BLOG TOUR: The Retreat by Mark Edwards

THE RETREAT

Mark Edwards

10^th May 2018
Published by Thomas & Mercer

  

New psychological thriller from the No.1 bestselling author of titles including  

The Magpies,  Follow You Home, and The Lucky Ones.

 ‘Written with such verb and wit it makes multiple murder enormous fun’ 

– Sunday Mirror

'This is Mark Edwards' best one yet. Twisty, turny, addictive reading.'

- Cass Green, Sunday Times and USA Today bestselling author
 of In A Cottage In The Wood and The Woman Next Door

 BLURB:

Julia Marsh has spent the last two years grieving the tragic accident that lead to her husband drowning before her eyes in a local river. Her eight-year-old daughter Lily is still missing, presumed dead. Now living alone, Julia finds herself unable to move on, convinced that Lily is still alive. But as money runs out, Julia needs to find a way to keep hold of their beautiful and secluded family home. She decides to open a writer’s retreat.

Lucas is a successful novelist suffering from writer’s block and one of the first guests. He’s no stranger to personal tragedy and forms an instant bond with his host, Julia. The longer he stays, the more a local legend of the Red Widow, a fabled witch who kidnaps young girls, captures his imagination. But as Lucas delves into details of these disappearances, and as locals take more than a passing interest in his investigations, Lucas finds himself at the center of a very real horror story. The retreat is harboring secrets: all Lucas must do is separate the facts from the fiction before the ghosts of this small town.

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I’ve read a few of Mark Edwards backlog books. The Retreat is quite a bit different in some ways but super similar as well. I really enjoy his slow build ups. Now I’ll be honest, I struggled with that first 20% of the book. It was a bit slower than I like suspense book to be. But, I get it. Mr. Edwards needed to set the stage, build the characters, and get us right where he wanted us. Once that was set, I felt the build up steadily increasing. My favorite thing about The Retreat is I had no idea what the story was giving me... what it was hinting at. While Mr. Edwards gave me all the puzzle pieces he did not show me a picture to follow. So it took me a while to put everything together. That impressed me. A story that can keep me in the dark nearly the entire time is a talent! I can usually rattle off the ending based on what I would do in the authors place and generally, I’m correct.

Now, I’ve included the synopsis above my review so I’m not going to rewrite it in my own words. However, what I will tell you is that Mr. Edwards sticks to what he’s used to writing but strays a little bit with The Retreat. This book, while he wrote in a similar way, he was still able to give his readers something unique, something original. There was a large cast of characters but they all held their own and made an interesting addition to the story. I found that the closer I got to the ending the quicker my heart was pounding, the quicker I was flying through the pages. Adding in folklore and local myths from the town made the story super creepy and you wondered if there was a paranormal or ghost aspect to this story. I didn’t realize how invested I was until I had 10% left and I was devouring the last of it.

I received an ARC of this book with the hope that I would leave an Unbiased Opinion. I was not required to leave a review, positive or otherwise, and my opinions are just that... my opinions.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Mark Edwards writes psychological thrillers in which terrifying things happen to ordinary people. Mark’s first solo novel, The Magpies (2013), reached the No.1 spot on the Amazon UK Kindle bestseller list, as did his third novel Because She Loves Me (2014), and Follow Me Home (2015). His previous novels, The Devil’s Work (2016) and The Lucky Ones (2017) were also published to great critical acclaim and commercial success. He has also co-written various crime novels with Louise Voss such as Killing Cupid (2011) and The Blissfully Dead (2015). His titles with Amazon Publishing have reached over a million readers.

Mark grew up on the south coast of England and started writing in his twenties while working in a number of dead-end jobs. He lived in Tokyo for a year, and is a great admirer of Japanese writers and horror films. Mark lives near Wolverhamtpon, England, with his wife, their three children and a ginger cat. The Retreat was strongly inspired by local folklore and urban myths from Mark’s childhood and by his daughter Poppy. When walking their dog in the woods, Poppy told Mark a story about her friends arguing about whether a local legend was true or not. Poppy and Mark would brainstorm ideas for the book on their daily walks, and Mark now credits her as his co-writer and a budding author herself. www.markedwardsauthor.com

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