Shaken by problems at home, confused by the motives of a new love, and reeling from a public meltdown, high school hockey star Walt McNamara joins an exclusive new leadership program controlled by the ultra-wealthy summer residents of Whaleback Island, a granite and spruce oasis off the coast of Maine. But this is no paradise; secrets lurk in its murky waters. As Walt and his fellow misfits, including the determined Aubrey and fierce Tess, are pushed physically and mentally by ex-military instructors, exposed truths from the island’s past and present slowly reveal the reasons behind their intense training. With danger mounting, Walt, Aubrey, Tess, and the others must use their new skills to sort friend from foe and find a way to survive. In The Islanders, award-winning author Lewis Robinson has crafted his most irresistible book yet: a suspenseful reckoning of class conflict in America, with a vivid tale of friendship and family at its heart.
The excerpt below is adapted from Chapter 2 of The Islanders by Lewis Robinson.
We drifted inside the island boathouse, dark and cool and
smelling of oil and marine paint. We shouldered our packs, walked
from the floats up a ramp to a wide circle of grass where a young, tan,
blonde woman in a sun-visor and skirt sat in a golf cart, unloading
children who sprinted toward the docks.
“Welcome, welcome! Good luck!” she said, beaming, then rolled
silently forward, turning back up the hill, revealing a sign that had
been obscured by her golf cart, another hand-painted shingle on a
stake:
WILD—>
We walked up the dirt road through the Club property where
adults milled about on the manicured fairways of the golf course,
on the lawn bowling court, and on old single-speed bicycles. Some
glided around in golf carts. A few long-limbed, shaggy-haired men
with their skinny wives and daughters and sons played tennis in
tight white clothes. Labor Day was their last chance to be on the
island before jetting back to Boston or New York or wherever else.
Everyone walked with a spring in their step, and their eyes were clear.
Good sleep, fresh seafood, greens from their gardens. Ocean air.
We followed the WILD signs. I think we were all impressed by
even the small details, the stone walls being sturdy, not too neat,
lichen covered.
Aubrey ambled with purpose, head up, but totally inscrutable;
her eyes were still hidden by her wind-tangled hair. Her silence
was unnerving to me. When the trail narrowed and entered the
woods, she tucked behind me, and Tess stayed in front. The trail
was similar to the one we’d hiked on the mainland earlier—clean,
healthy terrain—though here the trees were all evergreen, the stumps
freshly cut, the path lined with woodchips. The spruce smell was so
exaggerated it seemed pumped in. Everything felt outside the realm
of flimsy plastic and scams and other cheap crap, and there were no
cars. Whaleback Island was mostly just wood and rock.
We followed the signs away from the club to the WILD campus
in the forest at the top of the island, on a hill where the trees had been
chopped down to make room for five simple cedar-shingled salt-box
buildings. The middle and tallest of them, three stories—the main
building, labeled Big Rug—was flanked by four modest dormitories.
Tacked to each front door was a typed—by typewriter—list of names.
My name wasn’t on the first list—Drake—but fourteen others and
I were on the list tacked to Cook, next door. I walked with Aubrey
and Tess to the adjacent building, Vancouver, saw their names along
with eight others on the list, and marveled at the thick white sheet
of paper inflected with the typed names:
Bethany — Alabama
Hailey — Indiana
Aubrey — Maine
Bianca — Missouri
Alexis — Florida
Kelsi – Iowa
Tess — Maryland
Kyra — Vermont
Mackenzie – Delaware
Rylee – New Mexico
Aubrey and Tess entered their dorm without saying goodbye
and the door swung shut. I didn’t like that. All I could do was walk
back to Cook, my heart pounding as I headed in past some ditched
backpacks in the stairwell. From the second floor landing, I looked
down the pine-planked hallway to an open door.
Comments