Island of Secrets by Rachel Rhys

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 1188 KB
• Print Length: 360 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1784164895
• Publisher: Transworld Digital; 01 edition (25 May 2020)
• Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B07TSPQ2RC

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Synopsis

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?

Review

Island of Secrets is set in 1950’s Cuba, an Island of the cusp of revolution, where money can buy you anything. Iris Bailey lives a constrained life, working as a typist when she would prefer to be at Art College with her boyfriend Peter. She still uses her artistic skills sketching portraits at parties and social events. Nell Hardman, a socialite, invites Iris to Havana, to sketch the wedding guests at her Hollywood director father’s wedding to his third wife. From the dulness of her life in London, Iris finds herself in the exotic and colourful Havana, falling for mysterious photographer Joe Garson, but soon the glamour fades as secrets and lies are revealed, but can a scandal be averted.

Island of Secrets is a colourful, exotic, full of 1950’s glamour and has a multilayered plot. In the 1950’s Cuba is a corrupt country,  overrun with Americans, who use their money to buy power, build hotels and Casinos, and for political influence. Rachel Rhys’s writing captures the sultry heat, the smell of the tropical flowers, the opulence and the political atmosphere. Bruce Bonini, hosting the wedding of Hollywood director Hugh Hardman, is an example of the worst of the American’s living in Cuba at that time; for him money is power, he can use bully tactics to get what he wants including using Hugh Hardman’s fame to his own advantage. It doesn’t take long to see that the glitz and glamour are purely surface decoration and that underneath it all is dark with scandal, lies and murder.

Iris is young, naive and has lived a sheltered life with her conservative parents. When Nell Hardman offers her the job to sketch her father’s wedding, Iris jumps at the chance, it is a once in a life time offer. Havana shows her a very different life, mixing with the rich and famous, cocktail parties, hotels and casinos, but the more she learns of the Hardman family, and the other guests she is living with, the shine and sparkle fade. When Iris is drawing, it is very private and the subjects seem to open up to her, tell her things they wouldn’t tell others. Her unassuming character and the fact she is only there for a limited time enable the sitters to confide in her. She soon finds herself out of her depth, and with the help of Joe, the photographer, and Eugene, a reporter, looking for a possible murderer. Rachel Rhys has written a cast as colourful as Havana itself; Isabella the glamorous and eccentric wedding planner, Barbara Bonini, the hostess who is permanently medicated, Lana the young bride, Faye, Lana’s damaged younger sister, and Connie, Nell Hardman’s mother and ex wife of the groom.  All play an important role in this book, and all have secrets they want kept hidden.

Island of Secrets is a captivating and fascinating read that captures the Hollywood glamour of the 1950’s and the darkness below it’s surface. Rachel Rhys is a masterful storyteller, capturing the zeitgeist of the period, and building a multifaceted plot that keeps your attention throughout. The tension is built as the book rapidly rolls towards the shocking conclusion. A perfect read of glamour, power, corruption, secrets, and romance, as potent as the cocktails drank on the terrace.  Fabulous and fascinating, a perfect summer read.

I would like to thank Black Swan and Anne Cater for including me in the blog tour for this book.