The Island [Mass Market Paperback]

Heather Graham (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2007

On a weekend vacation Beth Anderson is unnerved when a stroll on the beach reveals what appears to be a skull. As a stranger approaches, Beth panics and covers the evidence. But when she later returns to the beach, the skull is gone.

Determined to find solid evidence to bring to the police, Beth digs deeper into the mystery of the skull—and everywhere she goes, Keith Henson, the stranger from the beach, seems to appear. He claims to be keeping an eye on her safety, but Beth senses other motives. Then a body washes ashore, and Beth begins to think she needs more help than she bargained for. Because investigating is a dangerous game, and someone wants to stop Beth from playing.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Modern-day piracy, decomposing human remains and a swanky Miami yacht club set the mood for another top-notch thriller from romance icon Graham (Killing Kelly). During a weekend camp-out on isolated Calliope Key, "compellingly attractive" Beth Anderson and her 14-year-old niece, Amber, stumble on a half-buried human skull that disappears by the time she returns with help. Ben, Beth's brother and Amber's father, suspects the object was merely a conch shell, but it's a safe bet that conch shells don't grow hair. More likely, someone on the island took the skull for reasons of his or her own—like hunky Keith Henson, the enigmatic diver who'd been lurking about at the time of the grisly discovery. Back home in Miami, Beth is stalked and harassed by ominous threats, forcing her to solicit the aid of a couple of cop pals, who set a trap for the culprit at the yacht club's Summer Sizzler festival. Even though the tale falls short as a real knuckle-biter, bestseller Graham doesn't disappoint with the steamy romance between Keith and Beth or the glamorous yacht-club doings. Boat lovers are sure to enjoy the fine attention to detail regarding luxury pleasure craft. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

On a camping trip to Calliope Key, Beth Anderson finds a skull in the woods. She hides it, planning to return for it later. Keith Henson is a scuba-diving adventurer visiting the island with two friends in a beautifully appointed yacht. That evening the various campers on the island come together for an informal cookout, and Beth suspects that each is there for nefarious purposes. Deducing that the skull may be that of one of a popular retired couple not seen for several months, Beth returns for it, but it seems to have disappeared. Soon all the players from the island reassemble at the yacht club, while every time Beth turns around, the strikingly attractive Keith Henson is there. Is he really trying to protect her, as he claims, or is he actually a modern-day pirate, as she fears? With more than a hundred books to her credit, Graham always writes a satisfyingly entertaining read. Diana Tixier Herald
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Mira (March 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0778324249
• ISBN-13: 978-0778324249
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,063,925 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #44 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Romance > Authors, A-Z > ( G ) > Graham, Heather

More About the Author

New York Times and USA Today best selling author, Heather Graham was born somewhere in Europe and kidnapped by gypsies when she was a small child. She went on to join the Romanian circus as a trapeze artist and lion tamer. When the circus came to South Florida, she stayed, discovering that she preferred to be a shark and gator trainer.

Not really.

Heather is the child of Scottish and Irish immigrants who met and married in Chicago, and moved to South Florida, where she has spent her life. (She has, at least, been to the Russian circus in Moscow, where she wished she was one of the incredibly talented and coordinated trapeze artists.) She majored in theater arts at the University of South Florida. After a stint of several years in dinner theater, back-up vocals, and bartending, she stayed home after the birth of her third child and began to write. Her first book was with Dell, and since then, she has written over one hundred and fifty novels and novellas including category, suspense, historical romance, vampire fiction, time travel, occult, horror, and Christmas family fare.

She is pleased to have been published in approximately twenty-five languages, and has had over seventy-five million books in print. She has been honored with awards from Walden Books, B. Dalton, Georgia Romance Writers, Affaire de Coeur, Romantic Times, the Lifetime Achievement Award from RWA and more. Heather has also become the proud recipient of the Silver Bullet from Thriller Writers. Heather has had books selected for the Doubleday Book Club and the Literary Guild, and has been quoted, interviewed, or featured in such publications as The Nation, Redbook, Mystery Book Club, People and USA Today and appeared on many newscasts including Today, Entertainment Tonight and local television.

Heather loves travel and anything that has to do with the water, and is a certified scuba diver. She also loves ballroom dancing. Each year she hosts the Vampire Ball and Dinner theater at the RT convention raising money for the Pediatric Aids Society and in 2006 she hosted the first Writers for New Orleans Workshop to benefit the stricken Gulf region. She is also the founder of "The Slush Pile Players", presenting something that's almost like entertainment for various conferences and benefits. Married since high school graduation and the mother of five, her greatest love in life remains her family, but she also believes her career has been an incredible gift, and she is grateful every day to be doing something that she loves so very much for a living.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Compelling read, June 2, 2006

By 

M. Rondeau (West Springfield, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Island (Mira Hardbacks) (Hardcover)

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.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Phoning it in, June 28, 2006

By 

Mark Twain (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Island (Mira Hardbacks) (Hardcover)

I read some Heather Graham books years ago and enjoyed their plotting and dialog. I bought The Island based on those older books. Unfortunately this book simply doesn't stand up. The plot is threadbare. The characters are irritating (yet another book in the stupid-heroine genre). Some of the dialog is just bad. The whole book wanders along aimlessly, then wraps up with a few pages of everyone suddenly acting decisive and heroic - way out of character. I'm afraid Graham phoned this one in, and her editor was out to lunch.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars exhilarating romantic suspense, March 4, 2006

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Island (Mira Hardbacks) (Hardcover)

With members of the yacht club where she works, Beth Anderson looks forward to spending her vacation with her widower brother Ben, his fourteen years old daughter Amber and her best pal Kim Smith on tiny Calliope Key, two to three hours from Miami. That is she has R&R until the three females find a human skull, which Beth ponders if this is the remains of one of the missing expert sailors, retirees Ted and Molly Monaco.

When stranger Keith Henson arrives, Beth hides the finding. Her niece gives the newcomer the ten second third degree that only a young teen (or Macaulay Culkin in Uncle Buck) could perform. When Beth returns for the hidden skull, she finds it missing; Ben insists it was a conch. However, Beth believes whoever took the skull remains nearby ready to kill two teens and two adult siblings if needed. Keith offers to help her, but though attracted to him she wonders if he is the one who uncovered and re-hid the skull, making him the killer, but the case will twist much more bizarrely than simply that.

THE ISLAND is an exhilarating romantic suspense with the emphasis on red herrings, twists and turns (perhaps too many), and plenty of action as Beth tries to learn the truth about the vanishing skull which soon leads into "Sail into Terror". Beth is courageous as she struggles with what she knows (very little), what she speculates (a lot more all lethal), what to do and who to trust. The story line works because the ensemble cast seems genuine, as differing motives surface. Adding to the thriller is an intriguing secondary romance between Ben and a suspect that can only turn out bad for someone. Heather Graham's fans will enjoy sea cruising to THE ISLAND.

Harriet Klausner