A camera is a strange thing to bring to a grave. Ten years after their friend vanished on a volcanic island in the Atlantic, a group of former campers points one at the last place she was seen, hoping to shape something tender out of the not-knowing. The documentary was supposed to honor her. Instead it found her.
What it's about
The setup is almost too neat, which is exactly why it works. A tight circle of women who met as teenagers at summer camp lost one of their own on the Azores, that scatter of green cliffs and black sand off the coast of Portugal. A decade later they return to those islands to film a documentary about her, the kind of loving, closure-seeking project that looks good in a trailer. Old friendships come back to life on camera. So does everything they buried alongside the grief: the small lies, the loyalties that curdled, the version of that summer each of them agreed to remember. Goldis keeps the premise clean and lets the pressure build from proximity, because nothing tightens a group faster than being filmed while pretending to feel fine.
Why everyone's talking about it
Jaclyn Goldis has quietly become a reliable name for the glamorous-location thriller, the writer behind The Château and When We Were Young and this one leans into her strengths: a gorgeous, slightly menacing setting, a friend group with a shared secret, a structure that trusts you to keep several timelines straight. The hook does a lot of the heavy lifting in conversation and for good reason. It promises the thing every reader of this genre wants, which is a reunion that refuses to stay polite.
Who this lands for: anyone who reads thrillers for the group dynamics more than the forensics, who likes a whodunit dressed in linen and set somewhere they would love to visit. Who should skip it: readers who bristle at coincidence, or who want their mysteries lean and procedural rather than atmospheric and a touch soapy. The camera-crew conceit asks you to suspend a little disbelief. If that makes you itchy, this may not be your island.
The verdict, for now
Early buzz suggests this is Goldis working in a comfortable register, which is a compliment when the register is "beautiful place, buried secret, everyone lying with a smile." If you already loved her earlier books, you can preorder without much hand-wringing. If you are new to her, this is a fair place to test whether the vibe suits you, ideally on a beach where nobody is filming you.
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