Take Us All

Shrouded in Mystery
The locals call it Isla de los Perdidos.

Island of the Lost 
According to the legends, those who venture onto the shores of this cursed island never return.

Abandoned

Valarie DeNola and her sister Julie have chosen to ignore the legends and the warnings. They have been selected to lead a team of explorers to the island to discover the mystery surrounding it. But once ashore, they become cut off from the outside world, and what they discover is something they could never have prepared for.

Inhabited by Death

Now they must fight against an unknown presence that is picking them off one by one. No one can be trusted, and when even nature rises up against them, all seems lost. Their one hope is the extraction team they know is coming.

But will any of them survive to see it arrive?

INFERNAL by Cheryl Low is a frightening mystery-thriller. The storyline moves at a slow pace for much of the novel, but with such well-developed characters and backstories, the death crawl works well. However, even I must admit there was a moment when I wondered if Val would ever make it onto the island. The heavy emphasis on the sharks threw me off, and I wondered if I misunderstood the book description. 

The ending is everything. All the details I assumed were just page filler turned out to be pieces of a complicated and terrifying puzzle. Suddenly, the scenes with shark frenzies and howler monkeys made perfect sense. Much like the characters pushing through the jungle, readers need to push through to the big reveal. The last chapter is an absolute mind-blower.

Low did such an excellent job mixing folklore and supernatural elements with science, I am looking forward to reading more of her work.

As always,
AstraDaemon