Temptation Island

by Victoria Fox

[Leah]

When I read Victoria Fox’s debut novel, Hollywood Sinners, last year I was massively impressed. It was opulent, it was larger-than-life, and it seemed Fox was the heir apparent to Jackie Collins’s throne. It would then be safe to say that the wait for her new novel seemed endless. For me, it couldn’t come around quick enough as I waited to see what Fox would do next. Where it would be set, who would be in it and what would happen that was so shocking and so scandalous you forgot it was fiction. When I heard it was going to be set on an island, an island with secrets, well, I was sold and as soon as I received the novel I began to read it, expecting a book just as good as her first novel. Sadly though Temptation Island failed to tempt me.

I can’t seem to pinpoint what Fox did wrong with Temptation Island that was different to Hollywood Sinners. It had three gorgeous females with the world at their feet – and secrets they’re keeping, obviously – it had villains straight out of a cheesy movie, and it had what could have been a glorious setting. Had the novel actually been set on Cacatra, the alleged temptation island. Thing is, when a novel promises you a glorious island as its setting and it takes almost 400 pages to get there, you’re always going to be disappointed. And I was. Somehow it just didn’t work. Aurora, Lori and Stevie weren’t captivating enough to carry 400 pages of a novel before it got to the bit that was really, really shocking. Aurora and Lori especially. Aurora was just your typical spoiled Hollywood princess and she was so one-dimensional it hurt. Lori was the opposite of that, but still a stereo-type. Sweet, innocent, yada yada. Obviously meant to be the ying to Aurora’s yang but both were so far bad or so far good that it seemed a caricature. Stevie was the only character I really cared about but if I’m being honest, I don’t even know why she was in the novel. “Fame at her best friend’s expense” is what its billed as, but it wasn’t really like that. Or at least not the way it sounds.

I suppose I just felt mis-sold. I felt like I was reading a different book to the one the cover and the synopsis promises. And I’m sorry, but the big massive secret was improbable. It’s the most stupid thing ever. It felt as if it belonged in a crime novel rather than a Chick Lit novel. It just didn’t fit with the theme, not really. Everything just felt off. The characters were just playthings, the behaviour of the villains was funny not scary, and I can’t get my head around what Lori does. She becomes fascinated by a man named JB and I just kept waiting for her to see him for his true self, because believe me, he wasn’t how Lori saw him and I saw it a mile off. It was creepy. It was all just a bit horrible, really, which is a shame. Hollywood Sinners was an excellent novel and with Temptation Island Fox has sort of un-done all the work she did with her first book. It just didn’t work. The island idea is a good one, yes, but the rest of it should have been done differently. I don’t know how, but it just should have. Here’s hoping Fox can deliver the goods with her third novel.