1957: Iris Bailey is bored to death of working in the typing pool and living with her parents in Hemel Hempstead. A gifted portraitist with a talent for sketching party guests, she dreams of becoming an artist. So she can’t believe her luck when socialite Nell Hardman invites her to Havana to draw at the wedding of her Hollywood director father.
Far from home, she quickly realizes the cocktails, tropical scents and azure skies mask a darker reality. As Cuba teeters on the edge of revolution and Iris’s heart melts for troubled photographer Joe, she discovers someone in the charismatic Hardman family is hiding a terrible secret. Can she uncover the ugly truth behind the glamour and the dazzle before all their lives are torn apart?
Many thanks to Random House UK, Transworld publishers via NetGalley for my copy of Island of Secrets to review and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.
Island of Secrets is the third book by Rachel Rhys, the pseudonym of thriller writer Tammy Cohen. This time around we are taken to the exotic setting of Havana in Cuba. It is 1957 and the country is on the brink of revolution and change. In England Iris Bailey works in the typing pool of an architect's office and she knows it is not the life for her. She is sick to death of the same old monotonous routine, day in and day out. She had been attending art school but was made to leave by her parents and this is something she had wished had never had to happen. There is a resentment there so when an opportunity that is not to be missed is presented to her she jumps at the chance. It is her talent for sketching that catches the eye of one Nell Hardman at a society party. This chance meeting will lead to a change for Iris that she could never have foreseen coming and so sets in motion this coming of age story for Iris as she emerges from her shell into a glamorous world where all is not as it first appears.
Island of Secrets was a slow read and not fast paced by any means. I suppose the pace was in tune with the stifling hot weather mentioned throughout that gave a sense of unrest and anxiousness. Yes there is a mystery behind it as to what did actually happen to the glamorous film star Jean Summers but that is more underlying throughout the story and it is only in the last quarter that the secrecy behind this begins to emerge. The mystery element was more of a background story and I would have loved to see it utilised much more. I would have loved for more of this to have been present from beginning to end as I thought there was going to be plenty of teasers and clues and lots of detective work to be done. This didn't really happen although the sense of unease, tension and suspicion was present it just wasn't there enough for me. The title of the book suggests there is a lot going on on the island of Cuba and of course this is alluded too throughout the story but I felt at times it was pushed under the carpet instead of fully coming to the fore.
Despite its slow place I was definitely transported to Havana and my eyes were awakened to a time pre-Castro although he was beginning to make his mark known. This is more of a story of Iris awakening to the world around her as she is transported from dreary England. Nell's father Hugh, himself a famous director, is about to marry Lana, the daughter of Jean. It seemed a bit creepy that Hugh was marrying his stepdaughter but I suppose this was Hollywood that we were talking about. Nell is invited to the wedding to work as the portrait artist. She believes this to be the opportunity of a lifetime but little does she know this is not just any little old ordinary wedding and that there are many things to be uncovered in the days leading up to the big day. When Iris arrives in Cuba she is like a fish out of water. She is so far out of her comfort zone even down to the clothes she has brought to wear. She feels guilty that she is leaving her boyfriend Peter behind but to be honest the reader can sense that there is not this deep and passionate love between them and maybe Iris does need to get away to see this for herself.
The wedding is to take place at the luxurious estate owned by Bruce, a friend of Hugh's. No expense is to be spared and Iris is housed with Eugene who is there to write about the wedding for a magazine and Joe, an experienced photographer, there to record the special moments of the day. Together they help her figure out why some unusual and unsettling things are happening. Iris soon learns that Havana beats to a rhythm that she is certainly not used to as she becomes accustomed to the heat, the music, the people, the street vendors and the clubs that make up the city. She has to learn to grow up pretty fast and she soon comes to realise that this is not just any old ordinary wedding and maybe there is plenty more going on behind closed doors. Suspicion and intrigue abound as to what is actually going on and the death of Jean Summers having fallen overboard Hugh's luxury yacht several years ago still casts a shadow over the family especially for both Lana, her sister Faye and grandmother Meredith.
I really wanted Iris to turn into like a super sleuth type of character. Instead I felt a lot of the time that she was afraid of her own shadow. Yes unnerving and unsettling things did seem to happen to her and when she gets locked into some place she shouldn't be then the intrigue really started. But at the same time the intrigue appeared and was gone almost instantly. I wasn't left hanging on the edge of my seat rapidly turning the pages in a bid to see more clues uncovered and connections made. That desperate need to know what happened next never materialised for the majority of the book, it only appeared towards the end. I also felt there were so many characters to keep track of, their back stories and how they were connected to the major players that on more than one occasion it did become confusing for me. In turn this upset the rhythm of the plot for me. What was brilliant though was the inclusion of letters written by Jean whilst she was still alive to someone she only gives a nickname to. I thought it really helped to give Jean a voice in this way as the characters attending the wedding all talked about her and what had happened to her and I found it interesting to hear about things from her perspective albeit in letter form.
None of the characters seemed particularly happy, it was as if they were going through the motions attending this wedding but they had a lot more on their minds. It's only as we near the end do things about certain characters began to make sense and Iris begins to join the dots together and comes to comprehend that she has placed herself in a dangerous situation that she does not have the means to fully cope with. The danger pulses silently throughout the book but I just wanted that to come to the surface more to add some real dramatics, surprises and twists and turns. It all just came too little too late for me.
The premise to An Island of Secrets was very good, unfortunately I just didn't connect with it as much as I did with the author's previous two books. A Dangerous Crossing still remains my firm favourite. It was good to see Iris grow and develop as a character and the setting of Cuba was perfect as a sense of claustrophobia permeates throughout but there was just something missing for me that would have transformed this book to another level. I was glad I read to the end to discover the mystery behind it all.
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Thanks for the blog tour support Sharon and Emma x
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