What is We Did It Anyway about?
A group of teens are to attend a surf life saving camp on an island, but get quickly swept up in a terrifying and perilous smuggler retrieval mission gone wrong.
New relationships are formed and old ones strengthened and unknown family history events discovered.
Plot summary of We Did It Anyway (No Spoilers)
Milly and her best friend Luna are travelling with Milly’s brother Jasper and his friends Otto and and Alex on a barge to Talmar Island. They are to attend a week long camp of team building, ocean swims and surf life saving with their club from their small town of Red Sands.
Luna is regretting it already, as it’s not her thing, but Milly convinced her to come. Alex is just pleased to finally be away from school and the trouble he caused before leaving. No one knows it was him, and he’s dreading any possible fallout.
Arriving on the island, they are asked if they can walk a new Eco trail before the rest of the group arrives – to test it for the new ranger. Luna’s not keen but everyone else is excited to sleep on the beach. Little do they know they will be running for their lives in merely hours.
Discovering a gold stash in the sand, Alex decides it could be useful to get him out of trouble back at school. But taking it causes more trouble than he could have imagined – putting all their lives in danger.
Review
This real-life contemporary novel continues the lives of teens Milly, Jasper and Otto from the author’s previous novel – We Saw What You Started from 2025.
With two points of view (Alex and Luna), we experience the increasing peril they find themselves in, making this a fast paced, captivating novel. Their predicament and with no adults to fall back on or trust, the friends must rely on each other, especially when things go wrong again and again along the way.
A new relationship builds slowly between two teens that have known each other for a long time, and family secrets reveal themselves in both the teen’s past and those of the villains.
A great read for those wanting exciting, tension filled, real life action.
Book Style
298 pages / 35 chapters / Two points of view
FAQ’s
What age is it for?
12+
Where & When is it set?
A fictional setting on the Australian Coast called Talmar Island / 2026
What is the Point of View / Tense of the novel?
First person / Present tense
What genre is We Did It Anyway?
Young Adult Contemporary Real Life Thriller
Themes
Action / Family / Responsibility / Relationships / Crime / Thriller
Is it part of a series?
Yes – but it can definitely be read on its own
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Author
Carla Salmon
Publisher
Pan Macmillan Australia
(2026, Pan Macmillan, Australia, Surf Lifesaving, Crime, Smugglers, Gold, Relationships, Trust, Guilt, Family, Friendships, Tension, Courage, Camp, Island, Series, Trouble, Intermediate, Secret, Action)