A plane crash, a deserted island and two separated sisters

I found The Castaways by Lucy Clarke to be a gripping escapist thriller with a very strong start which drew me into the story immediately and kept me reading.  

The story is about the relationship between sisters Lori and Erin, who since the death of their mother have come to rely on each other and seem to be closer than most sisters. When Lori’s husband admits to an affair she books them both a holiday to Fiji. That was two years ago as the story starts because after a furious argument whilst in Fiji, Erin failed to show up for the small inter-island flight that Lori ended up boarding alone. When the plane fails to reach its destination and the ensuing searches reveal nothing, with all passengers presumed dead, Erin returned home but has been unable to move on with her life and remains consumed by the mystery of what actually happened to Lori’s plane. Suddenly the pilot turns up alive in a Fijian hospital and this provides Erin with an opportunity to get some answers once and for all and perhaps to start living again.

The story follows a dual narrative split between Erin in the present and Lori in the past (she records a diary onto a mobile phone that still retains some charge) so the reader knows from very early in the book that Lori did actually survive the plane crash which is more than Erin does. Erin flies out to Fiji convinced that the seriously ill pilot is withholding details she needs in order to find out what has happened to Lori but she finds it difficult to get him to disclose what he knows. Lori’s story follows her and the few other survivors on a deserted island as they struggle to survive. The alternating chapters are short and I found that the action moved quickly between the two narratives.

I really enjoyed reading this book and found it difficult to put down because I wanted to know what happened to Lori. I did find the sisters a little too dependent on each other to be realistic and parts of the plot, especially the ending, were contrived and not wholly believable but overall I thought that this was a highly entertaining story.