No, I'm not talking about Love Island, I'm talking about the premise for Aisling Rawle's electrifying debut novel, The Compound.
As ever, though, there's a twist - the contestants have to perform challenges as individuals and as a group to win things they need (and things they just purely want) - and if they want to last long in The Compound, they need to keep a member of the opposite sex in their bed every night.
Our lead character is one of those contestants - Lily. She's a fan of the show, knows how it works, and is desperate to stay until the end to achieve fame, fortune and the chance to escape her life working on a makeup counter in a department store she can never afford anything in.
It's difficult to warm to any of the characters, in fact. Like most who step foot on a reality show, they often have a hidden motive for getting involved; they have to have a big personality to get on TV in the first place.
Reading The Compound removed most of the charm you get from actually sitting down to watch the line-ups interact with each other, be cheeky, be fun and be human. What the reader gets instead is just the stark truth of how bizarre it is to take part in a TV show with cameras on you 24/7. There's no hiding true personalities for too long in such a setting.
You get a strong feeling for the production by the way they act - not intervening until near death, allowing male-on-female violence to air (albeit with a gruesome punishment), and having the added bonus of sending banished contestants out into the desert where they may or may not survive the journey home (who knows?).
Lily keeps reminding us that they have a better chance at brand deals if they get to the final five, which appears to be the only reason she wants to get there - with her newfound partner or not. And if she was to win? Enormous fame and fortune awaits her.
Initially, he's quite bland, but nice enough, and stands up for the right thing. When the producers cut off water to force the seemingly happy group into challenges, it's Andrew who suffers the most. The ruthless undertones of all the other contestants sees them through, but poor Andrew endures severe dehydration.
In the end, all the commodities they earn are worthless, an ugly reminder of all the horrible things they had to do to get them. And Andrew remains disillusioned, forever in awe of the god-like production team and how they will save him in dire straits. Until he's banished, that is.
Order The Compound by Aisling Rawle on Amazon now.
For all the latest RT Book Club news, interviews, Q&As with the authors, reviews of previous books and more, visit The Radio Times Book Club sponsored by Dr. Oetker Ristorante.
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