Hello and welcome to my blog, today I am sharing my review of the thrilling and tense story, The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse.
Before we talk about the review I just want to say how long this one has been on my shelves! I am very late to the party but I'm glad I made it. I am so glad that I am making time to read books from my own TBR again before any others. I have missed mood reading and as much as I truly love being a part of book tours and reading ARCs to help authors I think this time is right for me to take a break and read what I want and choose whatever takes my fancy at the time. It has taken the pressure off reading and made it so I can also bring other things into my self care routine that are not just reading!
Anyway on to my review as I have digressed slightly!
đľđđđđˇ
You won't want to leave...until you can't.
Half hidden by forest and overshadowed by threatening peaks, Le Sommet has always been a sinister place. Long plagued by troubling rumors, the former abandoned sanatorium has since been renovated into a five-star minimalist hotel.
An imposing, isolated getaway spot high up in the Swiss Alps is the last place Elin Warner wants to be. But Elin's taken time off from her job as a detective, so when her estranged brother, Isaac, and his fiancĂŠe, Laure, invite her to celebrate their engagement at the hotel, Elin really has no reason not to accept.
Arriving in the midst of a threatening storm, Elin immediately feels on edge--there's something about the hotel that makes her nervous. And when they wake the following morning to discover Laure is missing, Elin must trust her instincts if they hope to find her. With the storm closing off all access to the hotel, the longer Laure stays missing, the more the remaining guests start to panic.
Elin is under pressure to find Laure, but no one has realized yet that another woman has gone missing. And she's the only one who could have warned them just how much danger they are all in...
đđ đđ˝đđđđ˝đđ
I enjoyed this thriller, I found it creepy, tense, eerie and especially at the beginning I was gripped. I think it began really well - the first few chapters really drew me in and I was very spooked by the killer and the happenings at the old sanatorium. It left me unsettled and worried about what was happening, I like a book that can have a physical effect on me and this certainly did that to start.
As the story progressed I did feel it lost a little of the tension, I liked the back story of Elin although I did predict what the outcome was going to be, her character began well - having issues and fears from her life brought a new element to the murderous scenes she was having to deal with. However I soon became irritated with her actions, she took far too many reckless chances unnecessarily - for a detective I thought she was extremely naive and her wandering off constantly alone into dangerous situations, when there was a killer at large, was really unbelievable.
There were some interesting dynamics between the characters. I felt the relationship between Elin and Isaac was intriguing, I felt her relationship with Laure could have been explained better, there seemed to be some unresolved and unanswered questions between them. The ending was clever, I hadn't figured out who the murderer was. Although because the tension wasn't as high as it had been in the initial chapters, It felt a little flat. It didn't have quite the shock factor I was expecting after such a great chilling start.
All in all it was enjoyable, spooked me quite a lot to begin with and the epilogue raised more questions, I would give her sequel 'The Retreat' a read to see what happens next to Detective Elin.
Have you read this book? What did you think?