Book Review: ‘Castle Of War’ Is A Story That Has Been Told Before

Castle Of War from Dane Huckelbridge (Thomas Dunne Books; in stores now) is a very familiar story if you’ve seen the movie The Blue Lagoon.

A plane goes down in the middle of the ocean on a flight from Tahiti in a remote are. The pilot was off course so people looking to rescue anyone wouldn’t know where to look. Barry Bleecker who worked in finance in New York had recently quit his job and decided he wanted to be a painter. He’s the first one to survive and finds himself on an island in the middle of nowhere. He finds some food (bananas) and fresh water.

Sophie Ducel survives the crash but her husband does not. She get into an emergency raft and soon lands on the island as well. She meets up with Barry and they soon form a plan for survival. She’s a strong willed person and soon they are just fighting and snipping at each other. Over time they start to get along better and work together to form some sort of temporary home on the island. They are living on bananas, seaweed, fish, clams and whatever else they can come up with.

Days, weeks and years go by and they are still managing to survive and are even becoming close. Using the skills they have learned in their lives they manage to build a canoe and realize that ships are closer they thought. When tragedy strikes there’s nothing to do but look for help.