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. Lewis Robinson is the author of the novel Water Dogs (Random House, 2009), a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice, and Officer Friendly and Other Stories (HarperCollins, 2003), winner of a Whiting Award and the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Award, and the forthcoming novel The Islanders (Islandport, 2024). His short fiction and essays have appeared in Sports Illustrated, Tin House, The Baffler, The New York Times Book Review and on NPR's program Selected Shorts. He has taught fiction writing at the University of Iowa, Colby College, the University of Southern Maine's Stonecoast MFA program, Phillips Academy, Stanford University's Continuing Studies program, and is currently the fiction professor at the University of Maine Farmington. He lives in Portland, Maine.
