Synopsis

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 . . .

Review

Another gripping read from Ruth Kelly.

Although The Ice Retreat starts off slower than Ruth’s other books, the multiple POVs help with pacing and there are plenty of twists to keep you turning the pages.

Our protagonist Hollie is typically suspicious and prickly, but Florence’s perspective immediately makes us question what we think we know, drawing us into her story with a sense of foreboding. There is a good variety of characters and (as usual) not one of them is what they seem…

Once the scene is set, the backstory shared and the invitation dangled, we are immersed in the dangerous beauty of a mountain retreat; the feeling of isolation really sinks in, and goosebumps flair up continuously whilst the action hits you from all sides.

The ending was perhaps less believable and shocking than Ruth’s previous book, but there are still plenty of gasp-worthy moments in this story that leaves you reeling and with several ethical questions…

Thanks to PanMacmillan for my advanced copy. Opinions my own.

Other books by Ruth Kelly:

The Villa

The Escape