I was excited to read this. It’s definitely readable with Feeney’s trademark compelling protagonist but ultimately this one didn’t grip me as much as her previous work. I wasn’t taken by the twist at the end. Although others may feel differently.

I really enjoyed Alice Feeney’s latest novel, great characters, familiar plot and lots of intrigue.

Having read all the Agatha Christie books in my youth it was enjoyable to read a modern twist on ‘And Then there was none’. I sort of guessed what was going on but it didn’t spoil my enjoyment one iota.

Daisy Darker’s family have a rare gathering for Nana’s 80th birthday party at her house on a tiny tidal island. When the tide comes in the family will be cut off from the rest of the world for eight hours. There is not much love in this family, unpleasant people who all have secrets they would rather have left that way.

With a storm raging at the stroke of midnight, Nana is found dead, and one by one throughout the night more members of the family are found dead. With the family cut off from the rest of the world the suspects are very few and the family are forced to face their secrets while fearing for their lives.

A very enjoyable read that I couldn’t put down.

I would like to thank both Netgalley and Pan Macmillan for supplying a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Alice Feeney is a fantastic and very skilled writer. I've loved all her books. The majority of this one has prose so beautiful and clever, you don't often find it in this genre, at least not in a way that works as well as it does here. Family drama, conflict and complex emotions dominate the story. I usually avoid books that seem to follow inspiration of 'And Then There Were None' as they simply can't be done as well and are too predictable, but I thought Feeney did it in a way that was unique and enjoyable.
The only problem for me was the shock reveal, which I won't post due to spoilers. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either. It felt too easy, and I prefer realism. But still a solid read - one for Halloween/dark Autumn evenings.

I really enjoyed this thriller. It had lots of tropes that I love. Family dysfunction. People getting picked off one by one. A set amount of time that the books takes place in. Fast paced story that kept me turning the pages to find out the ending.

Such a fabulous surprise! Secrets, lies, family tensions and murderous intentions, this one had it all!
Daisy Darker is arriving at her grandmothers house for her eightieth birthday, along with the rest of their family, who have not been together like this in a decade - for good reason. When the tide comes in, they are cut off from the world for eight hours and a lot can happen, and does, in that time. We see secrets uncovered, family members that despise each other and the eccentric grandmother, all at Seaglass, the crumbling Cornish house upon its own private island. 

I've enjoyed the author's previous novels and found this one is set apart, as there was more time spent with the character development and the eerie atmosphere she created. We have a glimpse of the past and the grandchildren's upbringing, with all very different personalities. I loved the intrigue and suspense throughout- and really didn't guess the direction this one was taking. Another fabulous instalment by the author.

I picked this one up as I have enjoyed Alice Feeney's works in the past and this one doesn't disappoint. Alice has yet again brought us a thoroughly enjoyable psychological mystery. While a little predictable and at times slightly far fetched, this book was so much fun to read. I loved the characters, the the isolated claustrophobic setting, the unique crimes and the twist! Oh the twist! I did not see that coming. Alice has managed to serve up a twist which was unpredictable, different and had my jaw on the floor wanting to re-read immediately to see how massively I was misdirected. I'd highly recommend this one. Alice Feeney is fast becoming an instant buy author for me. Thank you to the author, publisher and Netgalley for an early copy of this book.

Wow! This was a great book full of suspense & I couldn’t stop reading it! Full of twists & turns. Thanks for the opportunity to read & review this book.

As the title suggests, this is a rather dark story with a rather dark family. Full of secrets and twists that you won't see coming. Totally gripping.

4.5 stars
I was a big fan of how this built with each and every chapter, even when we were taken back in time and then back to the present. Every page felt important to driving the story forward, which I really enjoyed.
As soon as certain things started happening, I had a feeling I knew exactly who was committing the murders. And I was partially right, even though I could never have predicted why they were ultimately bumping off their own family members.
I also had an idea that a certain character may be related a bit more closely to the Darker family than we might expect.
And let's just say, I wasn't sad to see any of the characters meet their fate to be totally honest, bar maybe the very last one but I won't say any more so as not to spoil anything.
I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the ending though.
It did tie things up nicely, much like the little red pieces of string. But it felt a bit unbelievable, especially when everything else in terms of the character building and drama had felt so realistic.
This is the first book that I've read from Alice Feeney but I can't wait to read more from her.
Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Okay let me just start by saying the concept for this book was actually amazing! Throughly enjoyed it and definitely didn’t see the ending coming. I thought I KNEW who was responsible, but every chapter my opinion kept changing - and I love when a book can keep me guessing like that. However, as good as the end plot twist was, I did find the whole overall story just a little too unrealistic??? And I think that took away from the mystery at times.

AND THEN THERE WAS ONE

Beatrice (Nana) Darker is the successful author and illustrator of the bestselling children’s book, “Daisy Darker’s Little Secret. Eccentric at best, she dresses only in pink and purple, has a wall of 80 clocks she has collected-one for every year of her life-and has her guests punch in on a time clock.

Perhaps she is obsessed with time because a Palm Reader at Land’s End, predicted that she wouldn’t live past 80, and her Halloween birthday is fast approaching.

She has asked everyone whom she considers family to join her at Seaglass, for this momentous occasion. The Victorian house with its gothic turrets and turquoise tiled roof is situated on the Cornish coast, in a spot that cuts it off from the rest of the world for eight hours, whenever the tide comes in.

Although they haven’t been together for over a decade, they all know what this birthday signifies-and nobody dares to say no to the invitation.

Once everyone has arrived, Nana announces that she has gathered them all together for the reading of her Will.

The clocks are all chiming at midnight but as the final clock strikes twelve-there is a terrible scream…

They find a rhyme written in chalk on the kitchen walls in Nana’s scrawly writing:

“Daisy Darker’s family wasted far too many years lying, they spent their final hours together learning lessons before DYING…”

Scrabble tiles will guide them to these “lesson”.

The story is narrated by granddaughter, Daisy Darker, Nana’s favorite, a baby born with a heart condition which caused her to die eight times before the age of thirteen.-something she said she would be concerned about-if she were a cat. 😼

It unfolds hour by hour, in the wee hours of Halloween morning, with chapters from Daisy’s childhood interspersed throughout to enlighten you on both her childhood memories, and the SECRETS that the Darker family has been hiding.

Between chapters are illustrations of the ominous waves of the tide, rushing in and rushing out.

With a nod (and a wink) this story pays homage to Agatha Christie’s famous closed room mystery, “And, then there was none” which used the the nursery rhyme “Ten Little Indians” to count down the deaths of the guests in her Classic story.

Of course, Alice Feeney has her own very distinctive style-using lots of clever metaphors such as “Secrets are like unpaid debts; they pile up and too much interest is best avoided.” to weave her suspenseful tales.

Be SURE that you read the note from the Author’s agent in the beginning of the book both BEFORE you start and AFTER you finish. You won’t understand it till then, and it just might make you revisit the early chapters of the story to see what you MISSED!!

Also be warned that at the 38% mark there is a brief, but disturbing passage that includes the death of horses-though I wonder if Alice Feeney is actually trying to bring attention to the mistreatment of animals by including these passages in her work, as she goes on to say how high the suicide rate is among Veterinarians, who have to see so much of it.

She has also includes in the book’s dedication, one to Diggi, her pet dog and NO HARM comes to Poppins, the elderly old sheepdog, in this story.

I enjoyed buddy reading this book with CEECEE, as we played sleuth together.

I was thinking FOUR ⭐️ for much of the book, but after I finished and saw how it all came together, I had to bump it up to FIVE ⭐️

Be sure to read her fantastic review to see if she agreed.

AVAILABLE on August 18th, 2022 but if you have more WILL POWER than I do-pre-order it now and save it for Halloween 2022 as that would be the PERFECT time to read this!!

Thank You to Pan MacMillan for my gifted copy. It is my pleasure to offer a candid review!

I was extremely excited to read this, I have always loved this author, and this book probably has to be my favourite.

Thrillingly dark, and then there were none with a modern twist, I just could not put it down. I could give it more than five stars I would.

I'm happy to admit I was late getting into Alice Feeney's books. His And Hers was my first, personally it didn't wow me, but then Rock Paper Scissors and Sometimes I Lie definitely did. Hugely original plots, twists and unforeseeable misdirections as standard.

Darker Daisy is a murder mystery, but of a very different, creepy type. The Darker family sisters Rose, Lily and Daisy, and separated parents Frank and Nancy are gathered at their Nana's house Seaglass on Halloween to celebrate Nana's 80th birthday.

Seaglass is a remote and isolated house, on an island off the Cornish coast, only accessible at low tide and cut off for hours at a time.

It doesn't take long before the first death occurs, and when a second family member dies, it's obvious there's a fiendish killer at play.

Told in a beautifully whimsical style from Daisy's perspective, the present night stranded at Seaglass is interspersed with nostalgic childhood memories, often captured on blurry home videos.

The storytelling and Daisy's character are simply first class, with reflections on life and death, family and Daisy's isolation (partly caused by growing up with a rare heart condition). I found it frequently wise and life affirming, and one of the few books I would happily read again.

Of course, Alice Feeney delivers big unexpected twists and a very rich ending. This wasn't the book I was expecting from one of the foremost psychological thriller authors, but I really, really enjoyed it! Alice Feeney fans know to expect something different and I believe this gorgeous book will be hugely popular.

Thanks to Netgalley and Pan Macmillan

I rarely give four stars as it takes some doing for me to go to that height and five ,well that’s perfect so four it is .
Wow Alice just gets better and better
I recall her first and recall saying she had potential and I wd enjoy seeing her future books
I wasn’t wrong !
This is wonderfully written nostalgic murder mystery ,,with clear transparent influence of agatha christie

It’s got good unlikable ,very unlikable characters,a lot of dynamics ,a lot of intrigue and I love the narration by Daisy
It’s clever and I will not say more but ty so much Alive for creating this amd netgalkey and publishers for advised reading
For the clever plotting and surprising me which doesn’t happen often a mighty four stars ,!

The Darker family (love that name) have gathered together to celebrate their matriarch’s eightieth birthday on a Cornish Island at family home, SeaGlass House. It’s both Halloween and the first time the Darker family has been together in a long time and when the tide comes in, the causeway that connects them to the mainland will be underwater, cutting them off from the outside world, and any chance of escape. And now that Nana has shared the new, updated version of her will, tempers and tensions run dangerously high. People will do almost anything for money – even kill. Much has been made of Feeney’s newest novels similarity to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. While the setting, island cut off from civilization is similar, Feeney’s novel is clearly a 21st century thriller with a twist that may well have surprised Dame Agatha herself

I adore Alice Feeneys writing and so I was so excited to get the opportunity to read this book and I wasn't disappointed. It was gripping and I couldnt put it down, well written as alwasy with a fantastic storyline and welll developed characters that all added extra depth to the storyline, even the ones I hated.
It was suspenseful and mysterious with twists that were so unpredictable that I didnt see them coming, it was like taking a blow to the face in an amazing way. I was on the edge of my seat and breathless, and I never wanted it to end.
I LOVED IT

I received a free ARC copy of this via NetGalley and the publishers in return for an unbiased review. I’d requested it because I’d seen friends on Book Twitter talking about it, and it sounded interesting. Safe to say - they were right. It was a book I would have ready quickly because it was gripping and intriguing - but having to isolate after a positive Covid test gave me little else to do bar spend the time at Seaglass with the Darker family, and read it even quicker.

I didn’t see the twist coming, I admit. This would have been 5 stars, but for two points - 1) it felt like some of the worst characters were a little too cartoonish (Lily and Nancy), so hard to feel much for them as they were so unlikeable. And - this one may just be a formatting issue with the Kindle version - 2) in between chapters, are ink drawings of waves crashing. They were cute to start with. But I think the Kindle version was formatted to clip the image into smaller ones... like tiles... so I ended up having to click “next page” 10 or so times - EVERY CHAPTER (and there are about 50!) - to get to the next one. Seeing the left side of a wave. Top side of a wave. Right side of a wave. Middle left side of a wave... it would probably look beautiful in a paper version, but it was chopped up and utterly wasted on Kindle, all it did was make each chapter transition painful. I’m not penalising the stars for that, just noting it for the publishers. The 4 stars were because of some of the characters were just so off putting.

This is a very unusual and unique way of storytelling. I found the book was really out there and the storyline was really fantasy like and almost like a fair tale. I enjoyed the flashbacks but the present story was to out there for me but I still wanted to know daisy's story. Very interesting read bu a bit to like a fantasy story for me.

** spoiler alert ** SPOILERS

A mixed bag for me.
Great start, that got me very interested,and was surprisingly funny.
Then it got a bit repetitive, a video tape,a body,a video tape... etc etc.
Yet nobody noticed anything.
The whole while drawing up a picture of a totally unlikeable Darker family.
Some very expected things happened,and some surprisingly unexpected things,which had me fully invested again.
Overall I enjoyed it,but the middle bit wasn't my favourite

Rating: 4.6/5

Alice Feeney's previous novel, "Rock Paper Scissors" was one of my favourite reads of 2021 and now she has done it again! "Daisy Darker" is destined to be amongst the cream of the crop in 2022.

As is already made clear in the synopsis, the basis of the novel is strongly influenced by Agatha Christie's mystery, "And Then There Were None". As I have commented in other reviews, it is something of a rite of passage for a mystery writer to produce at least one book based on Dame Agatha's classic - some do it with a good degree of success, while others leave an awful lot to be desired. "Daisy Darker" is certainly one of the better examples.

However, it would be far too simplistic to simply describe this as a facsimile of Christie's original. Of course, there are clear echoes of "And Then There Were None", not least in the setting for the novel, but there is also a conscious tipping of the hat to other Agatha Christie mysteries too - "Crooked House" is one that particularly came to my mind at various points in the narrative. Also - and not for the first time in Alice Feeney's writing - I noted a sense of atmospheric menace that is is akin to the work of another classic author, Daphne du Maurier.

Regardless of the influences at play, Alice Feeney has once again succeeded in producing a top quality, suspenseful mystery that is very much her own. She is rapidly becoming one of my "must read" authors and I will certainly be back for her next offering.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for supplying an ARC in return for an honest review.