Jo Dixon
Realise date: October 2025
About:
Bestselling author Marnie Elliott has invited her three oldest friends to a secluded holiday house in Tasmania. On the surface it’s an excuse to catch up and drink champagne — but really, Marnie’s there to escape the fallout from an upcoming exposé. Sure, she’s told some lies over the course of her career… but this time the allegations go further… Did Marnie even write the books that made her millions?
As the days unfold, it becomes clear that time has pulled the women apart, and that perhaps they don’t know each other as well as they thought they did. And when long-buried secrets and resentments rise to the surface, tensions spiral out of control.
And then one of them disappears.
No one can survive the harsh elements of a Tasmanian winter for long, and soon panic sets in. Did she get lost? Run away? Or is something far more sinister at play?
And does it have anything to do with what happened twenty-five years ago, when the four of them lived together in a rambling warehouse, fuelled by ambition, and where nothing — absolutely nothing — mattered more than being part of the group?
My Review:
Thank you to Jo for the ARC I won of her latest book.
A disappearing act had me gripped from the prologue. I became so invested in the characters that I struggled to put the book down.
The feisty character Sarah opening up the first chapter starts this book off with gusto, grit and the reader quickly realises a strong sensual beautiful woman who knows her mind and isn’t afraid to speak it.
Marine a quiet character, unsure of herself with no self worth. Desperate to be liked, with an all consuming fear of upsetting the others for fear of being cast out, a compulsive need to be part of the group.
Poppy nervous, unsure of herself, a character who looks shallow and easy to understand but has a deep and complexity to her.
Xantha (Zanni) what you see is what you get, volatile and scatterbrained.
Moving between chapters and time lines, learning about each of the characters, Sarah, Poppy, Zanni and Marine pulls the plot together seamlessly.
Swinging back in time to the rooms they rented, the house they lived in together, their tatty but happy place with a colourful descriptive art student vibe.
Four very different but distinct personalities all with their own secrets.
I felt like Sarah took me on a verbal drive through Tasmania, the descriptions so vivid, the towns so familiar, so welcoming, giving the reader a visually heartwarming journey through the landscape that is Tasmania.
I loved that Jo played to the south’s passions, mentioning Cascade ale. Cascade in the south and Boags in the north, the beer than helps create a north/south divide on this tiny dot of an island.
Jo has put her soul into this book, you can feel it between the pages, the sense of this being a story she has lived, a journey she has driven her characters on both physically and mentally.
