Summary: Lyla is frustrated doing her post-doc research as a virologist. Her boyfriend of 2 years and change, Nico, is a looker and a model who would really like to be on tv and make it big. Just as Lyla is beginning to wonder about the status of their relationship, Nico begs her to join the cast of a new reality show looking for that “one perfect couple”. Lyla is reluctant, but agrees to go, feeling certain that she will only last two weeks on it at most and therefore have fulfilled her promise to Nico. They journey to a tiny island in the Indian Ocean, along with four other couples. However things do not unfold as planned when the first couples’ challenge goes awry and a terrifying storm hits the island on their first night, leaving horrific destruction in its wake. Now they are stranded on the island with no cell phones, a radio with a dying battery, and fast dwindling food and water. The dire situation brings out everyone’s true nature and it’s not all pretty.

Thoughts: This novel had all the perfect ingredients and I wanted to read it as soon as I heard about it. Exotic locale, check; beautiful people with secrets, check; and a reality show designed to bring out the worst qualities of the cast, check. I have read several novels by Ruth Ware and she is a must-buy author for me. I appreciated the concept and the characters, but the overall storyline didn’t work for me as it veered off into a direction I didn’t enjoy. Other than a big twist early in the novel, there was little mystery after that as the source of the conflict and difficulty was out in the open. A thriller with a similar concept is Then Things Went Dark by Bea Fitzgerald and that was well-executed.