Novel set in Tasmania The Survivors by Jane Harper

Submitted: 28th September 2020

The Survivors set in Evelyn Bay

Novel set in Tasmania The Survivors by Jane Harper – When someone sends you the latest Jane Harper novel, you read it straight away don’t you? I needed a twisty novel full of secrets from the past, a vividly evoked setting and some gripping prose. Did I get it? Of course I did:

Kieran Elliott’s life changed forever on the day a reckless mistake led to devastating consequences. The guilt that still haunts him resurfaces during a visit with his young family to the small coastal town he once called home. A town where a sunken wreck still lies. A town very much bound to the sea. When a body is found on the beach, long-held secrets threaten to emerge…

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Jane Harper takes you from the heat to her former books to the small coastal town of Evelyn Bay (fictional) on the south coast of Tasmania. Kieran has come back to help his mum move his father into a care home so there are already clouds of sadness passing overhead as the novel opens. Kieran however is faced with much more sadness as it was here, where they lived many years ago, that he was involved in a tragedy at sea. A storm changed everything. Lives were lost and a girl drowned.

The setting is everything – the story, the mood, the past and the future. Jane evokes the scent of wet sand, footprints of secrets past and whispers in the wind…. At any other time I imagine this would be the perfect holiday spot but here it’s where regret and longing live side by side. Memories of the past float to the surface.

I felt fascinated and haunted by equal measure when I found out about who The Survivors are and the affects that the storm has had on this community. For me, this is where the author shines – the characters she creates and the relationships, troubles, and secrets between them.

Guilt and shame are the two main inhabitants of the town. Many people living in Evelyn Bay feel the guilt over the day of the storm. That event weaves in and out of the present day storyline which sees a young waitress at the Surf and Turf found murdered on the beach. So many twists and turns! Threads of tension being pulled tight at various times during the novel which makes for a very twisty reading experience.

I would say it’s quietly effective, a slow-burn of a secret rising to the surface but you can tell it’s Jane Harper. She lets the landscape and the people tied to it, tell their story in their own way.