3.5 stars from me!

Firstly, I LOVE locked in thrillers.
I was looking forward to digging back into the life of Elin Weaver after thoroughly enjoying the Sanatorium. I like that the sense of place is an island off the coast of England and one that had a sense of place and past and was a difficult place to escape. I could understand the draw of it being some sort of retreat spa and the first death was thrilling - a death that looks like an accident, the perfect murder!

However for me I think, for a locked in thriller I need a cast of characters that don’t know each other so that it keeps them guessing and suspecting each other. Having a family as the suspect and murder list kept it a little obvious for me, I knew who the key players and were going to be and who the murderer would be rather early on.

A lot of action for Elin, could easily be a film! Great twist at the end too.

This book was a great read! Another brilliant crime thriller from this author. The island itself was really creepy and the perfect setting for the murders. A well crafted story and I liked the addition of Steed!

Many thanks to Netgalley and Random House UK, Transworld Publishers and Bantam Press for my ARC for free in exchange for an honest review.

Very similar plot setting to The Sanatorium, remote location, death, isolation and decline in weather. Some would find it very repetitive after having read The Sanatorium but I thoroughly enjoyed the same style of book!

Thrilled to see Detective Warner overcoming many of the traumas we experienced with her!

Would highly recommend to fans of the Sanatorium and can’t wait to see what’s next!

A fairly interesting story which also provides some answers to questions raised in the first book, although it lacks the eerie atmosphere that pervades The Sanctuary (probably my main reason for enjoying the first installment). However, given the overall improvement that this was compared to The Sanctuary, and now that Detective Elin Warner's character has been established a bit more, I'd definitely be interested in reading more books in the series.

I was really excited to give this book a read as I’ve seen lots about this authors other book ‘The Sanatoruim’.

In this story we follow Hana and police officer Elin. I really liked the dual points of view although I do think it could of worked better and been more impactful if it was written from a first person narrative.

The story was pretty fast paced and I liked the twists towards the end of the book and how they were revealed.

The book did leave some loose ends however and some of the plot lines were questionable and possibly didn’t need to be there.

Overall worth a read and I’m rating it 3/5⭐️

The Retreat is very similar in concept to The Sanatorium, trapped in a location away from outside help, murderer on the loose, the mood reflected in the wild terrain surrounding the characters.

Detective Warner is no more competent or believable in this book sadly and I found myself occasionally distracted from the plot by the implacability that she would be running this investigation with no outside support.
Nevertheless, I did engage with the story and enjoy elements of the plot, such as the sub story of the legar family.

My biggest frustration with this novel is that it still leaves elements unresolved, Elin’s mysterious feeling of being watched. I suspect this will remain unresolved for a few more sequels yet.

An engrossing sequel to The Sanatorium, I was unable to put this down. A complete page turner. A brilliantly, twisty suspense novel set on an island. Perfect for fans of Agatha Christie and the locked room mystery genre.

A brilliantly atmospheric read that had me gripped and constantly on the edge of my seat. I couldn't put this book down!

I can’t get over how good this book is, so I apologise for my somewhat rambled thoughts. I just had to say what I thought!

It was so gripping, and dark. Very unpredictable, and had the most insane twists! So good!

This book was just trying to shock from start to finish. But it seemed to lack something- depth. The plot was fairly basic and so easy to follow. It was quite clever on a basic plot level.
The characters were ok- just a little unbelievable.
I much preferred this writers first book. I guess, as I liked that one so much, I had high expectations for this one. It’s an easy read if you fancy something a bit on the edge, but not to complex.

I enjoyed this book, it was easy to read and held my attention. I will be reading more from this author :)

This was exactly what I wanted and expected - a pacy, atmospheric and very suspenseful thriller full of secrets, family drama and murder. Big fan!

This is the second novel in the DS Elin series. There were constant references to her past case, which did confuse me and I did find myself wishing I had read The Sanatorium, as certain things went over my head. That aside this started of promising.
Elon is working again, though not yet a detective due to the previous stressful experience she had. She gets a chance though to investigate again when a body is found-Bea.
Bea is the sister of Hana and Jo. Jo is an influence, who bagged a free trip to a retreat on an island near Devon. Along for the ride is Maya, her cousin and Seth (Jo’s boyfriend), and Caleb (Bea’s husband), although Bea herself is unable to come. So when Bea’s body is discovered the next day many questions are asked.

Liked:
- the sibling and family dynamics of Hana and co, is very relatable. Their narrative was gripping. I loved all the tensions and secrets.
- The setting of the story was the perfect escapism.
- Elon is also a well written female detective.

Disliked:
- references to past cases and links felt too coincidental and shoe-horned into the story.
- this wasn’t really a retreat, but more of a hotel/spa experience. My expectations with retreats are courses and self-development with a teacher. I felt the title misleading.

On the whole this was an engrossing enough of read. As the bodies piled up and red herrings were introduced I did feel that the pace was at the cost of characterisation.

An engaging read from the author of The Sanatorium, following the same detective character and her architect husband. It will be helpful to re-read The Sanatorium as there were references to a past case.

This novel is split into two narratives: one follows Detective Elin and the other follows Hana and her family who are on a retreat. The narratives merge when one member of Hana’s family is found dead...

This was a fast paced read with lots of red herrings. It did feel a little insular at times and the stakes weren’t raised enough in my POV. Parts of did lag, nonetheless I was engaged through and through.

The Retreat by Sarah Pearse is a story of a eco-wellness retreat that has opened up on an island on the English coast, promises relaxation and rest. The island though has a grim past known locally as Reacher’s Rock.
Once the playground of a serial killer, it is rumoured to be haunted by those who were killed.
Detective Elin Warner is called to the island when a young woman’s body is found in suspicious circumstances. That is just the first death more will follow. Will Elin find the person responsible or is she not ready to go back to work after her last case.
Highly recommended

Having read The Sanatorium I was quite keen to read the second in the series, hoping that the lead would have developed emotionally and professionally. Sadly, no.

Once again we in a closed environment in which there is a suspicious death. Once again, people intimately related to her are heavily involved. Once again there is a lot of weather, lots of unlikely behaviour and a frenetic ending that stretches the reader’s credulity.

Most unlikely of all is that anyone would choose an island with this one’s history to build a smart retreat. Will shouldn’t be proposed for awards, he should be disbarred from his job if his buildings fall apart this easily at the first storm.

This plot honestly makes Death in Paradise look like serious drama.

With thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an arc of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Another great read from Sarah Pearce following family drama, secrets, and death in an isolated setting. It was a brilliant follow-up to the author's first book and I'm really enjoying the series.

There is an easy-to-spot trend in the crime fiction publishing universe which dictates that the sequel to a commercially successful crime/thriller is to be replicated, in the exact sense, in the following writing attempts of an author. Thus, we often observe the vexatious phenomenon of sequels featuring the same stories and sharing identical settings with their predecessors, something that becomes even more conspicuous in the cases of profitable debuts that are destined to be duplicated in the second novel. That is the case with The Retreat, Sarah Pearse's comeback after the promising Sanatorium, a book that immediately hit the bestseller lists worldwide and was even selected as the February 2021 Reese's Book Club Pick. The hype surrounding Pearse's debut made the readership all the keener to get their hands to her following writing attempt, thus The Retreat was one of the most long-awaited releases in the crime fiction genre for 2022. Sadly, the book is nothing but a mirror to The Sanatorium, with nothing to render it an independent, self-existing work, shadowing its precursor in every aspect. What the author aspires to be a cornucopia of various crime fiction sub-genres, blending thriller, locked room mystery and whodunit ends up being a hodgepodge of repetitiveness in writing style, choice of locale, characterization, and main themes, that ultimately disenchants the reader who kept his hopes up, anticipating an original, hair-rising thriller.

It is like Pearse took the text of the Sanatorium, altered some names and minor plot points and delivered The Retreat probably hoping that the readers won't notice the glaring copying of her debut novel. It is supposed to be detective Elin Warner's second outing in a "new" case that involves a secluded island in the middle of nowhere with a cursed history that still today feeds the imagination of the people visiting, a series of murders that initially seem to be connected with the island's haunted past, and a group of friends, who know how to hide their hostility toward one another who become entangled in the case as the killings multiply. Does it ring a bell? Well, I was confounded, to say at least, as I was reading this book due to patent parallels to The Sanatorium that after a while become annoying and cause distress. However, this is not the only flaw of the novel. As far as characterization is concerned, I have to say that Elin Warner is one of the most unremarkable protagonists in the genre that I've ever encountered. And I don't mean in the understated sense as it is the case with mythical detectives such as Arnaldur Indridason's Erlendur, but in the actual meaning of the term as the character is underdeveloped with the author throwing some bits and pieces concerning her personal status quo and past events that marked her life, without consistency thus conveying a jumbled feeling to the reader who doesn't get a full picture of who Elin actually is even after reading the novel's last page. Hence, the reader cannot feel anything for the protagonist with the book losing another cornerstone anchor that could help immerse the reader into the story.

The story begins with a group of friends visiting an eco-wellness retreat in a remote island off the English coast known to the locals as Reaper's Rock due to the imposing shape of a giant rock that looms behind the retreat. When one member of the party, and more specifically one who shouldn't even be there in the first place, is found dead on the rocks below the luxurious yoga pavilion, Elin Warner and her team will be called to investigate a death that is considered to be suspicious due to a number of bothersome occurrences that prompt Elin to think that perhaps this could be murder. The body count will rise the next day when the body of a young man is found drowned in an apparent diving accident. The short span between the deaths makes the murder theory all the more enticing to Elin and her colleagues. The protagonist also happens to be the fiance of the man who designed the retreat, Will, whom we already met in The Sanatorium, a fact that further perplexes her investigation as the plot ploughs forward. The progress of the investigation indicates that the two killings are linked to the past murders of a group of students that took place in the island nearly two decades back. Local legends about the existence of the "Grim Reaper", an elusive killer who managed to fly under the radar for a very long time, rise on the surface and make Elin sure that the past of the island is linked with the present in a horrid cycle of blood and mayhem.

One of the -many- major cockups in The Retreat is the weakness of the setting that is supposed to be terrifying and forebearer of evil deeds, but the author's apathetic descriptions of the locale never quite manage to hit the right note with the reader who receives a loose image of an isolated place that instead of feeling threatening, comes across as rather innocuous. The addition of a last sentence in a chapter in the likes of "And the island seemed to wish her (Elin) ill" fall flat and fail to convey the desired impression. The story is divided into the police investigation of the murders and the inner workings within the group of frenemies that advance the plot. Both threads are equally disappointing as the reader who is familiar with Pearse's debut can and will guess what is happening and who is the villain early on. There is no surprise and the supposed thrilling twists are nothing more but a mere reproduction of those that transpired in The Sanatorium. Furthermore, the author employs some overused tropes, mostly found in the Nordic crime novels, such as child abuse, the abused becoming the abuser, and the ritualistic killings that initially seem exciting and bizarre only to be finally revealed that the true motive behind the crimes is the thirst for personal revenge. All the above make for a tiresome, and rather annoying, read that has nothing new to offer and the only thing that proves is the publisher's irrational demand for the author to re-write her first, successful, novel.

Perhaps my review seems a bit harsh, but I was supremely disappointed by The Retreat and one of the reasons is that I've truly enjoyed The Sanatorium beforehand. I expected a lot more by Pearce, an otherwise talented thriller author, but it seems that she fell prey to the imposing exigencies of her publisher. I sincerely believe that there is no good reason to give this novel a chance if you've already read the author's debut. It's a shame and a waste for new writers who are supposedly aiming to reinvigorate the genre to create nothing but a mere imitation of their previous work. I want to thank Netgalley and the publisher for providing a free ARC of this title in exchange of an honest review.

I loved The Sanatorium, so I was excited to read more from Elin. I didn’t enjoy this quite as much as the first book, but it was still an enjoyable read.

Elin was such a fantastic protagonist! Yes, in the first book she made some questionable, naive decisions, but I think that’s what I liked about her! She was real, complex, and flawed. And she learnt a lot over the course of the book, and learned still more in this book.

The plot was intense! I was hooked at the end of every chapter, waiting to find out what happened next. I really hope there’s going to be more books in this series because the author is so talented!

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher, and author for a chance to read and review this book.

A well written atmospheric thriller with a medium pace and some tension filled moments.
When a hotel is opened on Reapers Rock and a group including an travel influencer pay it a visit, tragedy strikes and it’s upto DS Warner to solve the many mysteries!
The characters are relatable and a good mix, with the whodunit flavour high in this one.
Worth a read.