The Island

Grabbed this book mainly because of the cover! I was in the mood for a mental vacation! This book is packed with suspense, some hot sex, and a lot of mystery! Page turner, and easy to read. HAPPY ENDING too! A MUST READ.

Beth Anderson is set to enjoy a fun weekend on Calliope Key with her brother, Ben, her niece, Amber, and Amber's friend, Kim. While there, though, she finds a skull, or at least she thinks she does. When a stranger approaches, she covers it up. When she goes back later, it's gone. The skull reminds Beth of the Monocos, who disappeared from the area while on their luxury yacht. Some people think the couple is dead, a victim of piracy. Others think they are taking a trip around the world on their yacht. Keith Henson is on the island with his friends, Lee Gomez and Matt Albright, to do some fishing and diving. Beth is very suspicious of the men, as she is of the other two groups of people on the island for the weekend. But there is an attraction between Keith and Beth that they can't ignore. Once the weekend is over, Beth goes back to her job at a yacht club in Miami and strange things start happening. Keith and his friends reappear and Beth realizes there is more to them than meets the eye. But are they good guys, or bad guys? She can't quite decide. The Island is an interesting read. I enjoyed Keith, whom I thought was the type of man who would go to any lengths to protect the people that he cared about, and to get his job done. I have to admit that Beth got on my nerves sometimes and I wanted to tell her to snap out of it. This book is busy, and has a lot of characters, but I had no trouble keeping up with who was who. I enjoyed my trip to The Island, and, as always, look forward to Ms. Graham's next novel. Amelia reviewed for Joyfully Reviewed

Beth Anderson is planning on a quiet weekend with her brother Ben, his daughter Amber and Amber's best friend Kim on Florida's Calliope Key. But while on a beach with the girls she stumbles on a human skull in the sand. Then a suspicious and suspiciously handsome stranger named Keith shows up. Beth tries to hide the skull, then she and the girls take off. Later, when she comes back with Ben to show him what she'd found, she finds the skull is gone. No one seems to believe her, but Beth begins to believe the skull might have something to do with a couple that went missing a year ago. That evening some strangers join the group for dinner on the small island and these vacationers, who don't really seem like vacationers, only serve to heighten Beth's suspicions. Plus, she's still suspicious of the handsome Keith, but he is so handsome, so she gives in to his charms and joins him on the yacht he's cruising on, but boating isn't what she has on her mind when she joins him in bed. She's still suspicious of Ben, but boy is he a hunk. Later, back in Miami, when she's back working at her job as Social Director at the Yacht Club, she is followed, feels threatened, then Keith and friends show up. She's suspicious as all heck now, firmly convinced this all has something to do with that missing couple. She tries to get at the truth behind it all, but she is still attracted to Keith, a man who might not be who he claims. but this book is all it claims to be, terrific romantic suspense. I liked it a lot. Beth and her strange affair with Keith, the mystery, the setting, I liked it all.

A family weekend trip doesn't exactly turn out the way Beth Anderson hopes it will. Instead she comes across something that gives her pause. It looks like a skull and she immediately thinks of a retired couple that was last seen on Calliope Key. The very island she and her brother and niece are camping. On top of that she is unsettled by fellow campers especially the handsome and mysterious Keith Henson and when she goes back for the skull and finds it missing but with Keith nearby she finds herself wondering if he had anything to do with their disappearance. It's even more disconcerting that she is finding herself drawn to him despite the danger she feels around him. Is this all a product of an over active imagination or is Calliope Key hold the answers to the mystery of the missing couple? Will Beth be able to stay one step ahead of danger and will she be able to trust Keith with both her heart and life? This was a page turner from the get-go! Ms. Graham has managed to draw out the suspense right up to the final chapter. This is a read that is highly populated with secondary characters and each and every one of them brings something to the story. If you are looking for edge of your seat reading...look no further than this. You won't be disappointed.

Keeping true to her latest award willing formula NY Times best selling author, Heather Graham goes back to a locale that has been featured in some of her most recent novels with a creative and original story set off the coast of Florida and Miami. On a weekend getaway with her brother and niece, Beth Anderson is panic-stricken when she comes upon a skull on the beach, and instantly recalls the disappearance of a retired couple last seen in that area. Beth was even more unnerved when a handsome stranger came upon them and quickly covered up their discovery. When Beth returned with her brother to show him her find, it's no longer there and he dismisses her discovery thinking she mistook a conch shell for the skull. Beth knows what she saw, but without the skull she certainly can't bring the authorities in to investigate, however, that doesn't stop her from trying to unravel the mystery herself. The bigger mystery that weekend was the enigmatic Keith Henson, the stranger from the beach who seems to keep turning up at the oddest times and whose presence just doesn't seem to ring true. Additionally, the man simply unnerves her by his sheer masculinity. Perhaps she was paranoid but it just seemed to Beth that the rest of the weekend vacationers on the island all seemed to have other agendas besides a little fun in the sun. This was a decent read, fast-paced, with the suspense kept at the forefront throughout the story. The romance that developed between Beth and Keith was definitely hot, in spite of Beth not trusting Keith, and he never telling her the truth of what he was really up to. Graham fills the pages with a plethora of characters, which at times I thought needed a list in order to keep them straight. The ending was wrapped up neatly in an edge of the seat climax that solves all the mystery of who done what to whom! One question that remains unresolved though - I never did get the point of Ambers' friend Kim's defection??? Otherwise, a very compelling read.