Force of Nature by Jane Harper Book Review

Force of Nature by Jane Harper Book Review

The lowdown from Goodreads

Publication Date February 6th, 2018

Five women go on a hike. Only four return. Jane Harper, the New York Times bestselling author of The Dry, asks: How well do you really know the people you work with?

When five colleagues are forced to go on a corporate retreat in the wilderness, they reluctantly pick up their backpacks and start walking down the muddy path.

But one of the women doesn’t come out of the woods. And each of her companions tells a slightly different story about what happened.

Federal Police Agent Aaron Falk has a keen interest in the whereabouts of the missing hiker. In an investigation that takes him deep into isolated forest, Falk discovers secrets lurking in the mountains, and a tangled web of personal and professional friendship, suspicion, and betrayal among the hikers. But did that lead to murder?

Force of Nature by Jane Harper Book Review

Jane Harper’s The Dry was such a huge success, so I obviously needed to read her follow up, Force Of Nature.

It was a team-building retreat out in the bush, men go one way, five women go another. Hiking the trails, pitching tents, building fires and preparing their meals for three days, meeting up at the end. but things start to turn pretty quickly; tempers flare, nerves are frayed…Then the unthinkable happens. One of the Woman disappears. Aaron Falk and his partner Carmen are swiftly called in to begin investigating. What happened to Alice?

For me, this book started a bit slow and I didn’t care for any of the women at first..but I plodded along, and I am so glad I did! It picks up speed nicely about halfway through and kept me guessing almost right up until the end. I really enjoyed harpers vivid descriptions of the Australian bush; adding to the tension surrounding these complex and troubled characters.

THE VERDICT

The Dry still might be my favorite of Harper’s but Force Of Nature is an impressive Falk follow up. If you like slow-building suspense then you will enjoy this one!

Special thanks to Jane Harper & Flatiron for providing my copy in exchange for an honest & fair review.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: JANE HARPER

Jane Harper was born in Manchester in the UK, and moved to Australia with her family at age eight.

She spent six years in Boronia, Victoria, and during that time gained Australian citizenship.

Returning to the UK with her family as a teenager, she lived in Hampshire before studying English and History at the University of Kent in Canterbury.

On graduating, she completed a journalism entry qualification and got her first reporting job as a trainee on the Darlington & Stockton Times in County Durham.

Jane worked for several years as a senior news journalist for the Hull Daily Mail, before moving back to Australia in 2008.

She worked first on the Geelong Advertiser, and in 2011 took up a role with the Herald Sun in Melbourne.

In 2014, Jane submitted a short story which was one of 12 chosen for the Big Issue‘s annual Fiction Edition.

That inspired her to pursue creative writing more seriously, and that year she applied for an online 12-week novel writing course.

She was accepted with a submission for the book that would become The Dry.

Jane lives in St Kilda with her husband and daughter.