Never Coming Home by Kate Williams
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
When Unknown Island made its presence known via social media, it hit hard. An isolated, luxurious island vacation destination where young people, of a certain caliber and follower count, will get to stay free for a week at a time.
The claim is that an angel investor is funding the exclusive destination as a way for the best young minds to come together and share ideas. It’s invite only and no one over 21-years old will be included.
The initial marketing push is strong and everyone wants to be involved. If they can’t go in person, they’ll be watching it unfold via social media.
Who wouldn’t want a free vacation that the whole world is watching? The potential for publicity is off the charts. For some young influencers, this could be the opportunity of a lifetime. It’s so good, they can taste it.
After the First Ten are selected, the chosen ones slowly and complicatedly make their way to the remote island location.
Once they arrive, they quickly discover something is off. The scene they find is not what the promotional materials advertised. What the heck is going on?!
It’s soon exposed that these fresh-faced travelers weren’t invited to Unknown Island because of their individual follower counts. They were invited for the terrible secrets they hold. Someone knows and is looking to expose them.
Worse than that, it seems whoever is behind Unknown Island is hellbent on revenge. Will any of them be able to make it home alive?
I really like what Williams did with Never Coming Home. She gave me a classic-feeling mysterious slasher set on an abandoned island with a plucky group of diverse and unlikable characters.
That’s exactly the vibe I wanted going in and it’s exactly what I got. There were a few places when it dragged a little for me, but overall it’s a super fun Summer Chiller!
In addition to the fabulous horror elements, I enjoyed the underlining modern themes running through this one. It’s social media taken to the extreme, but it was interesting to think about.
Of course I couldn’t help but think of Fyre Festival with the set-up of this one. It definitely gives off that same sort of skeevy feeling. These poor kids was what I was initially thinking, but once the bodies started dropping, I stopped caring as much.
Williams kills were creative and a few definitely left me picking my chin up off the ground. She held nothing back!
This is the perfect quick read for a Summer Scare. I would definitely recommend it to people who love a good old fashion slasher. It checked all those boxes for me.
Thank you so much to the publisher, Delacorte Press, for providing me with a copy to read and review. I had a lot of fun with this one and hope that Williams continues in this lane with her future work!