This is a psychological thriller about three couples renting a luxurious but creepy cabin in the woods. The story was perfectly paced and I was engrossed by it immediately! The descriptions are spot on and you get invested in the characters lives from the very beginning.

The first half of the book is about the relationships and secrets between the characters as they arrive at the cabin. The second half is a bit more chaotic and involves violence and acts of revenge. It's suspensful from start to finish and you really start doubting the characters throughout the read.

I can appreciate reading a story from more than one person's point of view, but 6-7 different perspectives were a bit confusing. Even more so as they follow two different storylines that don't intercept until the end of the book.

I still really enjoyed and recommend this read!
3.5/5

Let me start by saying I'm a HUGE Lisa Unger fan. Everything I've read from her is fantastic and keeps me on the edge of my Seay!

That being said, as excited as I was for this book, it missed the mark a bit for me. Told in dual timelines, the story starts on Christmas evening with Hannah and her family. After all the festivities, her father discovers one last gift behind the tree; Origin DNA test kits for the family.

A family with so many secrets, they all decide not to do the test. But when they change their minds, events are set in motion and the consequences won't be revealed until it's too late.

While I love the locked door trope, almost all of the character are unlikable. Almost all of them have a devastating secret. And Hannah calling her brother "virile" so many times was WEIRD.

But I flew through it in a day and the ending left me feeling satisfied with all the loose ends being tied up. You certainly won't regret reading this, even if it's not quite as thoroughly enjoyable as other works by this author.

"Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six" was super compelling! Who doesn't want to read about a group of three couples vacationing to a deluxe cabin in the middle of no where?? I, for one, could not resist.

In addition to being clued in by the title and the fact that this is a thriller book, you start to suspect things might go a bit wrong when learning that the only reviews of the secluded cabin in question are glowing ones posted to the company's website that all sound a bit too similar and robotic. But you have no idea the extent to which everything will unravel!

I saw some reviewers mention that they weren't a fan of all the different perspectives, and although at first it was a bit jarring, I didn't mind it as much once I got used to it. It still wouldn't be my favorite way of consuming a story--I would have been fine with maybe 1-3 perspectives from say Hannah, Liza, and Cricket's point of views--but it didn't detract too much from my enjoyment of the book.

Overall, I would recommend this to most thriller fans--4.5 stars rounded up!

Thank you to Legend Press, Lisa Unger, and NetGalley for this eARC!

I absolutely devoured Confessions on the 7:45 and Last Girl Ghosted by Lisa Unger. Which made me extremely happy to be picked for an ARC of her latest book from NetGalley.
Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six. True Lisa Unger style, she hooks you in immediately. 3 couples head out for a weekend getaway to a very secluded cabin in the woods. High flying gaming entrepreneur Mako and his sweet yogi wife Liza. Hannah, his sister & mighty defender plus her straight arrow husband Bruce. The third couple is Makos ex high school girlfriend/Hannah’s long time best friend Cricket and her new flame, Joshua. But there’s more to this getaway that any of them know. Things & people aren’t aren’t what they always seem and sometimes turning a blind eye isn’t the answer. I give this book a 3.5/4⭐️

Do you like isolated environments? Yes? Hello, nice to meet you. We have that in common!

As you can guess from the title, the premise is six guests, one secluded cabin; a big storm is coming, and roads might become impassable. The premise is so right up my alley that I got a bit too excited with too high of expectations.

This book shouldn't be 400 pages. It is two books and a short story mixed. And in parts, it was a bit repetitive and overexplaining (like the whole Hannah's flashback chapter, we figured out what happened already).

Story one: the cabin. A family with dark secrets. Something should go wrong on this trip. The host is a creep; the chef is a creep; probably, there are more creeps in the woods. The haunted house (or not haunted?). But then it becomes a clichéd horror movie (in a "we should stay together, but let's split anyways" way).

Story two: Henry. First, you are a bit annoyed by the unrelated plot interrupting story one, but you hope it all will be connected most shockingly later, so you keep reading. Henry's line is a great journey on its own with deep topics of family, finding your roots, and yourself. I would enjoy it as a separate literary fiction with a dark side. It just doesn't fit well into this book. It all connects, of course, but did we need this many unrelated pages to add to "the main" plot?

A short story bonus: struggles and decisions of another character. It doesn't add anything; it is irrelevant. I didn't care.

Overall, it was entertaining. I like how some topics are explored. But the next time, can we please focus on one story and not try to go exploring everything remotely related in such great depth?

Thanks to NetGalley and Legend Press for the e-ARC of this book!

I loved the first few chapters of Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six, but it quickly lost me. Not only were there too many perspectives, but they were ordered in such a way that it was impossible to get engaged with any of them. There were very few perspectives that interested me, and I think some editing could have really helped here.

Three couples head to a secluded luxury cabin for the weekend. Unfortunately, they’re not the only ones invested in what happens over the course of the weekend.
While we spend some time with each of the couples, this only served to help me realise that none of them were particularly pleasant people. Every single one was hiding something, and some of these secrets were dangerous in the way they impacted on others.
We follow them through their trip, and as we start to unpick their secrets a storm closes in and the power goes out. Before we know it, people are injured and we start to realise that this family trip away is going to be of significance for other reasons.
While the general idea was interesting, it just didn’t hang together well. Thanks to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read and review this prior to publication.

This is my 3rd book from Unger and i feel like her books always end up the same way for me - super intriguing synopsis and strong start, but quickly becomes really convoluted to the point where the main plot seems to get lost. this one was a bit more focused than Last Girl Ghosted (which completely went off the rails), but there were SO many characters/names to follow and we got lots of backstory on a certain character that really added very little to the plot in the end. although we’re following a group of people being stalked in a cabin, it never really seemed tense or high-stakes. overall a fine and quick read, but less enthralling than i wanted it to be.

This is the first book I've read by this author, and I have mixed feelings about it. The book jumps around a lot between the present day and the past, with each chapter being from the POV of different characters. I don't think the "twists" were all that surprising in this one, I think it was pretty obvious where it was going for most of the book. I will say, that it was a quick read, and I liked the setting of the secluded cabin. I also appreciated that it wasn't just a standard, locked room mystery, and that there was definitely more to the story than just that.

Thank you to Netgalley and Legend Press for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you for the ARC. I desperately wanted to read this one. This was so good and so creepy. I loved the information on genealogy, Henry's fight against eugenics, and the creepy, uber creepy, host.
This was even better than I expected. I found it relatable too. How much of who we are is genetics and how much is a choice? Also how much comes from your environment?
I have a dozen "bad guys" in my family. I have opted to cut off all contact for life. But I wonder often if some of this is genetic and it terrifies me.
Anyway, I won't ever go to a cabin the middle of nowhere and be cut off like that. No thanks.

This was a great book and it gave me a lot to think about.

Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six
Thursday night at midnight I finished “Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six,” by author Lisa Unger who I was delighted that I was able to do a Q&A with this past summer which you can read here https://booknotions.com/qa-with-lisa-unger/ . “Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six,” is about three couples who spend a long weekend at a luxury cabin not realizing that someone is watching them from the woods, someone who has an ax to grind. The novel comes out on November 8th. If you haven’t requested a copy from Netgalley like I did, preorder the novel now or put it on hold at the library.

Pros
I like the setting of the cabin in the woods in Georgia. The story reminded me almost of “And Then There Were None,” since many people had secrets and they were trapped somewhere only this time it was a cabin. Whether the cabin is luxury or not it gives the sense of it being haunted. I also liked reading points of views of the many characters. While some books don’t always do a good job of so many characters and how their stories intertwine, Lisa Unger did a good job of that without it being overwhelming. You don’t know how the characters stories would intertwine but of course towards the end the light bulb in your head will tell you, “Oh! I see how the stories connect now!”


Cons
I did feel like everything was tied up too neatly. I also felt the character of Bracken was out of place for this story, I liked him but he felt out of place. I caught an error of when Spongebob first was on tv. A chapter from Henry’s point of view in 1997 had him watching Spongebob. Spongebob came out in 1999. I remember because I was 7 years old in 1999.


Overall
Overall my first time reading a novel from Lisa Unger was wonderful. I can’t wait to read more from her especially “Confessions On The 7:45”, which will be a Netflix movie starring Jessica Alba. Thank you Netgalley for the early copy of this novel, and thank you Lisa Unger for writing it preorder the novel so you can get it on November 8th or put it on hold at your library.

Release Date: Feb. 16, 2023

*Thank you to @netgalley & Legend Press for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review*

"Three couples rent a luxury cabin in the woods for a weekend getaway to die for."

👍 What Worked For Me:
- Locked room
- Twisty
- Multiple viewpoints
- Satisfying ending

👎 What Didn't Work For Me:
- Way too many storylines going on.
- Too many names. I couldn't keep up.
- I had no sense of how old anyone was, other than they were adults. So when Henry's timeline was happening, I was like .... okay but.... how old is everyone else??? 🤨 Because that would matter to some of the twist guesses. Which, I guess, is a strategy in keeping me guessing.
- I felt like one whole storyline was unnecessary. But could have also been used to throw me off? I dunno, man, I was stressed trying to understand how things were lining up.

It was a good locked room read. I loved the setting, kind of disliked all the characters, but also that works in the subject of the stories.

*sigh* This isn't a glowing review, I realize. I liked it... it just was so much happening. It needed to be reigned in a bit... that's my final answer here. 🤣

1 star. I didn’t enjoy this book at all and parts of it made me angry. Not the fun, popcorn thriller I was expecting to read. Very unpleasant.

I hated how the thematic content was incorporated into the story and repeated over and over again. Family, parents and children, pregnancies, rape and victim blaming. None of these were well handled and I was surprised that this was even what the book was about! The blurb gave the impression of a story about three couples and their friendships. This is not that book. A strange importance was put upon blood relations and children being a vital part of a complete and happy life. I didn’t enjoy that at all. And everyone had either tragically lost their parents or couldn’t connect with them. Everyone.

I also hated all of the characters and disliked spending time with them. They were all miserable. The gender dynamics weren’t great either, with all the men obsessed with work and all the women only caring about family and children. And those are the only character traits they possess.

A large part of the book deals with the results of DNA testing kits. Which isn’t even hinted at in the description. Not a word about ancestry research, even though it is a topic that’s brought up in the very first chapter!

On top of all of that, it takes forever for anything to happen once they’ve reached the cabin. Some characters are off on their own for large sections of the book and because they don’t have a POV, they disappear until they are needed again for the story to progress. While other characters, whose POVs we are reading from, are completely inconsequential to the story. It’s incredibly clunky and the book overall is very boring for a thriller. And so repetitive!

This is the second book by the author that I have read (“Confessions on the 7:45” being the other and 4 stars) and both have a strange subtext of disliking social media and technology without reason. It’s very odd.

I had been looking forward to reading this book a lot, but was sadly very disappointed.

Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six explores family and the lengths they will go to to protect them, but also what it means to be family. Siblings Mako and Hannah take a weekend away together along with their spouses as well as Hannah’s best friend (and Mako’s ex) and her new love interest. In the secluded cabin, dark secrets are revealed, a member of the group goes missing, and subterfuge is afoot.

Good storytelling and plot. Characters weren’t particularly lovable but I don’t think they’re meant to be. They were developed well enough to have an opinion about them and care about the outcome. I had an idea where the story was going just after halfway through, and while I wasn’t completely right, I was close. I still enjoyed the way the author wove her story. I have one complaint and it’s in the spoiler below.
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***spoiler***I really didn’t understand the need for Bracken and his little side story. It didn’t add anything to the story and he wasn’t really relevant. The whole spying thing was initially portrayed as creepy but suddenly at the end we are supposed to have sympathy for him because he doesn’t know how to have human interaction? Also it wasn’t pertinent to the story.

This book makes the mistake of starting with a very simple premise, six people with interlocking relationships at a cabin together during a storm, and then throws every possible convoluted plot line at the wall to see what sticks. Honestly, the choices made here are kind of baffling to say the least, and the book is exceptionally difficult to keep track of with the amount of characters and storylines that are being followed at any given moment.

The most baffling choice is the inclusion of the Bracken character at all, to delve into all of the why's would be a spoiler but suffice to say that at no point did I feel any sort of sympathy or empathy for the character and his entire arc is superfluous.

The book could do with a lot more editing to cut down on so many of the unnecessary details and also to sharpen the mystery which isn't very mysterious from the get go. The set up of DNA testing from moment one means that the reader is primed for DNA testing to be the lynchpin of the book so when it is, it's not really a twist. It doesn't help that none of the characters are really ones that you would want to stick with and the amount of perspectives and timeline jumps really just adds more and more to the pot until it overflows and is just confusing.

ARC provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

A big thanks for the ARC and the chance to read this book ahead of its release.

Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six was very atmospheric right from the start. The setting itself was such an essential part to the story because it immediately set the tone of the novel and somehow managed to be so creepy even though it was supposedly such a beautiful location. The combination of the lack of outside communication because it was in the middle of nowhere with spotty connection, and obviously even just the fact that they were so isolated because it was away from other people and places. Then there were the chapters thrown in from POV characters who were watching the renters from afar just made things even more chilling amidst the chapters for the main characters themselves.

I was really excited about this book because it was advertised as a locked room mystery, which is a genre I’ve been wanting to try for a while. I really did end up enjoying it, it was very horror/thriller movie-like in the sense of a group of people vacationing together with sinister characters lurking in the shadows that they are unaware of, watching, but in book form. I will say, at times it felt like there were far too many different POV characters, which got confusing at times for me when I had walked away from this book for a bit and would come back and not remember who the side story characters were (this was mostly the characters with questionable motives watching the group of friends, plus a past storyline that in the beginning was not clear on how it connected to the greater storyline). But I still enjoyed it despite any initial confusion.

Without getting into spoiler territory, I will say the chapters that took place in the past started getting VERY interesting to me in Part Two of this book. After the first chapter I wanted to race ahead to see where it lead I was so intrigued by what it revealed. This was the point of no return for me because I could not put the book down once I hit Part Two. I had one of those rough waking up the next morning because I stayed up too late reading kind of moments.

The ending wrapped things up nicely, and had all of the different POVs come together so they made sense in the end. This was a very good read in my opinion and I would definitely recommend it to those who enjoy creepy thrillers.

This is my 3rd book of Unger's and I'm starting to see a pattern. They have all been painfully long and filled with too many unnecessary (unwanted) descriptions. The length could have been cut down by 75 - 100 pages and nothing would have changed plot wise. I really wish I could give a better rating on this one, but it was quite boring at times and the mystery aspect was mediocre at best. Honestly, I couldn't wait for it to end. The story bounced around between many different characters, so I never really established a likeness for any of them. I appreciate the creativity the author portrayed in her storytelling. I just can't say that I am a fan. I didn't hate it, but I definitely didn't love it. I'm hoping that others will enjoy this book more than I did.

Thank you to NetGalley, Legend Press and the author for allowing me digital access in exchange for my honest opinion!

I recently found Lisa Ungar, and this is the third book I’ve read by her. She’s quickly becoming a favorite. I really enjoyed this book. It was so different to anything I’ve read before. I really enjoyed the DNA/science aspect especially. The characters for the most part were likable, and it really had me guessing up until the end. I can’t wait to read more by the author soon.

Talk about a fast-paced thriller. I picked up this book last night and couldn't set it down until I finished. I was expecting a story along the lines of The Hunting Party by Foley, but Unger crafted something truly unique. The novel is told in multiple viewpoints, with three viewpoints stemming from unknown characters. I thought that would make it easy to predict a plot twist, but I was wrong. The characters were very well-developed and likable. Hannah made for a perfect MC, despite her flaws. The opening chapters grabbed my attention and kept me turning pages. There was never a point where I felt bored. I'll mention that the ending was a bit lacking given the buildup, but not so much that I would consider lowering my 5 star rating.

Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six
Lisa Unger
Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six
Lisa Unger
Hannah’s brother gave her what appeared to be an extravagant birthday gift. He found the cabin listed online. A weekend away in The Overlook a luxurious cabin, forced rest and relaxation sounds wonderful. A personal chef, a hot tub, breathtaking views, and a lot of privacy. The cabin had excellent reviews; it sounded like the perfect gift.
The three couples are close friends but they each have secrets. The house is as magnificent as they expect. However, the weekend does not go the way they planned. The chef reveals the frightening history of the cabin, every move the couples make is being watched because there are cameras hidden throughout the cabin, a wicked storm is headed their way and someone outside is watching. Hannah doesn’t know who she can trust. Everything goes wrong, someone is determined to destroy twrong;ples’ weekend. Who and why?
The plot of this tale is interesting and different. Author Lisa Unger presents readers with a unique slant; she has incorporated DNA testing into the plot. In the beginning of this tale Mako gives his family a DNA testing as Christmas gifts. This seemed unimportant at the time. The setting is well built and complements the plot. The plot has great possibilities; the thought of a luxurious cabin in the woods, someone watching, hidden cameras, a gruesome past and secrets, these are all great elements, frightening elements. But there are some flaws. There are too many characters to keep up with and each one has their own point of view. The main character is Hannah, a stay-at-home mom. The secondary characters are Hannah’s husband Bruce a computer nerd, Hannah’s brother Mako a powerful businessman in the tech world and his wife Lisa, Hannah’s best friend Cricket and her strange new boyfriend Joshua. It is unfortune that none of the characters are likable. I realize some of the storylines are used to lead the reader in the wrong direction, but they should be wrapped up and not left hanging. The narratives should be connected to the main story in some way.