Published By: Pan
Pages: 400
Released On: 21/11/2024
HEALER?
Meet Hollie Jenson, presenter of the smash-hit docu-series Bad Medicine, which exposes the perils of extreme therapies. Her next target: a new retreat run by wellness guru Ariel Rose, who claims to have discovered the secret to healing pain through her three-day ice rebirth treatment.
LIAR?
Acting on a mother’s plea to find her son, who vanished soon after his stay, Hollie ventures into the Swiss mountains where the retreat occupies a former observatory. There she will search for the boy, and hopes to expose Ariel as the charlatan she believes her to be.
KILLER?
As the isolation of the valley sets in, Hollie finds herself in an increasingly dangerous situation. There is much more to the retreat than meets the eye, and she must confront explosive secrets from her own past if she is to ever make it out alive . . .
Thanks to Chloe Davies and Pan for the gifted proof of this title in return for an honest review and spot on the book tour.
I have been looking forward to this one for a while now! I also realised I’ve never read a Ruth Kelly book before which sounds unbelievable and something I will need to rectify.
There is no messing about with this. First chapter. Boom. We’re in, we’re frightened, we’re on edge. And I was immediately excited for more.
I don’t often read first person books – that’s not a conscious choice, I just don’t seem to – and so was concerned I might find the writing hard to get into because it’s so unusual for me, but it did the opposite. That’s probably what first person does, it sucked me right in and I was instantly with Hollie on her journey, which upped the ante and the atmosphere.
Ruth has created this sense of claustrophobia, a scary environment, something that is too quiet. You can feel Hollie’s heart beat almost as loud as your own.
As someone who suffers with a lot of chronic pain, I can fully sympathise with those who turn to alternative medicine and therapies to help when traditional medicine has failed. People who don’t have pain can’t understand why people could be drawn to potentially dangerous things. But sometimes you have exhausted all the traditional methods and you’re desperate for something and are willing to risk everything to see some light at the end of the tunnel. I really do get it, and so I came into this story with my own preconceived ideas as to what these characters are going though and what they’d risk to be well, which put an additional spin on an entertaining story.
Yes there’s a plot, an explosive one at that. But there’s also great character exploration, especially with Hollie and Ariel. They are deeply disturbed women, for an array of reasons; they’re well layered and were fabulous characters. I suppose in a way they are our protagonist and antagonist, but I found it interesting for both of those characters to be young women, as the “baddie” in thrillers does tend to be male.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise to know that there are some difficult subject matters, including grief, loss, trauma, chronic pain, death, missing people, war wounds, alcohol abuse, distrust, etc.
I read it in less than a day, it was so addictive. It went to places I was not expecting and that really kept me on my toes. You can be certain that I’ll now be looking for her other work.
Books By Your Bedside 