I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would. I didn't realise when I started it that it was a YA but it was still a really good gripping read surrounding the story of six friends.

I do recommend this book, don't be put off by the YA description.

Apologies didnt read that this was a teens/YA book so wil” not be reviewing, have given 5 stars as my fault

I received a copy from Netgalley.

The plot for this book sounded like something from a cheesy horror movie – six teens stranded on an island paradise, deadly secrets and bad things happening. If it was a movie I would probably watch it. So why not give it a try?

Unfortunately, I just didn’t really like this book much at all. The characters were all boring and flat, I didn’t find any of them remotely likeable, and didn’t really care what happened to them. Most of what happened was predictable and eye rolling. At some point, in the story, shortly after arriving on a perfect island getaway, a tragedy befalls the guide, and the kids are left to figure out how to fend for themselves. You would think they would put aside their differences and come together and try to survive. But that wouldn’t make for much of a story.

They spend most of the time bickering and complaining. Getting drunk, wondering who likes who. Mentions of bad things that had happened but not wanting to deal with it. Dumb decisions. At one point fears started coming to life which was kind of interesting. There was enough in narrative that made the story compelling enough to want to finish. However, the conclusion was just another eye roll.

Just not for me.

Thank you to HQ for approving my request to view the title.

This had me sold as a cross between Lost and The Hunger Games, but I found it a bit of a slow burner. As the story develops and you learn more about each of the characters, there wasn’t really much that pulled me into it. I didn’t connect with the characters and their journey didn’t appeal to me. But as the days go on, and the mystery deepens it started to pull me in. Told with a dual narration, you’re shown snippets of Jessie’s past that has lead her to be so damaged and Danny’s viewpoint as he’s struggling to keep his relationship with Honor on track. There’s plenty going on in Taylor’s latest YA offering; friendships, relationships, mental health, grief and bereavement to name a few.

4.5 stars
Going on holiday in Thailand with your best friends since birth, it definitely sounds like a great adventure.

But what feels like it turns out to be their worst nightmares as strange things happens overnight in the remote deserted island and they need to stick together and save their lives.

It’s so gripping and suspenseful, and to be honest i had no idea who the culprit was at all times, it kept me guessing til the end.

A must read for sure

I enjoyed the concept of this novel but generally found most of the characters to be quite unlikeable which made it quite hard to gel with them. There were some great twists and turns along the way!

This is a great teen fiction book. After their guide collapses and dies, 6 friends are stranded on a desert island and are likely to remain there until their parents will realise, in a week’s time when they are due back, that they have not returned. With the different teenage dynamics you would expect, things take a turn when it seems that all of their individual worst fears start to come true. Is it really a deserted island, or is someone out to get them? I enjoyed this book from start to finish. I liked finding out more about each character and what made them tick, as well as the shifting dynamics between them. Definitely recommended for age 13 up to adult readers.

This is a perceptive and well constructed story. Six teenagers have had annual holidays together Since birth as their mothers got to know each other then. This time, the father of one has paid for a week on a remote tropical island off the coast from the hotel in Thailand where the adults are. Soon after their arrival their guide dies of a stroke and they are stranded for the rest of the week. Then mysterious things begin to happen which destroy their supposedly peaceful holiday and strain their relationships Is there someone else lurking on the island who makes the boat they came on unusable and faces each with the reality of personal phobias for tarantulas, cliffs, blood. The description of the remote island supports the strangeness of all that goes on. The reader wants to know who is behind all these strange happenings. A further bonus is the sensitive understanding of teenagers together. I recommend the book.

The Island by C.L. Taylor is a thrillingly good YA psychological suspense that will have your pulse rising and your heart racing.
Paradise soon becomes hell as what should have been a dream come true disintegrates into a nightmare.
We all have fears and phobias. We need to face them before we can defeat them.
Tensions rise within both the reader and the characters as the island rapidly seems to take on a personality of its own.
C.L. Taylor has constructed a very clever and unique plotline. She reeled me in from the start and I clung on as the nightmare unfolded.
The characters were all well drawn – six teens whose parents had met at NCT classes and who holidayed together every year. The dynamics of friendship had altered as life had been faced and hormones were kicking in. There were multiple narrators enabling the reader to become intimately acquainted with the characters.
Comprehensive descriptions brought the island to life as I joined the characters in facing their fears in paradise.
I really enjoyed The Island. It consumed me from the start as I found it impossible to put down. It was more than a little scary at times. I can highly recommend it whatever your age.
I received this book for free. A favourable review was not required and all views expressed are my own.

Before reading The Island, I had no idea that C.L Taylor had turned her pen to YA novels. Having read the majority of her work before, I was almost beside myself with excitement when I saw this title come up on my list.
A few pages in, you could be fooled in to thinking this is just another tale of teenage angst, we all remember how cruel teenagers can be to each other (however long ago it was we were one!), but The Island is stupendously different.

With echoes to Golding's Lord Of The Flies, the teenage friends find themselves dealing with life or death choices and learning how to work together for survival. It is a time honoured truth that people show their true colours when under immense pressure, but even then Taylor sweeps the carpet out from under you and highlights some terrifyingly real prospects that are often left unsaid.

This story is a gentle yet stark reminder that you never quite know what's going through someone's head at any given time, so do your best to approach life with compassion even though it's not often a knee-jerk response.

So... 6 teens are taken to a remote island with a guide for a week's survival course. Their guide then dies, there is no mobile signal, they are too far from the mainland to go back themselves so they have to sit it out until their families realise they haven't returned after the week ends. They have all they need, food, water, shelter, each other. What could possibly go wrong...? Well... maybe telling each other their own deepest darkest fears probably wasn't the best idea as they are to soon find out when they start to become reality. But who is targeting them - one of their own, or is someone else on the island?
I toyed between 3 and 4 stars for this one - finally settling on 3 and a half rounded up. It started off well and I really got into what I was reading but then it started to unravel a bit and, even for a YA book, became all a bit too much and after skirting reality for a bit actually then crossed the line and ended up a bit contrived. It's also a bit on the busy side as it appears to cover a multitude of quite important topics, probably too many to actually give justice to any properly. We also had some quite big things happen that just seemed be built up too much and then just fizzled out. That did irk me a tad.
All that said, I did enjoy the group dynamic. The relationships between the teens that had pretty much grown up together - off and on - and found some aspects of this to be very well observed and executed. How the relationships changed as the action went on - as certain things happened and the effect these had on the way they interacted. It's hard to explain without going into too much detail and that might spoil things.
All in all, a mixed read that although had some negatives, the positives did outweigh them. It was a relatively easy read that did engage me throughout and left me mostly satisfied at the end. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

Six teenage friends decide to spend a week on a a remote tropical island, something that, on the face of it, sounds idyllic. This is no ordinary holiday, however, as they will be living off the land with just one guide to help them survive. When the guide has a stroke and dies, the teenagers begin to panic: with no way of getting back to the mainland and with limited means of acquiring food, how will they survive? Soon, when strange things start to happen, they realise that maybe they have more to worry about than they at first thought…

One of my favourite books of last year was Sleep by the same author, which was about a murderer on the remote Scottish island of Rum. I really enjoyed the claustrophobic atmosphere and so when I saw that this one had a similar setting, albeit on a slightly warmer island, I couldn’t wait to read it! I am not a big reader of YA fiction, but I knew that as this was written by C. L. Taylor, I’d love it. I was right!

Although there are some important events leading up to their arrival on the island, it is once they actually got there that I became fully invested in the plot. What seems, initially, like a Bear Grylls-type adventure soon evolves into some kind of Lord of the Flies scenario when their guide tragically dies, leaving them to fend for themselves until someone realises that they are missing. The teenagers soon discover that strange events begin to happen, leaving them to wonder who they can trust. Is there someone else on the island with them or should they be looking amongst themselves for the person who is wreaking havoc?


The setting of the plot really helps to create a sense of foreboding where you wonder how on earth they are going to escape from these hellish conditions. I rushed through the book, desperate to find out how it would end and whether there would still be six teenagers leaving the island or whether any would not make it out alive. I had my suspicions throughout the book about what was actually happening and who was responsible, but was thrown completely off the scent by the author’s great plot.

The Island is a great quick read for anyone wanting a story they can totally immerse themselves in. C. L. Taylor is fast becoming one of my favourite authors.

I didn't realise this was a YA book when I started it, but it didn't matter as I was totally hooked from the start and read it in one go, so starting at 9pm might not have been a good idea!
It's a story about six friends that have all been connected since birth when their parents went to NCT classes. (My NCT group still meets 27 years later!)
And every year they go on holiday together, this year as they are all 17 they venture to Thailand and are left with a guide for a week on a remote jungle island. One by one, all of their phobias and fears that they shared start to take place and it's hard to know who is behind it all.
Thought this was a great twisty psychological thriller and CL Taylor is so descriptive with the island and characters that I could imagine it all and would love to see this as film!

I really love C.L. Taylor's thrillers, and downloaded this not realising that it was a young adult book, where 6 teens find themselves stranded on a deserted Thai island, their survival guide dead. Told alternatively from Jessie and Danny's point of view, it explores the relationships between the six friends as they face the challenge of making it through the jungle days and nights, with all its dangers and hardships - not least an unseen enemy who seems bent on making their worst fears come true. Is there someone else with them on the island? Or is it one of their own party, holding a grudge against the others? With friendships and bonds shifting and slippery as the sands, you;re kept guessing until the end. CL Taylor is very good at building up suspense and drama, and I enjoyed the somewhat "Lord of the Flies" theme, but for once I was not so taken by her characters - none of them seemed authentically teenage to me, and I never really warmed to any one of them. But maybe I'm just forty years too old for this story. For plotting, drama and a wicked twist, it definitely deserves four stars, but unless you're a real fan of teen fiction, I'd recommend her adult thrillers more.

Another great book by C.L. Taylor, loved this book and could quite easily read it in a day if I didn't have my Job to do. This story follows 6 teenagers on a bear grills adventure, this start to happen but the story keeps you guessing as to who or what is behind it all. This book is a YA but still good to read at any age. I will be getting my teenage son to read this as I'm sure he will love it just as much as I did. The chapters are short and moves between two characters but still involves all the characters within the story.
Thank you Netgalley for giving me the chance to review this book, a well deserved 5 stars from me.

Lost meets Lord of the Flies meets Shutter Island in this hauntingly captivating psychological YA thriller.

The setting of an isolated island alone is always enough to lure me into a novel. Be it Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, Geraldine McCaughrean’s Where the World Ends or William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, the notion of stranded and survival is always a winning recipe for creating tension and suspense. Taylor’s slant on bringing your worst phobias to life was a gripping premise but what played out felt a little safe. For me, the story lacked the dark savagery I was kinda craving but instead delved deeper into the deteriorating state of the mind and coping with loss.

Nevertheless, it’s a fast-paced, immersive read with enough twists to keep you hooked until the end.

Six childhood friends - from a post natal group their parents attended, have gone on holiday as families as long as they can remember. When one has a birthday, his parents decide that the children should go to a deserted Island, with a guide, and learn about back packing, camping and fending for themselves. When the guide dies, and they are stuck on the Island the holiday takes a very dark turn. One by one all their deepest fears seem to be coming true, and when they get some unwanted visitors thinks seem very bleak indeed. Will any/all of them make it off the Island?

Ms Taylor has done it again. This book has very wide appeal from YA (the children in the book are late teens and young adults) to adults like myself who enjoy a good mystery and adventure story. It's a wonderful, exciting book, and you won't want to put it down until it's exciting conclusion.

Secret Seven meets Swallows and Amazons. Six teenagers, who have known each other all their lives are on holiday in Thailand for their annual holiday with their parents. For Jefferson's birthday, they are sent to a remote island with a guide for a week. However, on the first day, their guide dies. Each of the teens has a phobia, and when each of these phobia's happens, they begin to fear for their lives. One of them is hiding a secret.
The book is well written, as I would expect from C.L. Taylor. It explores a number of issues faced by teenagers on the bring of adulthood. Definitely a good read for young adults.

I found this book a quick and easy read and really enjoyed the concept. I did struggle to connect with the characters and even though they were going through difficult things I found it hard to emphathise. For me, some of the 'mysteries' were solved too quickly to fully immerse myself into the struggle or heartbreak. I also wish that it had been more descriptive to allow for the feeling that you're there with them.

Six teenage friends take a week-long trip to a private island as a birthday adventure but when their guide dies suddenly, they are left stranded on the island with no way home.

Desperately hoping to wait and be rescued, things start to take a sinister turn and when the groups worst phobias start becoming reality, nobody is safe.

The story is told from the viewpoints of each of the characters which makes the reader’s understanding of the story more rounded.

This story was dark and gripping from the start and I loved it!