I’m delighted to join the blog tour for this new travel thriller!
Thanks to Random Things tours for my place on the tour and copy of the book for review. Opinions are always my own.
From the Publisher:
Set in the seedy world of Thailand’s infamous party islands. A place where backpackers go to find themselves – or get lost forever. When a young woman turns up dead during a scuba diving lesson, the morning after a full moon party, the diving instructor and her group of ex-pat friends realise they aren’t the only people who have fallen in love with paradise. A killer has too.
Escape to paradise.
Scuba diving instructor Cass leads her students out for their first dive off the beautiful coast of Koh Sang, Thailand’s world-famous party island. It’s supposed to be a life-changing experience, but things quickly spiral out of control…
Leave your secrets behind.
By the time she gets back to the shore, one of her students is dead, another badly injured, and she knows that her idyllic life is about to be smashed to pieces on the rocks.
But don’t get lost for ever…
Someone has discovered Cass’s secret, and on an island as remote as this, accidents happen. Plenty of backpackers choose to stay here for ever – but some are never heard from again…
My Review:
Why did I choose to read this book? Sitting in the rain of a British summer, I thought I deserved an armchair holiday to the sun-drenched shores of Koh Sang, a party island in Thailand. Little did I know it would be such a perilous stay!
The story is told by two main narrators in alternating chapters. Cass is one of Koh Sang’s ‘Permanents’, a core group who live on the island full time and run the facilities there – Cass is a scuba diving instructor and engaged to Logan, another resident. The second narrator is Brooke, a travel influencer who arrives on the island and starts a romance with one of the ‘Permanents’.
When a body discovered during one of Cass’s dives, it seems that the party might be at an end for the island’s inhabitants and guests, especially when questions are asked about other sinister events on Koh Sang…
I found this book to be an absolutely compelling read – I didn’t know who to trust at any point, pretty much suspected everyone and was absolutely blown away by the twists – Ochs managed to surprise me right to the very end!
I liked the premise of the closed circle mystery – there are only a finite number of suspects as the island is small and remote. Each of the ‘Permanents’ seemed to have an intriguing back-story of what brought them to the island and – more specifically – what they were running away from. I found that I did warm to some of the characters – some completely wrongly, proving that I am a bad judge of character!
The setting of the novel was also clever as the island starts off like a kind of idealised party paradise. However, once the bad stuff happens, there is an ever-growing sense of oppression caused by the heat and the storms. Ochs clearly is well-travelled and writes the location well, especially with the (quite tempting at the start) inclusion of all the scuba diving details. Although, as gorgeous as it sounded initially, Koh Sang isn’t going on my list of must-visit places!
I’d suggest that the book does need a trigger warning for violence and sexual assault – it is well-handled and central to the plot but it is there.
I’d recommend this to anyone who enjoys clever and twisty thrillers told from multiple perspectives – think Lucy Foley, Ruth Ware or Lisa Jewell. It’s an interesting setting with good characterisation and some absolutely shocking twists. Trust no-one!
About the Author:
A self-admitted travel addict, SARA OCHS has built a life around visiting beautiful and sometimes dangerous destinations. While learning to scuba dive on a remote island off the coast of Thailand, Sara heard that two backpackers had recently been murdered not far from her hotel. Horrified that something so terrible could happen in such an idyllic location, she knew she had found the inspiration for her debut novel, The Dive.
As well as being an author, Sara is an attorney and law professor, who splits her time between the United States and Sweden. You can find Sara on Instagram @saraochsauthor and on Twitter @OchsWrites.
If you’d like to buy a copy of the book (out 20th July), please use my affiliate link below. Thanks for supporting my blog with any purchases!
It’s been quite rainy here in Belgium too so I know the feeling. This sounds like the perfect escape. I love twisty thrillers that the story is divided in alternating chapters. The cover is also really great!
I think you’d like this one! Xx
Thanks for the blog tour support x