Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Unger (The New Couple in 5B) centers this overstuffed action thriller around a dangerous game of hide and seek. Former extreme sports star Maverick Dillan runs a wildly popular production company that specializes in high-profile, high-stakes adventures for thrill seekers. His latest contest--a game of hide and seek with a million-dollar prize--is set to take place on the beautiful Falcão Island, part of a remote archipelago in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Adele, a newly single mother, has entered the competition with the encouragement of her two teenage children. Shortly after she arrives on Falcão, a storm rocks the island, and dire warnings from a local mystic strike an ominous tone. Then rumors swirl that a missing contestant has been murdered. Unger overcomplicates her closed-circle setup, introducing podcast transcripts, convoluted backstories for her characters, and a dizzying number of narrators. While some twists satisfy and the pace remains brisk throughout, this doesn't live up to its potential. Agent: Amy Berkower, Writers House. (Feb.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Engaging characters meet for a game that turns deadly. Adele Crane's life was shattered when her seemingly wonderful husband, Miller, vanished along with millions of dollars embezzled from the tech company he founded. Adele has been struggling to make a living and raise her traumatized kids: fiercely independent Violet and sweet-natured introvert Blake. Always athletic, she's rebuilt her confidence with half-marathons and an online presence as a health influencer. So, it makes sense when Blake suggests she apply for a streaming reality competition for influencers called Extreme Hide and Seek. Contestants are taken to some challenging location, where they hide from the Extreme team. Last one found wins $1 million. That's how Adele finds herself on remote Falcão Island, the site of Enchantments, a luxury resort built in the 1980s but long abandoned and now about to collapse. It's quickly apparent that the Extreme team itself is on the verge of chaos. Its founder and star, Maverick Dillan, began his career as a kid doing skate stunts for viral videos, but now he heads a hugely successful enterprise--or so it seems. Maverick is approaching middle age, and all his past injuries and current pressures are catching up with him, accelerated by the fact that on the last round of Extreme Hide and Seek, one contestant, a young woman named Chloe Miranda, hid and was never found--something that internet vigilantes won't let him forget. Maverick's girlfriend, no-nonsense Angeline, is holding him and the company together, but it's tough. The team's other three members are his oldest friends, but fractures are appearing. Adele's competitors, a former kids' show host called Wild Cody and a famous young mountain climber named Malinka Niqui, have problems of their own. As they assemble on Falcão for the contest, they're warned to leave by a mysterious old woman with a paramilitary backup team--and then a huge tropical storm blows in. Weaving together multiple points of view from her believable characters, Unger plunges the reader right into a sense of dread, then skillfully ratchets up the physical terrors of the challenge while revealing one disturbing secret after another. The perils of the real and virtual worlds collide effectively in this relentlessly paced thriller. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
