Stranded

Desert Island Duet, Book 1

By: Shona Knight

Narrated by: Bridget Bordeaux, Jake Bordeaux

For fifteen years, Darla has been stranded alone on a deserted island. When three strange men crash-land there, she watches from the trees, terrified they'll be just as cruel as the last men who came.

But these men are different. They laugh, they share, they're kind to the wildlife. And despite every instinct telling her to stay hidden, Darla finds herself drawn to them. She begins helping in secret, leaving food and small gifts, until the line between fear and curiosity begins to blur.

When she must choose between staying hidden and saving their lives, the answer is clear. And soon, they awaken something inside her she thought had died long ago… hope.

But Darla knows all too well that paradise can turn deadly in an instant.

She's survived alone this long… but can she survive letting them in?

Stranded is the first part of a duet and ends in a cliffhanger. It's a hurt/comfort, why-choose, MFMM+, romance novel with dark themes. No mm/ff/cheating/owd. The FMC will not have to choose between her love interests. Contains mature content. A complete list of content warnings can be found on the author's website.

©2025 Shona Knight (P)2025 Podium Audio

Fabulous

Great story and original. The characters have immense depth and there are turns you never expect in the storyline. Fantastic read and I highly recommend.

Great story, decent narration

The story was beautiful and heartwrenching. Darla is so much fun. A great mix between strong, vulnerable and fun.

The male narrator was very good. The female one a bit over the top sometimes, but still good for Darla's voice. However, the audiobook would have been a lot better if it had had duet narration.

The male characters sounded like caricatures when voiced by the female narrator. I remember an old interview by Stephen Fry who said that as a man voicing female characters he made sure not to do a high pitched voice as people often do to imitate girls, since that makes it sound like he's mocking women and makes them sound like caricatures. The female narrator does the male equivalent here, she tries to make her voice really low, but it only makes the characters sound silly. I did get used to it eventually.

Good book

It was a good book. Darla/Z is the main girl. She's been stuck on this island for more than half her life. She has several coping mechanism. Talking to inanimate objects being the main one. Some men wash up on her island but she already had one bad experience with men so she tries to stay hidden. Obviously that doesn't work. There is some serious trauma that she is working with also there is a background bad guy that doesn't get spoken of too much till the end. There is a second part coming to audio in January that should answer all those questions that were left. I will be buying it.

So original!

Absolutely loved this book! The characters are all amazing and that ending! Ahhhh cliffhanger! Spicy and amazing plot.

Loved first book, DNF second…

⭐️ 4 Audiobook

Billionaire / Reverse Harem / Strong FMC / Unique Plot

*** Writing this review after “almost”finishing the full duet.

Absolutely loved how the first book went but the 2nd was a total letdown and almost DNF in the last 2 hours (ended up officially DNFing while writing this).

Absolutely adored and loved Darla’s character and her guys. So yes yes to the first book but the second was a total let down. Very predictable plot, which I can deal with as it’s the journey through as well as end game, but the climax had me absolutely rolling my eyes and just lost steam from there.

Narration: I think this is the best audiobook I’ve listened to voice acted by Bridget Bordeaux. I prefer the more natural narration so that the audiobook sounds more realistic and just flows better. Absolutely nailed the female parts.

I was seriously rooting for Jake’s narration, usually his voice acting comes off too grandiose and makes the character sound too pretentious for me, and he shined AND flopped on certain characters in this Duet. Absolutely loved his more natural voice on the “speaking” parts of Reece and wished he read the whole chapter and books that way.

Didn’t really care for the voices of the other characters, but the big big flop for me was in the 2nd book on side characters. Part writing of the author and part character impersonation. Sounded like the old cartoons of the 90s from uber sleazy big bad (think The Penguin from Batman) to generalized annoying New York Cop. Again, it’s both argh writing and voice interpretation.