We Did it Anyway by Carla Salmon

Title: We Did it Anyway

Author: Carla Salmon

Genre: Crime

Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia

Published: 30^th June 2026

Format: Paperback

Pages: 312

Price: $19.99

Synopsis: Treasure. Smugglers with guns. No way off the island.

Luna would do anything for her best friend, Milly, but why did she agree to spend a week roughing it on an island?

Alex, loves the idea of camping on a beach with his friends Otto and Jasper. But their best-laid plans spiral out of control when they discover on a fortune in gold bars, and have to flee from armed smugglers who want it back.

Alarmed when the boys miss their designated rendezvous, Luna and Milly have to figure out what’s happened.

Can they save their friends?

Before it’s too late.

~*~

Five kids are out on an island, roughing it for a week. Milly and her twin Jasper are super keen. Alex loves the idea of camping on a beach, and Otto is along for the ride. Then there’s Luna, who would do anything for Milly…but she’s regretting her decision to spend the week on the island. Soon, it’s clear why they should never have come.

It all starts when they find a fortune of gold bars, and get tangled up with armed smugglers and a secret about the island and its inhabitants that stretches back decades. Milly and Luna set out, and head towards the designated meeting area, surprised when the boys don’t arrive.

This looks to be the second in a series connected by the characters, a little bit like The Famous Five minus Timmy the dog. So it’s easily readable as a standalone. I didn’t realise it was part of a series until I looked the book up to write this review. So not knowing has probably been a blessing this time, as I didn’t have anything to judge it against nor did I have any expectations about plot and character going in.

There has been a huge influx in recent years for crime and mystery for younger readers, and in particular, stories that find a way to eliminate reliance on phones and technology, which allows Milly, Luna, Otto, Jasper and Alex to find out more about each other, and grapple with how to deal with Sasha and Iris, as well as the perils that the island throws at them in the first half of the novel.

A lot seems to happen in the first half, and when I got to a certain point, I knew there was more to come, especially with a specific time frame for the story, as the chapters have times, days and dates at the top of each one. This seems to drive the necessity for the friends to navigate an unknown entity, and gives a sense of running against the clock. It’s high stakes as they run from smugglers with guns, encounter backpackers and stray from the trail and are constantly separated.

Who is after the gold and why? And which one of the teens at the heart of the novel has a connection to the gold and motives to get it back? Every character has secrets that I highly suspect had they not been forced into close quarters and been lost, would not have come out and shaped the second half of the novel so distinctly.

It forces them to confront things they didn’t know about each other while they work out if they can trust Iris and Sasha…and can they even trust each other? Because when push comes to shove, who knows what the smugglers plan to do to the teens.

There were some parts that felt like they moved a bit slower, which I wasn’t expecting from a novel that sounded like it was going to keep readers on the edge of their seats. Especially when I look at other middle grade and young adult books that use isolation and lack of technology to tell exciting mysteries as well.

I did find that I wanted to find out what had happened, especially when things happened so quickly in the first half instead of being spread out. Injecting tension about getting some characters to help as soon as possible was cleverly done and added to the unease about being alone and isolated without anyway to call for help.  

I definitely find that I am enjoying books set in contemporary times that find a way to do away with phones, especially mystery and crime books. Having it the phones and internet as a crutch would make it too easy, and solve things way too quickly.

 Do they have place? Absolutely. Yet, there is also something deeply satisfying about seeing the characters a little out of their depth and needing to work harder to solve the crime. And that’s what makes this book with its ebbs and flows of drama and tension work so well for me. I was engaged throughout, didn’t want to put it down and wanted to know more about the characters and their motivations.

I get the sense that we are going to learn more about them in subsequent books, because putting them in a situation where they are solving a mystery leads to really interesting character development and evolution as well.

Or, as in this book, the lengths that people will go to keep a secret, to hide the truth, help their family or find a way to enact revenge for things in the past.  This was exciting and tense, and I look forward to more from this author.