A review by ailsareads
The Sanctuary by Andrew Hunter Murray

3.0

I have a tendency to go into books blind if I know I like the author or I’m intrigued enough by the cover. That was the case here - I knew Andrew Hunter Murray both from his work as a comedian and QI researcher but also his previous novel, The Last Day, set on a dystopian Earth that has stopped spinning. I was hoping for something else dystopian, creepy, scary and maybe with something interesting to say about the human condition. This definitely seems to fit the brief - at an unspecified point in time an unspecified country a lot like the UK is suffering from a lack of births, climate change and other maladies not entirely explained, and the very wealthy are now living in idyllic and definitely not culty Villages, founded by a mysterious and also definitely not culty man called John Pemberley. Our protagonist Ben is on the hunt for his fiancée Cara who has gone to work for this mysterious billionaire on “the island” and not come home. The island is so obviously incredibly sinister that it’s almost laughable that Ben would think it was actually some kind of utopia. It was an enjoyable read but I was also so frustrated at Ben the whole time!