The thing that I liked most of all in this story, is the author's very apt description of many a Scottish Loch set out in back of beyond with a little village attached and how everybody knows everything about each other....or do they? The darkness and the silence which surround the loch is so eerie, and you can feel the desolation of the place quite intensely and wonder why three young women would choose to stay there but then you wouldn't have a great story otherwise.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC to review.

Friends Eleanor, Michaela and Clio plan a camping trip to the Scottish Highlands. When the weather ruins the prospect of being under canvas, they manage to relocate to Loch House on the shores of Loch Aven. The locals are currently out looking for a group of walkers and in conversation they learn of three local girls who went missing 25 years ago. The next morning, Michaela has disappeared and despite an extensive search, Eleanor and Clio fail to locate her.

The story switches between the past and the three missing girls - Rebecca, Janie and Sarah, and present day. There is tension as Clio and Eleanor's search fails to locate their friend. The description of the loch and its surroundings enhance the feel of mystery and the fact something sinister is going on. It's a well constructed story which moves seamlessly between past and present, linking the two parts and bringing it to a nail biting conclusion. A well deserved four stars! Recommended

Has you hooked immediately, gets into your head. Not until everything was unfolding do you ever consider what happens this mystery at it’s finest.
You start to get the gist of the story but never did I suspect what unfolds, the story ends at the climax, just like that leaving you wanting more but knowing there is no more to tell.
Brilliant writing my first read of Fran Dorricott work but certainly not my last. Lisa Jewell has a rival.

The loch is a slow burning thriller set in Scotland, 3 friends stay at a house on the edge of a loch, then one goes missing. The story is told over two time lines the present and 25 years earlier when 3 other girls went missing and were never seen again.
This was a okay read, if you don’t mind slowly building novels that end to a quite abrupt and predictable conclusion.

A creepy psychological thriller set in the village of Blackhills beside a Scottish Loch, a place where 25 years ago best friends Rebecca, Janie and Sarah went missing. Local thought is that their bodies are in Loch Aven but they have never been found. Written in dual timeline, largely from Elaine’s POV, this is a slow burning atmospheric read and quite unsettling.

Briefly, in the present, three more best friends Elaine, Clio and Michaela arrive for a weekend break. Originally booked as a camping trip but due to the stormy weather they have rebooked into a dilapidated and spooky house called Loch House. Having settled in the girls wake up the next morning to find one of them is missing! No explanation. Then another disappears leaving Elaine alone.

A steadily building plot with a real twist at the end. Lots of secrets to be revealed which kept the tension levels high. A good read but quite slow at times so if you enjoy a slow build creepy thriller this is one for you.

“ I don’t say this because it sounds weird even in my ears, there’s a strange feelin in the air out here “
Michaela,Clio and Eleanor decide to spend a weekend in the wild beauty of Scotland, specifically in the Loch Aven area. An idyllic location in the trees, with mist covering everything and spreading over the lake. A dark place, hidden from the sun that, as idyllic as it looks, there is something strange with this place. The girls realized this immediately when the behavior of the inhabitants was strangely secretive especially regarding the house they live by the lake. They begin to sense that this place is not what it seems and their fears are confirmed when they start disappearing one by one. Then a dark secret comes to light, years ago 3 women disappeared from the village and the locals whisper that their bodies lie under the waters of the loch…

This is an atmospheric thriller that kept my interest to the end. It is well written, in one POV with suspense and twists. The day I read this book it was raining and windy and I can say that it was the perfect book for that day and I really enjoyed it. I highly recommend it.

Thank you Fran Dorricot,Avon Books UK and NetGalley for this digital arc. It is a five star!

The book did not grab my interest right from the start. I think it was just a bit slow to get started. But after laying it aside for a few days I managed to get into it; and I'm glad I did.
Three young women who met at university and remained friends meet up to go on a camping trip. The weather is so bad they swap out the tent for a holiday let they feel fortunate to have found at the last minute.
They all seem somewhat naive for intelligent 25 year olds.
My only issue now is that I don't know how Eleanor came to be abandoned at a police station in Durham and did no one notice that Janie's house was full of baby stuff?

When three friends go on a weekend holiday they rent a cabin on Lake Avon in a village called Blackwoods. Chloe thinks it’s creepy but Eleanor goes with the flow and Machella has something up her sleep but wants to wait and tell the others. She intimate it’s something more for Eleanor but has to put a few more things in place. They go on a walk about in the village and fine the locals reactions to the strange. They keep bringing up the stranded campers and it seems more than just a couple get caught staring at Eleanor. They hear things over said by the same locals that sends a chill up there Spine but eventually they just blow it off. That night after lots of wine the girls go to bed but when they wake up Machella is gone and after the nightmares Eleanor has she can’t help but to be worried. In another POV we meet Rachel, a girl that instead of living her dream stayed home due to her mom getting sick and Work at their store instead. She is also dating a married man in the village and they talk of running away, but what does The elicited couple have to do with the story? I found this book good in the story of the three girls was very interesting but the part with Rachel and her lover I found to be boring and got tired of her second-guessing insecure inner thoughts. Now having said that there is a point where the story rounds up and all the chapters with her make perfect sense. This is a great well plotted mystery that comes together in an OMG moment. One more thing when the girls were in the pub in Margaret asked Eleanor if her folks were from around Scotland and she said “I don’t know “ “because I’m adopted.“ I found that such a strange reply. My husband and sister are both adopted and if someone said are you folks from around here they would both say were their adopted parents where from. I mean telling someone you just met that your adopted seems a bit much but I get it I just wanted to say that. All in all I would definitely recommend this book because when it gets going man does it go it is a solid four star mystery and one I highly recommend. I received this book from NetGalley and Avon UK but I am leaving this review voluntarily please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.

The Loch follows three friends who find themselves at a remote house on the edge of a Scottish loch, after they are washed out during a weekend camping trip. The play is perfect with a stunning view, however, when booking they weren’t aware of what happened at the loch over 20 years, when three people disappeared.

The first half of the book sucked me in with its atmospheric and well described eerie setting and details, however the second half was a little slower and I felt it lost its steam. The story jumps back and forwards between three disappearances that occurred in the past to present day. At first I wasn’t a fan of this but it helped to build a picture and help understand some of the folk lore’s that are interwind into the story.

There are plenty of twists even though I did work out a few quite early on. As I mentioned the second half was slow in terms of the plot but it’s the main characters in the present that made me carry on to the end, as I really wanted to find out what happened to them.

Overall this was a meh read for me but I definitely haven’t been put off by reading more from this author in fact I already have a couple of this authors previous books on my TBR shelf.

I would like to thank NetGalley and the publishers Avon Books UK for my eARC in exchange for my honest and unbiased thoughts.

I loved the setting of this dual-time line book, the remote village in a cabin that is never rented out and the locals acting suspicious. When Michaela disappears the secrets start to emerge.

I found it to be a slow burn, atmospheric read with the reveal towards the end. I did figure out where the storyline was heading so the ending wasn't a big surprise.

If you enjoy a slow paced thriller then you will love this.

😲Great suspense: odd behavior in a small Scottish town with a tragic legacy😩

I found this story of threatened young women in two different eras gripping and definitely one that kept me on edge and dreading the answer. The pace was excellent, with occasional switches back to the origins twenty five years earlier to the problems surfacing in the present girls' mini-break gone scarily awry.

Author Fran Dorricott really knows how to build the creepy factor in this story. The weather, the remote location, the odd behavior of the locals every time they interact with Eleanor and her friends, even the description of the gelid interior of their rental accommodations: all spooky, uncomfortable, unsettling.

The climax offered the most surprises for me but the tension kept building steadily throughout. I appreciated that though there's violence, there's no gore.

Thanks to Avon Books UK and NetGalley for sharing a complimentary advance copy of the book; this is my voluntary and honest opinion.

When Eleanor and her friends, Clio and Michaela, go to a remote Scottish village for a long weekend getaway, they’ve got nothing but relaxation and reconnecting with each other in mind. The former college roommates rent a beautiful, secluded home by Loch Aven. After settling in, the trio heads into town for sustenance and exploration. Upon entering the town’s shops, the girls feel very much like the outsiders they are, getting long stares and vague replies when they try to engage with the locals.

Following a night at the pub, Eleanor and Clio wake to find Michaela gone, with no note or clue as to where she went. As the hours pass and the worry grows, Eleanor and Clio start to uncover a town secret surrounding three missing girls from twenty years ago. Could the unsolved mysteries of the past come back to haunt the present? After Clio disappears as well, it is up to Eleanor to investigate the past before it’s too late.

This book’s pacing was very well done. The stream of consciousness sections really helped ramp up the anxiety the narrator was feeling. Each chapters’ end had me wanting to keep turning the pages in the hopes of more information being revealed. There were plenty of twists and turns to keep the reader guessing. Just when I thought I had something figured out, another layer would come into play that I didn’t see coming. I’d recommend this book to any fan of suspense/thrillers!

The Loch is unsurprisingly set beside a loch. The setting is quite well described and it reminded me a bit of Loch Muick, with the house on the banks of the loch. This was a promising start for what’s billed as a “creepy thriller”.

The cover is quite nice and fits with the story.

Three university friends decide to have a weekend away to spend some quality time together, and it’s decided they’ll stay near the village of Blackhills. The girls don’t get a very warm welcome in the village and are a bit scared staying in Loch House as it seems no one has stayed there for a long time. They discover that twenty-five years before, three girls went missing near the loch. When one of the girls disappears, could history be about to repeat itself?

The story has a dual timeline. Mostly told from Eleanor’s point of view, in the present day, it also flashes back to the village twenty-five years earlier.

I found the characters quite meh and I didn’t particularly like or relate to any of them. The author had tried to include some backstory but somehow the characters were still two dimensional.
It felt like the story was really slow to get going. Not much really happened until halfway through and even then it was still slow until the last 10% or so. Disappointingly, I found the story to be really predictable. I had guessed a few of the plot points long before they were revealed.

Overall, this wasn’t a book for me. Instead of thrilling it was slow and predictable.

2.5 stars rounded to 2.

Eleanor and Clio find there's something seriously wrong in Loch Aven, the small Scottish town where they were meant to have a happy trip- their pal Michaela has gone missing and no one seems willing to help. Turns out a young woman went missing in the same spot, after staying in the same place, years ago. This moves back and forth in time to tell their stories. It's not as twisty as I'd hoped but it still makes for a good read. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

First, thank you to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read and review The Loch by Fran Dorricott. Since the setting was on a loch in Scotland I was immediately drawn to the premise of this book.

The book spanned over dual timelines : the present as well as approximately 25 years ago. Three best friends since college take a long week-end and drive up to the Loch for a camping trip. Rained out, one of the friends finds them a house to rent. Things go terribly wrong from there. The girls are made to feel very unwelcome in visiting the small Scottish town: people stare, whisper, and leave. One of the friends goes missing and things go from bad to worse.

I thought the book dragged.... I also had it all pretty much figured out but the end did throw me a curve ball. Unfortunately, I can't say that I would recommend this predictable novel.

It is difficult to know what to say bout this book, the setting is good the characters are ok but there is something that leaves the reader feeling a little underwhelmed. There is too much repetition of 'facts' to draw the reader in one direction for the clever author to perform an 'unexpected' reveal at the end. Sadly there seem to be other authors who do that in a more engaging manner for me. 2.5 stars rounded up to a 3.

Brilliantly written suspenseful read.

I’m enamored with sparse cabins set on Scottish lochs as a micro-genre, and then add classic Scottish weather, a tiny village, and villagers who truly dislike outsiders? A total win for me.

I have to say, the biggest twist was one I saw coming from the book’s early moments. But the final twist? So satisfying and didn’t see that one coming.

I really liked the character development, the inclusion of diverse main characters, and seeing how the girls’ relationship has changed over time. I also enjoyed the second timeline, and seeing how those characters came into their own and evolved over time.

Overall, a twisty, suspenseful read. I was reading the middle third of the book at night and both needed to put it down but couldn’t. It definitely felt like my heart was about to beat out of my chest!

It is not often that I don't finish a book but this one just never grabbed me. Frankly I did not like the characters and although I know its a novel, and of course it is acceptable to be unrealistic, this just had a false feel about it beyond what I enjoy reading. I am sure that many will like this thriller, and it is that, but not one for me.

Well written, addictive and unpredictable. This is a book I have really enjoyed and devoured. i definitely want to read more from this author. Full Review to follow.

Set in evocative Loch Aven, Scotland, The Loch is a tense thriller involving three close friends who escape city life for a few days in nature. Eleanor, Clio and Michaela are in their 20s and have busy occupations and reasons to welcome a getaway, though they are not all fond of the outdoors. The house they stay in has obviously not been occupied for ages and the locals in the village look upon the girls with suspicion. When one of the three girls disappears the police do not seem to take it seriously so the two remaining investigate. And then there is Rebecca from the past enshrouded with secrets. Everyone seems to have something to hide.

Though the atmosphere was captivating (how I adore Scotland!), the story did not draw me in as I had hoped. The thrillery aspects were not strong enough to engage me and the immature characters did not redeem it. In my mind something is missing, some key element impossible to pinpoint. However, author Fran Dorricott seamlessly blended the two timelines and multiple points of view beautifully. Bits of folklore are scattered here and there which add a layer of interest.

My sincere thank you to Avon Books UK and NetGalley for providing me with an early digital copy of this atmospheric novel.