Why You'll Love This
Someone is sending Jo photographs of her dead mother — and the killer has been on the island the whole time.
- Great if you want: gothic family secrets wrapped in a slow-building murder mystery
- The experience: atmospheric and brooding, with romance woven into the dread
- The writing: Roberts builds dread through place — the island itself feels like a character
- Skip if: you want mystery over romance — the balance tips both ways
About This Book
Some places never really let you go. For photographer Jo Ellen Hathaway, the Georgia barrier island estate known as Sanctuary is one of those places — a childhood home haunted by her mother's mysterious disappearance and years of emotional distance from her family. When a stranger begins sending Jo disturbing photographs, the past forces its way back into the present, and she has no choice but to return to the island she fled. Roberts builds a story where family wounds and genuine danger intertwine, where the threat isn't just external but lives inside the silences between people who once loved each other.
What makes Sanctuary work as a reading experience is Roberts' control of atmosphere — the Georgia coast feels humid, isolated, and alive in ways that do real narrative work. The island isn't just a backdrop; it earns its place in the story's tension. Roberts also balances the romantic and the suspenseful without letting either element crowd the other out, and she writes family dysfunction with an honesty that cuts deeper than the thriller plot alone. This is patient, layered storytelling that trusts its setting and its characters to carry the weight.
