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Book: “Carried Away: Surviving the Unimaginable” by T.J. Derry
Publishing Info: Dead Icon Collective, November 2025
Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ARC from the publisher
Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon
Book Description: A tropical surf escape turns catastrophic when a tsunami hits, stranding four best friends in a fight for survival. Injured, disoriented, and cut off from the world, they face a brutal test no one could have prepared for.
For Cole, the trip was meant to be a reset—surf, sun, and nothing serious. But an unexpected connection with Kendal, a grounded, perceptive traveler, changes everything. Just as their romance begins to take root, disaster sweeps it all away.
Days stretch into an ordeal of dehydration, exposure, predators—and unraveling minds. The paradise they came to enjoy becomes a crucible that tests every instinct, bond, and belief.
Told with visceral realism and poetic restraint, Carried Away explores the thin lines between fear and love, chaos and clarity, life and loss. For fans of The Beach, Into the Wild, and Unbroken, it’s a gripping debut about friendship, survival, and the beautiful brutality of waking up to your own life.
A portion of the proceeds from book sales will be donated to Sungai Watch, an organization dedicated to reducing ocean pollution by cleaning up Indonesia’s rivers.
Review: Thank you to Dead Icon Collective for sending me an ARC of this novel!
It’s going to be incredibly cold in Minnesota this weekend. Like, -25 degrees below cold. This is how it can be here in L’Etoile du Nord, so perhaps spending some time leading up to it reading a book about a surfing trip gone horribly wrong made the impending frigid temps not feel so bad…. Maybe. But I will say that as I read “Carried Away” by T.J. Derry, I found myself thinking I was grateful this ice box of a state doesn’t have to worry about tsunamis. I do love this kind of survival story, so I wanted to read it when it came across the inbox.
I will say that this book moved a little slow for me at first. I wholly understand the need for laying the groundwork as Cole and his friends Kavi, Logan, and Fern settle in for an ambitious surfing trip in Indonesia, setting up the beautiful backdrop, the charming people they meet on their journey (including the effervescent Kendal, with whom Cole shares a deep connection). But for me, I was really excited to get to the survival thriller aspect of the book, and I’m wholly impatient which is probably on me.
But once we got to the tsunami and the aftermath of it, I was basically locked in. I LOVE wilderness survival tales, as someone who doesn’t do much ‘wilderness’-ing, and this one felt like a mix of “The Shallows” and the old TV movie “Two Came Back” (which is based on the actual survival story of Deborah Scaling Kiley). As Cole and his friends have to survive on a makeshift raft with no food or water, and then on an isolated and decimated small island, the deteriorating conditions of him and his friends and their situation is tense and gripping. I enjoyed how the danger didn’t really go away once they were on land, but just shifted due to the presence of a giant salt water crocodile and one of their friends being gravely injured and becoming weaker and weaker. I love crocodilians, and it’s not often that I’ve seen one being used in a survival story like this.
So while the start was a bit slower, once the meat of the survival tale began I was locked in. “Carried Away” had solid suspense and some interesting introspection the things you may miss out on if you chase adventure to situations that may not let you go.
Rating 7: Once we got to the wilderness survival aspects of the book I was fully invested! Its hard to say no to sharks and a giant crocodile!
Reader’s Advisory:
“Carried Away” isn’t on any Goodreads lists as of now, but it would fit in on “Wilderness Thrillers”.
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