3.5 stars

The Retreat is a dark, creepy, and atmospheric read fueled by childhood fears based on mythical creatures, ghosts, and haunted houses. Mark Edwards draws inspiration from such childhood myths as Bloody Mary and the boogeyman to create a sense of fear in a small town in Wales.

Horror writer Lucas Radcliffe returns to his childhood hometown Beddmarr, Wales to spend some time at a writer’s retreat to hopefully help get his next novel on track. The retreat is run by a beautiful widow named Julia, who in 2015 witnessed her husband drown trying to save their daughter from a similar fate. While at terms with her husband’s passing, Julia is convinced that her daughter is still alive as her body was never recovered. Lucas, who has had his own losses to deal with, instantly bonds with Julia. There are other writers staying at the retreat, and the group soon starts to hear voices, see mysterious people in their rooms, and find that their personal items have been stolen or toyed with.

Lucas learns of the myth of The Red Widow, a witch that demands a child sacrifice every 35 years in order to prevent her from cursing Beddmawr. While Lucas doesn’t believe in the supernatural, he soon begins investigating The Red Widow in order to provide Julia with closure over Lily’s death. What he discovers is that several young children have gone missing every 35 years--the most recent being a young orphan girl who went missing in 1980. The more Lucas digs to uncover the truth, more and more bizarre events occur leading to an unbelievable revelation.

I found The Retreat to be a fun and entertaining read. While I don’t do well with the supernatural or even creepiness (I’m a huge wimp), this isn’t at all scary. What I really liked about The Retreat was that I couldn’t figure out what was going on and was surprised by the outcome of what happened to Lily. There are a lot of unpredictable twists and many layers to the mystery. I also enjoyed being immersed in the eerie atmosphere of the fictional town of Beddmawr--the setting comes to life and plays a crucial role. I liked Lucas’s character, and I appreciated the little winks and nods to some of Edward’s other novels. The ending was a bit over the top for my taste, but still, I enjoyed the dark tale that Edwards weaves.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer in exchange for an honest review.

I love Mark Edward's books and was excited to read this one. I was intrigued by the storyline but was slightly disappointed in the book itself . It didn't really get going for me until at least halfway and wasn't as dark and exciting as his usual psychological thrillers and I felt no particular connection with any of the characters. Having said this, I did enjoy the second half of the book and the story which could have been complex was written in such a way that all the endings were neatly tied up and I really enjoyed the final twist.

OK, hands up which writers have considered going on a writing retreat, somewhere quiet and secluded, somewhere you might find your muse? Well, maybe you don't want to be taking a sneaky wee peek at "The Retreat" before you jump into your car and head for the hills! I started this book on the Friday before I went to bed and got up on the Saturday morning and read it til I had finished! I was H O O K E D from the very first page!

Mark Edwards is the perfect storyteller! I can almost imagine him sitting down and reading this to an enthralled audience, a terrified audience. He has the perfect knack of taking ordinary people in ordinary situations and twisting it into the most heart stopping and terrifying tale! The Retreat is a story of the past and the present, of urban myths and the bogeyman who lives under your bed, or in this case the witch who lives in the woods! It is about secrets and lies and the terrifying impact that small village legends can have throughout the years!

As usual Mark has painted a landscape so authentic that you can almost sense the terror unfold around you, from the vast Welsh Valley's to the dark and creepy woods, to the old house, now used as a writer's retreat with a past steeped in something quite deliciously terrifying. A cast of characters who will engage and perplex you and a wonderful ghostly tale that will scare the living daylights out of you, what is not to like!

If you like your tales to be terrifying, your twists to be like corkscrews and your heart rate to be pounding then do yourself a favour and get this book bought now!

I suppose Mark Edwards will always be on my list of authors I'll read, specially because Follow You Home is one of the best novels I've ever read but unfortunately his latest titles have all disappointed me.

This one was, as usual, well written and with characters so well built that you believe they are real people. The story, however...was completely unrealistic, full of cliches and couldn't either convince or scare me.

Be aware, there will be spoilers ahead.

<spoiler> I think that if there really was a Red Widow and a ghost the story would have been more plausible, as weird as it sounds, and I'd have enjoyed it more. The way it is it feels beyond far-fetched. It's too many coincidences and conspirators all acting at the same time without knowing about the other to be believable or enjoyable. Besides, I am not an architect or anything but how wouldn't anyone be able to realize the walls were all way smaller on the inside? Didn't this house go through any kind of inspection?
And more, how would Carys not know many of the things Lily talked about due to her imprisonment but know the word posh to describe the real estate agents?

It may sound like nit-picking but in a story that is already not convincing me these little details are the straw that broke the camel's back, I'm afraid.

Also, the insta-love...ugh. I do not like this kind of plot device and I was never convinced of the chemistry between Lucas and Julia. It felt just like he was too fragile and eager to be with someone and that she kind of gave up trying to resist. Didn't feel like love at all to me.

</spoiler>

All in all it's not a terrible novel but I was expecting more.

I'd like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC of this novel in exchange of my honest review.

A bit of a slow start on this one for me, but that didn’t last long. The Mark Edwards talent for keeping you waiting with bated breath was not far off.
The main character was the issue in the first instance and attributed to my apathy. As the story progressed, he redeemed himself and I came to admire his tenacity as the book concluded.

Brilliant book, Mark Edwards goes from strength to strength as an author. A motley crew of writers rock up to a rural retreat in Wales to get inspiration for their latest novels. The owner has recently lost her husband and daughter and has immersed herself in running the retreat as a way to try and heal her pain. The residents believe the retreat could be haunted, however, is there a more prosaic reason for the strange happenings?
I love the small village setting, where everyone thinks they know each other's business, but actually many of them have been keeping their own secrets for many years. I loved the direction the book went in, it certainly gave me the fear! Very satisfying and appropriate ending too!
I am a huge fan of Mark Edwards so I was delighted to receive this book to read as an arc. Thank you to the publisher and to Netgalley.

Mark Edwards is the best author and this book is just as amazing as the rest. A tense story full of twists and turns in true Mark Edwards' style, exploring every parents' worst fear - a child going missing. Your heart will be in your mouth from the first chapter and it won't settle down until it's over.

Already being a fan of Mark Edward's I was delighted to receive a copy of his latest thriller "The Retreat", wow this book had me gripped and then some.....what a page turner, I couldn't go asleep until I had finished it although dreaming about the Red Widow soon had me awake in a sweat! Loved this book, I'm a bit of a scaredy cat when it comes to supernatural things so when they were hearing singing and voices in the walls, well I think I had forgotten how to breathe.... I loved the mix of everything the usual psychological build up expected from Mark's books together with a supernatural, folklore, urban legend, mystery, twists, turns..... it had everything, the twist at the end that nobody could see coming, astounding, this book will stay with me for a while given that I'm seeing the Red Widow in my dreams, thank you for that Mark!!!

I would like to take this opportunity to thank NetGalley, Mark Edwards, Amazon Publishing, and Thomas & Mercer for providing me with a copy of this publication in exchange for my honest review

What a fantastic book, had me sucked in from early on, full of spooky suspense, a real page turner. This is the first book by Mark Edwards that I've read and I enjoyed it so much that I'm going to read all his other work! NetGalley very kindly let me have a copy to review and I'm so grateful they did as it was a treat spending 6 hours or so reading this book. Definitely 5 stars!

I had not read anything by this author before, but had read rave reviews of an earlier book, Follow You Home, and marked it to-read, when this became available on NetGalley. My feelings about it did zigzag a bit as it went on - from being immediately intrigued by the beginning, to losing interest as supernatural elements were introduced, then thinking there were far too many characters being introduced, followed by outrage at the preposterousness of the plot twists, and finally satisfaction at the unexpectedness of the resolution.

Lucas, who wrote a bestselling horror novel but then developed writer's block after his partner was killed, checks in to a secluded author's retreat in rural Wales, close to where he spent his early childhood. The owner, the beautiful Julia, lost her husband and daughter in a tragic accident two years earlier, but the little girl's body was never found, and she is convinced she is still alive.
Deciding to help, Lucas hires a private investigator, and talks to the locals, who are all inter-related and obsessed with stories about a witch who lives in the woods and steals children. Meanwhile strange things start happening to the guests, who hear singing and start losing things, then people start dying...

Apart from dragging a bit in the middle, and Lucas being a rather annoying hero, who means well but does some stupid things, I enjoyed this and did not see any of the twists coming. Parts of it were genuinely creepy - I don't generally like ghost/witch stories - but the suspense was effectively done and the plot not so complicated that it couldn't all be explained in the end. I will definitely be buying some of the author's back catalogue.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This author's books have been part of my staple reading diet since 2011 when he was self publishing his collaborations with Louise Voss and, to date, he has never disappointed me. For me he is the real deal, the whole package, as he delivers exactly what I need for a really great read, time after time after time.
In this, his latest offering, we meet Julia. Two years ago she suffered the worst tragedy when she lost both her husband and daughter, Lily, in an accident. His body was found but hers wasn't so, against the odds, she still holds on to the hope that Lily is still alive; taken rather than killed. Back in the present she is still grieving but needs an income so she opens up her house as a writers' retreat. Amongst her first guests is Lucas, a horror novelist who is desperate to crack on with the follow up book to his best seller. But Lucas has a nose for investigation and, being as his current wip is proving a bit tricky, once he hears about the missing Lily his interest is piqued and he goes all in, behind Julia's back, to find out what really happened on that day, by the river. But is raking over old coals really a good idea or will his interference set the wheels in motion for more tragedy?
Well this was the book that just kept on giving for me. I was rapt right from the start and joined Lucas and Julie in needing to know what really happened. The author drips feeds in some really rather intriguing flashbacks from "life before the accident" both in the near and distant past as we learn about the secrets that have plagued the village for many years. Flashbacks that kept my juices running throughout the book until finally it gave up all its secrets.
The air of mystery comes from various sources throughout which had me spinning around as I, along with Lucas, tried to sort out the wheat from the chaff; fact from fiction. As with a few of his other books, there's a bit of a spooky element in play. This time in the form of an urban myth stemming back through village life for many years. We also have some strange goings on in the house itself concerning both Lucas and the other writers in residence. I found that this gave the book just the right level of dark, creepy overtones.
Characterisation, as always for this author, was spot on from start to finish. We have an eclectic cast of all ages in this book and all of them are very well described and, within their own storylines, on the whole credible. I took to both Julia and Lucas right from the start but then that shouldn't have surprised me as I do tend to be drawn to wounded characters. Others irked me but then that was also in keeping with their individual characteristics and motivations.
Plotting was once again pretty near perfect. The overall story when it all came out was rather shocking to say the least and not quite where I thought we were going at all. I say not quite, I did have an inkling about one thing that did turn out to be right but I still had no idea how it fitted into the big picture so there was always more to discover throughout the book.
Pacing was also very good. It's not all action packed and that makes for a nice change for me these days. It's more of a slow burner as the author builds up the layers of intrigue initially which makes the book start to feel a bit claustrophobic and then, as small clues start to be revealed, those layers are peeled back until the truth is finally freed. And boy, what a truth it turned out to be.
It was also quite emotional, obviously there's the matter of a missing child so you'd expect that, but there are so many more emotions in play in this book; good and bad. I won't go into any detail here due to spoilers so you'll just have to take my word for that.
All in all another great addition to an already really impressive back catalogue. Only downside is that I now have to wait ages for his next one. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

3.5 stars. The Retreat is a creepy, atmospheric thriller, that takes place on an old house in a Welsh town, where something is very definitely not right. Not my favorite Mark Edwards novel, but it was a solid thriller and I'd recommend it if you are in the mood for something creepy with a hint of the supernatural. And that ending! It totally shocked me--had no idea where things were going!

''The Retreat'' is the latest thriller novel by Mark Edwards and the story is about an author of horror stories who decide to lodge in a writers' retreat accommodation in Northern Wales, a kind of getaway for writers who want to devote themselves to their work without much distraction. The protagonist, Lucas, who is haunted by the painful memoirs of his deceased girlfriend will find himself involved in a weird and creepy plot which centers around the tragic event of a little girl's disappearance two years before. The girl, Lily, was the daughter of the owner of the retreat, Julia, and Lucas attracted by her looks and personality will set off to reveal the truth about what really happened to Lily. ''The Retreat'' is a highly entertaining thriller novel with some horror elements and it is a perfect paradigm of how to construct a clever and fast-paced plot, full of suspense and with a lot of twists and turns which leaves the reader dizzy and confused about the identity of the villain or the involvement or not of the supernatural element in the story. In my opinion, this book is an excellent choice for fans of Yrsa Sigurðardóttir, Johan Theorin and in some parts brought to my mind Stephen King's thrillers. The novel is narrated by the horror writer, Lucas, in the present time, and by Lily in the past (2 years before) and this kind of narrative technique pays off at the end when the two accounts are brought together and everything makes sense. ''The Retreat'' is a book you will enjoy even if someone is not a hardcore thriller/horror fan as its descriptions are not particularly gory. even though the theme of the novel is disturbing.
I want to thank the publisher and NetGalley for providing this free e-book.

"The simplest explanation for something is almost always the right one"

BRILLIANT book by Mark Edwards. The Retreat sucks you in and keeps you engaged with all the characters right until the very end. Lucas is a writer who writes horror stories and goes to a retreat in Wales to start a new book. He meets Julia who is the owner of the retreat and also a widow to a husband who drowned by trying to save their daughter whose body was never recovered. Julia insists her daughter is still alive. We learn of many mysteries and trying to determine what is reality and what is mystical and ghostly. The town is small so everyone seems to know everyone which leads to urban legend beliefs. I couldn't put the book down I had to know if the town was crazy, if Julia was crazy, and what in the world happened to Lily! I had moments where I wasn't sure if this was going to be a full blown ghost story and I would be having nightmares for days but it was just spooky enough for me to enjoy. There are moments that are quite creepy but done so well and you just HAVE to know whats going to happen next. There are twist and turns and the shocking end is a good wrap up to all of it.

**Thank you Netgalley, Mark Edwards and Thomas & Mercer for providing me with a copy of The Retreat in exchange for an honest review**

I love Mark Edwards, but this one was a bit of a disappointment for me. The dialogue seemed off, and the conversations between characters felt childish and unrealistic.

Although not my usual type of read, this gothic like mystery was thoroughly enjoyable and kept me guessing through the twists and turns until the very end. It swirled with ghost like apparitions and easily evoked a haunted atmosphere that pervaded the entire novel. Lucas is a writer who attends a writers' retreat set in an old house in Wales run by Julia, a former book illustrator, who lost her husband two years ago when he tried to save their young daughter Lily from drowning. However, Lily's body was never found and Julia is convinced that she is still alive. While Lucas is trying to tackle writing another book, he gets caught up in mysterious events that occur with the other guests and the house itself. These events will keep you wondering and engrossed as you pursue the wonderful machinations created by the author. For those who are skeptical of this type of novel, this is the one to begin with. You will only have success and may open a whole new genre for yourself.

Mark Edwards does it again! This is his best book yet, I couldn't put it down! The storyline draws you in from the first page, I loved the characters, even the horrible ones, they brought the storyline to life. Can't wait for the next book from Mark.

I’m the outlier here, but I have concluded that this was just not a book for me.
I have mixed feelings about this one. I was intrigued by the mystery of what happened to a missing girl near a river. I was hoping for a good psychological thriller, but it felt more “supernatural” to me.
There were some spooky happenings that kept me reading and finishing the book, but can’t say I’m a huge fan. I did struggle to finish it.
Please check out other reviews because many people gave this one high marks.
Thanks to Netgalley/Publisher for my ARC.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for providing me with an ARC copy of this book in return for an honest review.

I have read everything Mark Edwards has released to date so was excited to find a new book on the horizon. Unfortunately this book didn't quite hit he mark for me. It took me a lot longer to read than it would have normally and I can only think this is because I wasn't engaged enough in the story. I could easily have put it down unfinished.

The characters were uninspired and the hints at witchcraft and sinister folk stories, while tried to add to the spooky and suspenseful aspect of the story, just dragged it out unnecessarily.

I'm sorry, but I was bored within the first few chapters and this never improved for me. I have higher expectations from Mark Edwards and he just didn't deliver this time.

another storming book from Mark Edwards. the retreat sounds lovely and you can really see yourself there. not all the characters are likeable but I thinks that's the point and I really enjoyed the story. if this is your first Mark Edwards book you wont be disappointed and if you are already a fan get ready to love this book every bit as much as the others.