The Night Island

August 1, 2023

In the mega-best-selling Krentz's Sleep No More, Pallas Llewellyn, Talia March, and Amelia Rivers developed mysterious powers on a night none of them can remember and launch a podcast called The Lost Night Files; now Pallas tracks a missing podcast informant to The Night Island. Prepub Alert.

Copyright 2023 Library Journal

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2023
A podcaster searches for an informant who's gone missing under mysterious circumstances. Talia March, Pallas Llewellyn, and Amelia Rivers suspect that seven months ago, they were victims of an experiment designed to enhance their innate paranormal abilities--Talia, for instance, can now find hidden or lost objects, including dead bodies. Now the three friends co-host a popular podcast that investigates paranormal mysteries. When a devoted listener named Phoebe Hatch offers to sell them a list of possible subjects for the experiment they think they were part of, Talia heads off to Seattle to meet her. When she arrives at the designated spot, though, she discovers Luke Rand, another potential buyer, but no Phoebe. Luke believes he was part of a related experiment, with the goal of creating psychic assassins. Phoebe is missing, but Luke and Talia find several clues that point them to the Night Island, an exclusive getaway in the San Juans that promises meditation and a full digital detox. Determined to find the missing list and rescue Phoebe, they decide to go to the Night Island, posing as a married couple. The early chapters are overburdened with too much exposition, but the plot picks up once Talia and Luke arrive on the island, where the bioluminescent plants give off a strange, menacing energy. Krentz successfully leverages the creepy, isolated setting. A bout of bad weather postpones the daily ferry service, and the island is cut off from civilization with no cell service or Wi-Fi. The staff is curt and unwelcoming, and when several of them die under mysterious circumstances, there's no way to call for help. The guests are desperate to escape the murderous island even as the flora and fauna seem to become imbued with more power and energy. Talia and Luke continue their search for Phoebe and investigate the murders, even as their pretend relationship turns into a real romance. A slow start evolves into a pleasing paranormal story.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from November 1, 2023
Ever since that fateful night seven months ago when she, along with her friends Pallas Llewellyn and Amelia Rivers, lost the memories of one night, Talia March's special psychic gift for finding things has become greatly enhanced. In an effort to discover what really happened, Talia connects with an informant who promises to give her a list of people who experienced the same thing. However, when Talia shows up at their agreed-upon meeting place, she discovers that her informant is missing. Instead, Luke Rand, a history professor with a shadowy past and an oddly compelling, almost hypnotic voice, is waiting to purchase the same list. After launching her Lost Night Files series with Sleep No More (2023), Krentz is back with an adrenaline-infused, paranormal-tinged romantic suspense novel that makes the most of its isolated island setting, which comes complete with homicidal vegetation and whose human inhabitants include a feckless self-help guru, a chef with a flair for vegetarian cooking, a bonkers night gardener, and a psychically enhanced assassin. Readers will come for Krentz's can't-put-it-down plotting and stay for the combustible sexual chemistry and delightfully quippy banter.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.