tempest, two women are attacked and one goes missing. The secrets of this fragile community can no longer be hidden if it hopes to survive. The islanders must finally reveal what they did in the storm, no matter the cost.

From the #1 bestselling author of Call Me Mummy comes a dark and luscious thriller, perfect for readers of Harriet Tyce, Amanda Jennings and Louise Candlish.

Review:

I’ve been eagerly anticipating What We Did In The Storm since finishing Make Me Clean last year and I was not disappointed. Tina Baker is an absolutely fantastic writer and I love that this time around she’s taken a slightly different approach and written a novel that burns a little slower, but is no less intriguing. She places little clues and so many red herrings throughout the story in such a clever way that I was desperate to read the next part every day.

Each chapter is written from the perspective of a different character and the novel also skips backwards and forwards in time. I must confess that towards the beginning, I found this a little confusing and I think that perhaps the Pigeonhole format, where readers only have access to a few chapters each day, didn’t suit this. However, I liked the way it helped me to learn more about the characters, as Tina Baker has done a wonderful job of developing them. Most of them are very unlikeable but they are really well observed and it was easy to get under their skin.

What We Did In The Storm is set on the Isles Of Scilly, a beautiful part of the country which the author portrays in great detail. However, she recognises that the island also has a dark side and she writes about some very difficult subjects that may not be for everyone. Personally, I loved the darker side and I loved how the author used this to create an incredible atmosphere that keeps the tense undercurrent going the whole way through.

What We Did In The Storm is available from Amazon.