Sherri Smith | THE RETREAT

Plot (via Goodreads):

Four women.
Four secrets.
A weekend that will change them forever...if they survive.

Katie Manning was a beloved child star until her mid-teens when her manager attacked and permanently scarred her face, effectively ending her career and sending her on a path of all-too-familiar post-Hollywood self-destruction.

Now twenty-seven, Katie wants a better answer to those clickbait "Where Are They Now?" articles that float around online. An answer she hopes to find when her brother's too-good-to-be-true fiance invites her to a wellness retreat upstate. Together with Katie's two best friends--one struggling with crippling debt and family obligations, one running away from a failed job and relationship--Katie will try to find the inner peace promised at the tranquil retreat. But finding oneself just might drudge up more memories than Katie is prepared to deal with.

Each woman has come to the retreat for different reasons. Each has her secrets to hide. And at the end of this weekend, only one will be left standing

Review:

The Retreat is a wild psychological thriller with suspenseful aspects that surrounds four friends going to a wellness center in the middle of the woods all with a hidden secret. Obviously, this is not a romance novel. This read definitely had some ominous vibes in the beginning that lead me to believe some of the storylines would be a little darker than what I am used to. The prologue was fantastic and really made me excited for this story. I loved the setting - nothing is as entertaining as four frenemies in a Friday the 13th type environment.

The plot to this one was really good and definitely met my expectations, but didn't begin to blow me away until about half of the novel in. This isn't necessarily a bad thing as I really got to know our four main characters and some of the secondary characters in the novel. My only drawback from this was that I felt like the book could've been a little shorter as there were so many "oh my god!" moments and then things kind of slowed down only to have another "oh my god!" moment and the cycle continued. One thing I will say though is that I definitely found those moments to be bigger than other novels because Smith let you settle back into normalcy before dropping another bomb on you.

The characters in this one were not necessarily likable, but I loved their backstories and the equal amount of contrast and similarities in them during the present time. I felt this really built them as regular people even if they were anything but ordinary. As the novel progressed and their secrets started to come out, I was riveted and then by the last third of the book I just couldn't stop. It was really hard for me to even go to bed with 100 pages left in this one! I thought the big reveal with the final girl was going to be more shocking, but how they all went down one-by-one was a purely entertaining bloodbath. The final chapter was not only a great conclusion, but one that left peace in my heart that was racing throughout the entire novel.

Special thanks to Forge books for this copy in exchange for my honest review.

Rating: 3/5