After years of avoiding each other, Daisy Darker’s entire family is assembling for Nana’s 80th birthday party in Nana’s crumbling gothic house on a tiny tidal island. Finally back together one last time, when the tide comes in, they will be cut off from the rest of the world for eight hours.

The family arrives, each of them harboring secrets. Then at the stroke of midnight, as a storm rages, Nana is found dead. And an hour later, the next family member follows . . .

Trapped on an island where someone is killing them one by one, the Darkers must reckon with their present mystery as well as their past secrets, before the tide comes in and all is revealed.

Being a mystery and thriller writer is my dream job, but it has ruined my great love: reading mysteries and thrillers. I find it impossible to stop scrutinizing the mechanics and relax and enjoy them like I used to—unless they’re written by Alice Feeney.

In Daisy Darker, the estranged Darker family reluctantly gathers at Nana’s dilapidated coastal cottage to mark her 80th birthday. “Seaglass” stands alone on a tiny tidal island; at high tide, the Darkers will be stuck together and cut off from the rest of the world for a long eight hours. But just as Nana’s eighty-strong quirky clock collection chimes midnight, she’s found dead. An hour later, someone else is dead. Low tide is still five hours away. Who of the Darkers will survive until then?

This novel has a truly gasp-inducing twist. Some readers may say it breaks the “rules” but I say let’s smash them all into smithereens if it’s to this spectacular of an effect. What I particularly love about Feeney’s writing is that her twists are always only the garnish, never the main meal. Even if you guess it or suspect it, there’s still so much deliciousness to enjoy in her clever, stylish, and utterly gripping novels.

Fans of Sarah Pinborough and Riley Sager please make your way to Seaglass before the tide comes in. Unlike the Darker family, you won’t regret it.