"Starvation Heights' by Gregg Olsen tells a chilling true story of murder and malice in the woods of the Pacific Northwest, USA.

In 1911 Claire and Dora Williamson sought solace and healing in the hands of Dr Linda Hazzard.  Little did they know that they would come out of the same or even alive.

Dr Linda Hazzard was a fasting specialist and was initially seen as pioneering due to being a female with a medical licence.  This opinion did not last long though with haunting tales being reported about people that had accessed her help who sadly never recovered.

This is a well written and researched book and is notable for the attention to detail.  It is amazing when you hear he story how much research actually must have gone into this book to get the complete story out and written.

This novel will appeal to those with an interest in factual historical and true crime books.

The audiobook is well narrated and told in a way that makes you want to continue to listen to the story. 

A recommended read.

Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley in allowing me to listen to inreturn for a review.

A shocking and deeply sad story. Two sisters enrol at a wellness retreat to undertake a radical new treatment that promises lifelong health. It's not at all what they're expecting. It's well-researched, light on the sensationalism, and just a meaty story of a terrifying moment in recent history. The narrator is fantastic, blending an authoritative storytelling vocal with emotion and devastation as things unravel.

Always good to read a true story, makes it extra eerie. Would we notice if this was happening under our noses, we think we would. I have read greg olsen before and he is an excellent researcher and write. Based around two english women who are in search of a miracle cure to lose weight, they check into the clinic of Dr Hazzard who indeed reduces their weight. Only when one of the ladies dies does the crime come to light. If you like true crime then this is for you, read in an American accent. Thank you #NetGalley for the audiobook to review.

The narration was amazing for a non-fiction book. The book also kept me interested and engaged. I would have liked to know what happened with the sisters' estate in more clear terms. I'm shocked but not that this woman was never truly stopped. It's horrifying. 
       As someone who's struggled with disordered eating, I know how little function you have when you limit calories to an extreme. So I can understand how she manipulated people when their brains weren't functioning properly. When you're not getting enough food your body shuts down complex thoughts and the like, to direct calories/nutrition to essential tasks like breathing.
    Overall a very interesting and horrifying book.

I found this audiobook absolutely chilling! Olsen does a wonderful job of recreating the era and taking us through a true crime wrapped in malpractice. Highly recommended.

What a heartbreaking story!! The Narrator read it well that wanted to keep reading and told such a sad story well. Very gripping till the very end.

Starvation Heights
by Gregg Olsen
Narrated by Stacey Glemboski
⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ 
Thank you to NetGalley and Thread for the early listen
Wow what a story! Love true crime and this book satisfied my true crime addiction. The author did a fabulous job researching and the detail was phenomenal. The narrator did a great job telling the story. Will recommend. 
Such a sad story and hard to believe that someone could treat people this way and have no remorse.

A bit overly long, but an interesting story nonetheless. Solid audiobook narration. 
Thank you NetGalley and Thread for an advanced listener copy in exchange for my honest review.

The story was really interesting and it's shocking that it's true. Unfortunately, I just felt like the book was too long and had a hard time staying engaged with it.

Unfortunately I just couldn't get into this book, it wasn't really my vibe so I'd had to make it as a DNF.

I really don’t like trying to review nonfiction because I really don’t know what to say half of the time. The critiques about boring characters and the lack of scene setting doesn’t apply. That being said I did really enjoy the story telling. The descriptions were vivid and characters were brought to life through this book. It was really frustrating seeing what the sisters were going through and I can’t imagine the trauma that comes with writing a book like this. I love true crime will all my heart, this is a great edition to an amazing genre.

Wow, this story is one that would be hard to believe if you just heard it. It's truly astonishing the things that people can get others to do. While I enjoyed parts of this book, it felt entirely too long. The whole first 3 chapters prior to the sisters actually arriving for treatment was chaulked full of SO MANY details that truly could have been left out. While I understand it gave us a baseline for what type of people the sisters were, I found myself zoning out or wanting to fast-forward to get to more interesting details. Because of this, listening to this audio sometimes felt like a chore vs a fun true crime. Sometimes less is truly more.

Starvation Heights by Gregg Olsen Narrated by Stacey Glemboski was another brilliant audiobook. This one is a Historical true-crime which happened in 1911 and is about two wealthy British heiresses Claire and Dorothea Williamson who were "health faddist" sisters and a sinister "doctor" Dr. Linda Burfield Hazzard who was Not a doctor at all. She had her extreme fasting techniques and she always claimed that could heal anything that came your way with your health. 

Total Madness but people believed it and still do in this day and age.

This audiobook was a hit with me and I loved it. Then again I love books like this and the author Gregg Olsen writes brilliant Historical True-crime books.

I highly recommend these books. Brilliant read.

Claire and Dorothea Williamson were two wealthy "health faddist" sisters - their strong distrust of conventional medical practices led them to look elsewhere for possible solutions to their ailments. After hearing about an American doctor, Linda Burfield Hazzard, who experienced great results with her "fasting cure," they knew they wanted to be treated by her. Olsen's latest book follows the two sisters on their journey under the care of Dr. Hazzard, who prescribed extreme fasting, "internal baths" (intense daily enemas), and rigorous exercise to rid patients of basically any illness, especially incurable ones. 

When Dr. Hazzard's treatment leads to a fatal outcome, Dorothea Williamson knows she must take matters into her own hands and stop the fasting specialist's quack medicine before it kills more patients. 

This story will resonate with a lot of the fringe medicine practices that are still allowable today, raising the perennial question of what doctors can be liable for when patients voluntarily subject themselves to extreme treatments. Despite this interesting premise, I had a few gripes with the book. First, it was far too long for what content it had to offer. I think this would have been well suited for a shorter novella, even, as parts two and three dragged and didn't bring much new plot to life. The first part, in which the Williamson sisters are treated, is really the meat of the story. Second, Olsen didn't dive deeply into Dr. Hazzard's backstory, motives, or personal traits. She's continually caricatured as a villainous, stern, harsh woman and nothing more, fairly consistent with how the media and other actors saw her at the time. It would have been great to see her as a little more three-dimensional to fully grasp her character. 

Overall, this is an interesting premise, but not the greatest execution of a true crime book. Thank you to Thread for the audio ARC via Netgalley.

Starvation Heights is well researched and Narration is well done. Unfortunately there are parts in this story that are repetitive and long drawn out. It is a heart wrenching story. 
The psychological hold Linda Hazzard had on her victims proves how far someone would go to manipulate a person for greed even though in part of her mind to make herself deal with what she was doing she was trying to convince herself she was helping people. 

Thank you for the opportunity to listen and review this title.

This true crime story has been on my TBR for a while. I found the story interesting, but I felt like there was something missing from the writing. The author gave a great deal of detail about the victims and the trial, but I would've liked to learn more about the villain's background and her psyche. I learned more about her husband than I did about her.  There were points when I had to push myself to keep listening because I was losing interest and other points when I couldn't pull myself away. 
Overall, it was a good read with a strong narrator. 

Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me early access to the audiobook version of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

I want to thank Netgalley and the author for gifting me the audio version. This was an interesting read. Just can't believe this was a true story. It is truly a horrific and sad story. If you are into murder shows or reads you might want to give this one a look at. I don't want to say too much and give it away. What makes it just creepier is the period it takes place in.

I did find this book fascinating. I had never heard this story and it was a lot. I did actually like the author’s writing style, contrary to other’s opinions. I did feel it was a bit long, but also when you’re writing about true events, it’s best to keep all the details in the story.

Absolutely fascinating. Historical true-crime that just seems too wild to be true. Loved it. The audio was great.

Thank you to the author, narrator, publisher and Net Galley for providing a free e-audio copy of this book in exchange for my review.

I'm not a true crime reader (anymore), but I do like history, and I 've heard the story of Dr Hazzard many times in other titles and podcasts over the last few years, so I was curious to get into this book.  I also currently live in Washington state, so it's a part of local history as well.
The story of "Dr" Hazzard is interesting in a current point of view due the the number of ideas she was working from, the health plans she was selling, compared to what is going on currently.  Would people buy into her ideas today?  We'd probably like to think they'd know better, but really, many fad diets closely mirror Hazzard's ideas.

Overall, I enjoyed the book, even given the book topic.  It was interesting to hear the full story rather than snippets here and there.  The topic saddens me, but I thought the book was well researched and put together.

I'm rating this one 4 stars - I doubt I would re-read it, but I'm glad I did read it, and will recommend it to others.