When Liv and Nora decide to take their husbands and children on a holiday cruise, everyone is thrilled. The ship's comforts and possibilities seem infinite. But when they all go ashore in beautiful Central America, a series of minor mishaps lead the families further from the ship's safety.
One minute the children are there, and the next they're gone. What follows is a heart-racing story told from the perspectives of the adults and the children, as the distraught parents - now turning on one another and blaming themselves - try to recover their children and their shattered lives.
About the Author
Maile Meloy has written several adult novels and short story collections.Her stories have been featured in The New Yorker, The Paris Review and Granta. This is her first young adult novel.
Industry Reviews
Readers in search of the summer's nail-biting, page-turning, thought-provoking thriller to take to the beach - the hunt is over... chilling and smart * The Times *
I swallowed this novel in almost a sitting, eyes on stalks until the early hours. Elegantly and intelligently written... an addictive read * Sunday Times *
Here is that perfect combination of a luminous writer and a big, page-turning story. This hugely suspenseful novel will speak to anyone who has ever felt responsible for keeping a loved one safe, whether it was a child, a partner, a parent, or a friend. Meloy's characters-the adults and the children-feel like real, living people I'll never forget -- Helen Fielding
This is the book that every reader longs for: smart and thrilling and impossible to put down. Read it once at breakneck speed to find out what happens next, and then read it slowly to marvel at the perfect prose and the masterwork of a plot. It is an alarmingly good novel. -- Ann Patchett
Do not start this book after dinner or you will almost certainly be up all night * Kirkus Reviews *
I can't remember the last time I gobbled a novel down so fast * Guardian *
Ominous, addictive...In crafting this high-stakes page-turner, Meloy excels as a master of suspense * Publisher's Weekly *
No character will emerge unscathed as Meloy ratchets up the tension * Mail on Sunday *
[Meloy is] a wise and astonishing conjurer of convincing realities * New Yorker *
Her characters are drawn sparingly, but they leap off the page * New York Times *
She's such a talented and unpredictable writer that I'm officially joining her fan club; whatever she writes next, I'll gladly read it -- Curtis Sittenfeld
Somehow she pulls off what never quite seemed possible before: combining the meticulous realism of domestic fiction with the witchery of a natural-born storyteller * New York Times *
Always true to her wide-ranging though consistently introspective characters, Meloy convincingly depicts the inchoate emotion that drives people, while also distilling meaning from it * Atlantic *
Meloy has such a sure handle in what to leave out. Her style is impressively unshowy: it's not even showily unshowy, not seeing the need to draw attention to its pared-down restraint * London Review of Books *
Gripping and convincing, it is a reminder of how vulnerable our lives can be * You Magazine *
Twisty, tense, savvy thriller * S Magazine *
In 'Do Not Become Alarmed' the narrative switches dazzlingly from character to character with ingenious facility. Meloy has an Ann Patchett-like eye for nuance and detail and a mordant wit that persists even through the most gruesome and disturbing scenes; this restless, kinetic book is unsettling and provoking but never solemn. I kept stopping and setting it aside to think; at the end I urgently wanted to read it again * Irish Times *
Like a gothic Famous Five... a vivid, fast-moving, beach-friendly thriller * The Times *
