It was an interesting novel, with a strong cast of characters. I enjoyed the storyline very much and would definitely reccomend this book.

So sad that this isn’t what I expected it would be!! Didn’t live up to my expectations at all !! Very disappointing!!

This is sadly a classic example of a fantastic premise being poorly handled. The synopsis sounded absolutely thrilling, but the reality was dull and lacklustre. The tension that the opening chapters promise never really builds and instead it becomes just a small group of women chatting about what they might do about the mystery of their returned friend without actually doing anything at all. Then there's a sudden flurry of activity at the end, where the truth of what happened is revealed, and then everything is fine once again.

It had some promise, but it is a book that just didn't fulfil its own ambition. I do feel like maybe it was targeting the wrong audience - if it was reformatted and aimed at a YA audience instead of adult, I feel like it would have been far better received, and the tone and rhythm of the novel would have made far more sense in that context. However, in its current form, this was unfortunately a dud.

After reading the synopsis for The Return I knew I NEEDED to read this book. What an interesting idea for a plot!

Sadly it didn’t live up to my expectations...

The characters all talk like teenagers, they’re all extremely boring. A lot of this book is just the characters talking back and forth. It doesn’t work well! The setting just didn’t work for me either, I want to be thrilled and chilled not bored half to death!

I put this down within an hour of starting and I can’t recommend it.

I really tried with this book but didn’t like the characters at all. Which becomes a struggle to follow the story. Sorry

sense of them especially Elise. Julie's return and the aftermath begins as a beautifully creepy, tense horror so much so that I didn't want to read it in the dark. The hotel they reunite in is dastardly and haunting- so far so good.

Then it descended into the kind of chaos that, as a reader, just irritates the life out of me. Long rambly conversations ensue between the friends who know everything is very wrong but just stagnate there full of narcissistic introspection. The setting, so promising at first, turns out to have nothing to do with anything really and the constant background noise (is there someone on the balcony, seriously WHO CARES, is Elise going to continue to be too stupid to live, and gosh that bread and butter pudding...) ended up just making me want to throw my kindle in the bin. 

Some of it is brilliantly scary oh if only the plotting had been coherent, if only so many strands hadn't gone nowhere, if only the ending satisfied, this could have been fantastic. In the end though I just couldn't be bothered, frankly I hoped the hotel would collapse and kill the lot of them they certainly deserved it for behaving so ridiculously. Spoiler- it didn't.

To end on a more positive note there is huge potential here with this author and I will read her again. Because the first quarter of this story was utterly riveting it's just a shame the execution in the end, for this reader, was far too messy and idiotic.