Day Drinkers is a lush, sun-baked story about Gemma, a woman caught between worlds on the fictional Caribbean island of St. Columba. The book follows her tangled life among drifters, hustlers, and dreamers who drink through the heat and chase meaning in the wreckage of paradise. Gemma’s story begins with small talk under a tarp at Boon Dock Marine and unfolds into something much larger, her struggle with identity, survival, and the ghosts of her family’s past. Author Kitty Turner paints the island with heat and texture: the smell of rum, salt, and cheap perfume, the pulse of reggae, and the quiet ache of belonging. This is a story about the people who live in the margins of paradise, where beauty and corruption coexist and survival is an act of endurance.

What I loved most about Turner’s writing is how it feels it rolls over you, thick and heavy, then suddenly clears into moments of stillness. Her sentences swing between gritty and lyrical, giving the island a heartbeat that feels alive. Gemma isn’t an easy heroine, she’s messy, flawed, and stubborn, but she’s real. I found myself rooting for her even when I wanted to shake her. The dialogue feels sharp and natural, full of humor and island slang, and the author never softens the hard edges of poverty, addiction, or moral compromise. The story’s spirituality creeps in like humidity, subtle at first, then impossible to ignore. Turner threads mysticism through realism in a way that feels both grounded and haunting.

The island itself sometimes feels more vivid than the people who inhabit it, and a few side characters blur together. But the novel’s rhythm, its mix of danger, longing, and low-simmering dread, kept me hooked. I admired how Turner doesn’t try to redeem everyone. She just lets them be, in all their contradictions. The result is a book that feels lived-in, like a slow afternoon after too much sun and too little water.

Day Drinkers reads as if Donna Tartt spent a summer in the Caribbean with Taylor Jenkins Reid’s eye for glamour and ruin, spinning a story that smells of salt, sweat, and spilled rum. I’d recommend Day Drinkers to readers who love character-driven stories with atmosphere so thick you can taste it. If you’ve ever wanted a novel that feels like a hangover and a confession rolled into one, this one’s for you.

Pages: 358 | ASIN : B0FLF6MW68