Sun Drenched Suspense. From South Florida to a luxury island near St Maarten (itself, I can personally testify, an extravagance that needs to be experienced), this is one of those books that will transport you to its location quite well… but is it a Hotel California situation? 😉
Featuring a female IT specialist as our lead – not an overly common occurrence, even with literal decades of focus in specifically trying to recruit exactly this demographic into both college Computer Science programs and professional level jobs (even long before anyone had ever heard the acronym “DEI”) – this is a book that blends different forms of exotic with all-too-common petty jealousies and rivalries into a mashup that looks fresh and yet is also as old as time – well older, if you’re a computer geek and know well “when time began”. 😉
The overall story here is well done, but in a dual timeline model that many will enjoy but some will not. This one isn’t going to move the needle either direction for most readers as far as the dual timeline concept goes, but it *is* executed solidly here, with clear jumps and with the earlier timeline having clear and direct impact on the current timeline.
Overall a well done tale that fans of Woods’ previous book (as Woods), Ladykiller – one of my BookAnon.com Top 24 Books of 2024 – will enjoy, and fans new to this form of Woods’ writing will get a solid view of how she now approaches stories and storytelling. I was excited to see where Woods would go coming out of Ladykiller, and I’m excited to see where she will go next after this book as well.
Very much recommended.
This review of Sunburned by Katherine Wood was originally written on July 13, 2025.