How Bad Things can Get by Darcy Coates

✦ BLURB ✦

Prosperity Island. Its history is filled with shipwrecks, cannibalism, and a string of unexplained deaths. And now... it hosts the party of the century.

A content creator millionaire and more than a hundred of his fans land on the beach. The plan: five days of elaborate games, drinking, and suntanned fun. Among the guests are a woman trying to hide from her bloody and notorious past, and a video journalist hunting for the next big scandal.

The celebrations have barely started when the first guests go missing. Games take a deadly turn. And attendees are forced to question whether they've really been invited to paradise...or whether something much darker is boiling just under the surface.

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The past won’t let her go — and neither will the island.

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🌑 Pre-Reading Thoughts

I’ve read both a novel and short story collection by Darcy Coates, and if there’s one thing she nails every time, it’s atmosphere. Her worlds feel alive — in the eerie, watching-you-from-the-closet kind of way. So when I saw this book promised cult trauma, creepy island history, and social media chaos, I knew I was in for something twisted and immersive.

The premise hooked me right away: the only survivor of a cult suicide, returning to the spotlight twenty years later — not willingly, but by circumstance. That kind of legacy doesn’t stay quiet, and I had a feeling this story wouldn’t either.

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🪦 Post-Reading

As I thought...
The island setting is spectacularly creepy. Prosperity Island is soaked in dread - not just for what’s happening now, but for what’s already happened. Shipwrecks, disappearances, and rumours of cannibalism haunt every inch of it. You don’t read this book so much as wander into it, barefoot and very aware that the sand beneath your feet might be covering something hungry.

The protagonist’s backstory as a cult survivor is handled with care, never played for shock but always sitting heavily under the surface of her decisions. You can feel how much it’s shaped her — and how much she wants to escape it.

It surprised me by...
…how quickly it switched from unsettling to unputdownable. I hit the 60% mark and realised I wasn’t doing anything else that day — I had to know how it ended. Not just who was going to make it off the island, but whether the main character could really break free of her past. That central tension - between survival and legacy - gives the horror real weight.

Also, the influencer party angle is both darkly funny and absolutely brutal. You know going in that some of these people are not making it off the island… and somehow it still shocks you when things go sideways.

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✦ RECOMMENDATIONS ✦

• The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward - for twisted timelines, hidden trauma, and unreliable reality

• My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones - if you like your horror with deep emotional scars and genre-savvy screams

• The Wilds meets Midsommar - for the sinister-island-meets-social-collapse vibe

• The Ritual by Adam Nevill - if you're into isolated locations and the slow realisation that you’re not alone… even when you’re the only one left

✦ MUSIC PAIRING ✦

Because sometimes, the heart of a story plays out like a song.

🎵 Featured Song:
“Bury a Friend” – Billie Eilish
Dark, strange, and intimate in the worst way. It slithers into your brain like the secrets hiding under Prosperity Island’s cheerful party vibes.

🎶 Vibe Album:
The Turning: Original Soundtrack – Various Artists
Moody and filled with creeping dread, this album nails the tone of How Bad Things Can Get. Highlights: “Mother,” “Crust (Never Really Mine),” and “The Brume.”

🎧 Artist Recommendation:
Chelsea Wolfe
Nobody does doom-laced, sorrow-soaked, witchy horror quite like Wolfe. Her music feels like being followed by something ancient - very on brand for this book.

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✧ VIBE CHECK ✧

🎨 Colour palette: Seaweed green, blood-rust red, crumbling bone white

🎬 Soundtrack: Crashing waves, static from a camera no one’s holding, distant screams

🌬️ Season: Summer - but not the kind with beach towels and cocktails. The kind where the air sticks to you and everything smells just a little too sweet.

💭 Mood: Spiraling. You thought you were in control.

🧴 Scent: Saltwater, rotting wood, sunblock, and the heavy perfume of buried history.

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★ TAROT CARD PULLED ★

6 of Cups – Dark Wood Tarot
The traditional card of nostalgia and childhood is anything but sweet in this shadowy deck. Here, it evokes a past that clings - and won’t let go. It’s the perfect match for a character still haunted by events that happened when she was seven, and for a story that asks: What if remembering is the real danger?

The 6 of Cups reminds us that memory can comfort… or consume. And on Prosperity Island, the line between the two gets blurrier with every step.

How Bad Things Can Get publishes on the 26th August, 2025. I received a free copy and am giving an honest review.