The Book:
The Island of Lost Girls by Alex Marwood
Published June 13, 2023 by Harper Paperbacks
Date read: July 10, 2023
The Characters:
Mercedes
Tatiana
Donatella
Robin
Buy it on Bookshop.org | Amazon
This page contains affiliate links. I may earn a small commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this site.
The Plot (from Goodreads):
It’s paradise for the super-rich, but hell for the girls whose lives they’ve stolen.
1985:
To twelve-year-old Mercedes, La Kastellana is home, an island with deep-rooted traditions untouched by the modern world. But this secluded paradise is upended with the arrival of multimillionaire Matthew Meade and his pampered young daughter, Tatiana. While the Meades lavishly spread unimaginable wealth around La Kastellana, the price Mercedes and the rest of the islanders will pay is more than they could ever have imagined.
2016:
Robin has been desperately searching for her seventeen-year-old daughter Gemma, who’s been missing for more than a year. Finding herself on La Kastellana, an island playground for the international jet set, Robin quickly realizes she’s out of her depth. No one is willing to help and Robin fears she’s running out of time to find her child. But someone has been watching, silently waiting for the moment to expose the dark truth of what really happens on the island of lost girls.
How did The Island of Lost Girls end?
The Reveal:
Apologies readers, but these spoilers are somewhat bare-bones. If you’ve read the book, please comment with any more information to beef up my summary!
Tatiana was stealing and grooming girls to become sex slaves for her dad and his friends. It had started with Donatella, when she and Mercedes were children. Robin’s daughter was one of the present-day stolen girls.
The Ending:
Mercedes’s mom helped Robin take down Tatiana’s business and get her daughter back, along with Mercedes and her husband.
The Review:
This is my first book by Alex Marwood, and it did not disappoint. I loved the setting on a made-up Mediterranean island–I’ve obviously never been but could so easily picture La Kastellana. The alternating timelines were a bit confusing at first, but I liked both storylines and loved how they came together to pack a big punch at the reveal. I’ll certainly look for more books by this author!
1 Comment