Book Review (5 Stars) – Paradise Prison, by Faith Mortimer

Blurb:

During a huge row, Gillian stands up to her abusive boyfriend. The consequences are horrendous and far-reaching.
Terrified, she flees her home, seeking anonymity abroad while coming to terms with the outcome of her actions.
In Portugal, Gillian meets Harry, a yachtsman, needing crew for his Atlantic Ocean-crossing. She applies for the job. Half-way into the journey, after confessing to her crime, Harry offers her refuge on an uninhabited island in the Caribbean which he says he owns.
Confused and depressed, Gillian imagines this is the answer to her problems. She needs time to lie low and consider her options; confront the authorities or live in obscurity? Harry is offering the perfect hiding place…or is he?
When things start going horribly wrong, she asks herself if she is alone on the island. But maybe the biggest question of all is why she gets the gut feeling Harry wants to keep her there at all costs?
What happens when she says … no?

My Review:

Paradise Prison was a thoroughly enjoyable psychological thriller that I found hard to put down.

At first I wasn’t quite sure where it was going, but once it got there, I was glued to my Kindle screen needing to know what was going to happen. I had various ideas of how this story was going to end, and although I guessed some of it, I definitely didn’t expect quite the ending that I was finally faced with.

I found Gillian’s whole experience of life, past and present, rather emotional and at times somewhat horrifying. This story made me feel trapped and claustrophobic, yet at the same time, completely exposed to the world. Loneliness really can be truly terrifying!

I have a fear of oceans and what might be viewed as a slightly irrational fear of sharks. The kind of fear where I’m convinced a shark will get me if I’m left in a four foot deep swimming pool on my own. Because of this, I probably found this story more psychologically disturbing than some other readers would, but overall it was a great plot that had me emotionally involved and repeatedly trying to guess the outcome. Having finished it this morning, I can still feel the tension that built up within me, especially during the latter part of the book.

Moving away from my fear of sharks, there were aspects of this book that reminded me of my love of the book Robinson Crusoe and the film Cast Away. So despite being a psychological thriller, this actually filled me with quite positive thoughts at the same time. I kept half expecting Wilson the ball bloke from Cast Away to make an appearance, especially as I met him at a barbeque in Cornwall last summer. No wonder my emotions were all over the place.

Although Paradise Prison is the fourth book in the Dark Minds series, this is a standalone story. I’ve not read any of the other books in this series yet, but definitely hope to at some point in the future.

Photographic evidence, just in case anyone thought I was making that part up 😉