Suspense

Book Review: THE COMPOUND by Aisling Rawle

| Jessica Crawford

The Compound by Aisling Rawle is a 292 page standalone novel published by Random House in 2025.

Genre:

Dystopian Fiction, Suspense

Synopsis:

Nothing to lose. Everything to gain. Winner takes all.

Lily—a bored, beautiful twentysomething—wakes up on a remote desert compound alongside nineteen other contestants on a popular reality TV show. To win, she must outlast her housemates while competing in challenges for luxury rewards, such as champagne and lipstick, and communal necessities to outfit their new home, like food, appliances, and a front door.

The cameras are catching all her angles, good and bad, but Lily has no desire to leave: Why would she, when the world outside is falling apart? As the competition intensifies, intimacy between the players deepens, and it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish between desire and desperation. When the producers raise the stakes, forcing contestants into upsetting, even dangerous situations, the line between playing the game and surviving it begins to blur. If Lily makes it to the end, she’ll receive prizes beyond her wildest dreams—but what will she have to do to win?

Addictive and prescient, The Compound is an explosive debut from a major new voice in fiction and will linger in your mind long after the game ends.

Opening Line:

I woke up first.

My Thoughts:

Well, I simply devoured this suspenseful dystopian tale!

The overall message is a condemnation of consumerism and late-stage capitalism. Sure, there’s the sexy story of a bunch of young people living in a compound together, forced to pair up with a member of the opposite sex at night if they want to avoid banishment from the reality TV show, alternately cooperating to complete challenges and scheming to oust one another in order to earn ever more desirable rewards (these are often luxury items, but sometimes things necessary for their survival, isolated as they are out in the desert).

But this story isn’t just trashy fun – where it really sings is in the creeping dread it steeps the reader in as it continues to hint at how bleak things are in the outside world without ever describing things explicitly (peep the fires outside of the compounds boundaries on the cover – such a good detail!) What exactly are these people trying to escape that has them so willing to put themselves through this absolutely bonkers experience?

As more contestants get eliminated, the tension ratchets up as the remaining characters lose themselves more and more to the idea of “winning” the chance to continue putting off real life. Ultimately the main character (and the reader) must decide which is more important in an imperfect world: luxury, or meaningful human connection?

I admit I was expecting a bit more of a bang at the end, which was rather more of a whimper. But I still loved this story, which was bananas in all the best ways!

Book Review: SALTWATER by Katy Hays

| Jessica Crawford

Saltwater: A Novel by Katy Hays is a 336 page standalone novel from Ballantine Books with a publish date of March 25, 2025.

Genre:

Thriller, Family Drama, Mystery

Opening Line

(After a news article regarding the death of a woman while vacationing with her wealthy family in 1992.)

Money is my phantom limb.

Synopsis:

In 1992 Sarah Lingate is found dead below the cliffs of Capri, leaving behind her three-year-old daughter, Helen. Despite suspicions that the old-money Lingates are involved, Sarah’s death is ruled an accident. And every year, the family returns to prove it’s true. But on the thirtieth anniversary of Sarah’s death, the Lingates arrive at the villa to find a surprise waiting for them—the necklace Sarah was wearing the night she died.

Haunted by the specter of that night, the legendary Lingate family unity is pushed to a breaking point, and Helen seizes the opportunity. Enlisting the help of Lorna Moreno, a family assistant, the two plot their escape from Helen’s paranoid, insular family. But when Lorna disappears and the investigation into Sarah’s death is reopened, Helen has to confront the fact that everyone who was on Capri thirty years ago remains a suspect—her controlling father Richard, rarely-lucid aunt Naomi, distant uncle Marcus, and their circle of friends, visitors, and staff. Even Lorna, her closest ally, may not be who she seems.

As long-hidden secrets about that night boil to surface, one thing becomes not everyone will leave the island alive.

My Thoughts:

Saltwater by Katy Hays is a tense and twisty thriller featuring family secrets and Rich People Behaving Badly, with a strong sense of place transporting the reader to the glistening shores and plummeting cliffsides of the Italian island of Capri.

The Lingate family is Old Money with a fixation on maintaining appearances, even when this means closing ranks when one of their own dies suspiciously. As an adult, Helen, the daughter of the deceased, just wants to live in the present, but her family seems tied down by the past. She would do anything to escape the bonds of her overly controlling family in order to experience true freedom for the first time in her life. Lorna is similarly ready to free herself from the life she is forced to live in the shadow of the rich and powerful. The two women plot together to free themselves from the unwanted constraints of the Lingates and other families like them.

This was a decent thriller with conspiring, betrayal, and murder, all set in enticing locales such as an Italian villa and on the waters of the Mediterranean Sea. Who can trust whom? One aspect of this story that didn’t work so great for me was that the chapters alternating amongst three timelines, but each occurring in the same locations with almost the exact same characters present, got confusing at times. “Okay, so this chapter picks back up with Helen on a boat with Ciro, but is this the time Freddy was there with them, or Lorna? Was this before or after that other event? I can’t remember!”

Things get a tad bit convoluted and farfetched as truths are revealed, but overall I enjoyed this bracing story of suspense.

There is sexual content in this story, but nothing that happens on the page. There is violence, but nothing super graphic.

Thank you to Ballantine Books and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.

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Book Review: STRANGE SALLY DIAMOND by Liz Nugent

| Jessica Crawford

Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent is a dark and suspenseful story about how abuse effects everyone directly and indirectly touched by it.

Sally is a neurodivergent character, whose “quirks” are thanks to an early childhood of extremely atypical socialization. Readers will root for Sally as she puts in the work to address her social and emotional issues (although, really, why can’t people just say what they mean, and mean what they say?!)

The more compelling story, though, was revealed in chapters that alternate with Sally’s, told from the POV of a character named Peter. This looks at what happens when a child witnesses horrible abuse presented as normal and acceptable. How does that affect a person’s development? How do they integrate into the world?

The subject matter in this book is very dark. I was mostly enjoying the story, but at the end, it seems like all progress gets set back to zero, which was kind of a letdown. But overall it kept me interested (and vaguely troubled!) all the way through.

CW: abduction, forced confinement, pedophilia, abuse (sexual, physical, emotional)

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