A solid and fun read! A group of women set out on a hike in the mountains of Norway for their annual girls’ trip and discover themselves. The slog of daily life has been getting to them, and while the mountain is intimidating, as long as they stick together they will make it through. This wasn’t my usual read, but I would recommend it to folks who want relatable characters and an adventure.

What a wild ride! Four friends go on a camping/hiking trip, there's drama, a body is found, a killer is on their trail...not to mention all the risks associated with the extreme hike they're going on.
*
This is fast - multiple POVs, short chapters, quick and exciting, I got through it in a day. I really liked how in addition to the threat they face from the person after them, they also face pretty tough threats from the elements - injuries, flash storms, getting lost in the woods. It reaffirms my desire to avoid camping.
*
There were some points that I just had to shake my head at the decisions they were making, and the climax required a bit more suspension of disbelief, but it was still a really fun and exciting book!

I received an advanced copy of this book from PENGUIN GROUP Putnam via NetGalley.

Maggie, Liz, Helena, and Joni, old friends with a shared history of adventures and hidden secrets, embark on a hiking trip in the enchanting Norwegian wilderness. Amidst towering mountains, serene lakes, and picturesque cabins, they find themselves entwined in a murder mystery as a lifeless body is discovered in a ravine. In the midst of the breathtaking landscape, a sinister presence lurks, and the friends become entangled in a dangerous pursuit to uncover the truth behind the woman's death.

Contrary to my initial expectations, this book took me on a surprising journey. The author's use of different character viewpoints added a unique layer to the story. Among the cast, Maggie stood out as my personal favorite. She embodied the underdog archetype, and I found myself genuinely invested in her journey, rooting for her every step of the way.

I liked the format of this book - how there were two different time periods throughout and you were trying to figure out how they connected. I didn’t predict the way that they tied together. However, the last 40% of the book (especially the ending) were very chaotic and just didn’t feel realistic.

Four lifelong friends set out on the hike of a lifetime in Norway. As they arrive for this trip, their emotional baggage comes out. After an ominous warning from a local farmer to not hike the mountain, the group continues anyways- meeting terrifying situations and potentially dangerous men along the way. Little do they know, one of the women will make the ultimate sacrifice.
The friendship dynamics between the women is realistic- they are all coming from different walks of life. I enjoyed the twist and turns and they book ended very unexpectedly, which is a breath of fresh air as life isn’t always a happy story. I did have different expectations from what’s written in the synopsis, however, it was welcomed.
Overall I enjoyed the book and would recommend it to other readers.

Writing: 5/5
Characters: 4/5
Plot: 4/5
Enjoyment: 4/5

Themes: Thriller, Mystery, Survival

The Hike is about a group of friends that go on a multiple day wilderness adventure up a remote mountain in Norway. But things don’t go as planned with hard terrain and their deep secrets being thrown out in the open. Now they are being hunted by an unknown person who might have already killed. I really enjoyed the thriller and mystery elements. I couldn’t stop reading because I needed to know what happens. The characters were relateable and I was immediately invested in them. The plot had some twists and turns that made it book exciting to read. The short chapters made this a quick and easy read. But my favorite part was the remote wilderness setting and the unknown of what they would face next.

Once a year, four friends each battling their own demons meet for a getaway together. This year, the trip is a hiking trip to a treacherous mountain in Norway. Little do they know, their trip will be laced with danger, injuries, and death.

An easy to read thriller with some good twists and turns and well developed characters. I don’t recommend reading right before a hiking trip, but a great thriller if you’re looking for a quick, cozy read.

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for the ARC in exchange for a fair review.

Quick overview of 𝖳𝗁𝖾 𝖧𝗂𝗄𝖾 🥾🏔️Never any spoilers. Okay, so four best friends go on a hike in Norway basically in the middle of nowhere. Each of these girls has plenty of personal baggage & drama going on(I mean, don’t we all?)….They find out another girl has died on this same trail & all are eager to learn the mystery of her & how she died.
Oh, and they don’t have cell service. Do they all make it back?😳

I loved how you really get to know the characters! Clarke does an excellent job at setting the scene & delving into each of these girls’ life. I was so nervous the whole time for which one might….ya know!! I liked them all & kept putting myself in their shoes even though I wasn’t very similar to any of them. I loved that they were real friends too. Not catty or fake. I love all things girl trips too…why they chose this as their trip this year I will never know?!?🤷‍♀️🧐 The twists are great. The only thing I didn’t love was it took me a little bit to get into it, but once I did it was just the right amount of suspense & then I flew through it. A quick & thrilling read.

4 stars! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Book comes out at the end of this month so add this one to your TBR! 📚🥾

Lucy Clarke does not disappoint! Another edge of your seat thriller. It did feel slow towards the end but overall I enjoyed the mystery.

Thanks to Penguin and NetGalley for the ARC.

The Hike by Lucy Clarke
Publishing date - 08/29/23
Rating (4/5) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Thank you Netgalley & Penguin Group Putnam for this eARC. This was my first read by this author. I will be reading more of her books in the future. It was a great page turner. So tense 😬 and suspenseful, that I could not put it down. Highly recommend this one when it releases on August 29th 2023.

I started off "The Hike" really engrossed and thought it might end up being my favorite thriller of the year. Unfortunately, I felt the book lost steam around 60% and I started to lose some interest. I also wish that the ending would have been more shocking. I feel like it was an expected ending and the author could have made it more twisty. Still a decent read and is a 4/5 rating from me.

Thank you to NetGalley, Lucy Clarke and PENGUIN GROUP Putnam for this eARC in exchange for my honest feedback.

This suspense/thriller follows 4 friends on their annual vacation. Maggie, Helena, Liz, and Joni rotate who picks vacation destinations and this year, Liz picks hiking up a mountain in Norway - a far cry from their normal sand, sun, and cocktails. But the friends show up, all ready for a break from their regular lives for reasons not even shared with friends. Only once they are there, the weather isn't the only thing that could derail their hike. They aren't the only ones on the mountain and the locals advise that there is something eerie, almost supernatural, about the mountain.

TW/CW: drug use, drug abuse, death of a loved one, infidelity, animal death

This was one of those reads that has a pretty simple premise but absolutely used that premise to the max. Clarke does a fantastic job of taking everything I was expecting from a survival/suspense/thriller and adds in other aspects I didn't even know I wanted. We also get right to the main meat of the story of hiking this mountain pretty quickly. This is one of those books where if the premise doesn't sound interesting to you, I'd recommend you just pass on this one because there isn't a ton of extra plot outside of the events that take place on the mountain. I think the elements that Clarke added with the other threats the characters end up facing elevate this past what I was expecting, but even if this was just a straight up outdoor survival story, I would have enjoyed it.

Since we are following this group of friends, I enjoyed the decision to have this be multi-POV. However, since we are following 4 people, I felt the POV switching did get in the way a little bit of the character development. I didn't have enough time sitting in each character's head to be able to get a good sense of who they are. They are easy enough to tell apart because each friend falls into a stereotypical archetype (the party friend, the over-worried new mom, the midlife crisis one, the bossy one). I did like how we got to see the different friendship dynamics and what each person thought of the others at certain times during the book. However, I didn't feel like we got as much character depth as I would have personally liked. I can see, on paper, how the characters were changed by their experiences but I didn't quite feel those changes come through when reading.

The setting was spot on and had a nice blend of British domestic drama and stoic Nordic noir. When we find out about the rumored supernatural history of the mountain and of events that have taken place there, I was 1000% on board. I absolutely loved the little hints of folklore horror that we get and I would have loved even more of them. We get to see a whole spectrum of natural elements our characters have to overcome - everything from extreme weather to blisters. My favorite part of any sort of survival story is how the characters interact in a stressful environment that they aren't used to. There is no calling for an Uber or deciding halfway that they are done. So when the going gets tough, they have to stick together even when that's the last thing they want.

I was a little surprised at the mystery/thriller element that gets introduced around the halfway point. As I mentioned before, I would have been perfectly happy if this was a straight-up wilderness survival story. I do think this element increased the overall tension and helped the plot momentum. However, I wanted more of a build up. Going into this hike, there wasn't really anything out of the norm going on so neither I, nor the characters, were expecting anything of this magnitude. I wanted more hints that maybe something wasn't quite right in this area of Norway so that when the characters get to that point in the plot, it would start to come together a little earlier. I did like the solution to the mystery, but just wanted more of it spread throughout the book.

Overall, this was a fun read that paid off on the premise. I enjoyed our variety of characters and their battles against the elements as well as their own inner demons.

Thanks to NetGalley and GP Putnam's Sons for the ARC. Expected publication date is August 29, 2023.

Super creepy, but at times boring. I feel like I have read this book before (even though I haven't). I really wish the characters had been more interesting and the twists just a little more shocking.

This suspenseful novel about four friends who go wild camping in the Norwegian wilderness was an enjoyable escape from the 109 degree Texas temperatures I’ve been living through. There is definitely an eerie vibe about this one and you spend the majority of the time on edge because you don’t really know what happened or to whom. To me, however, this was primarily a novel about women’s friendship and how it ebbs, flows, and evolves as we age. The four main characters have been friends since they were in school together as kids and are on their annual girls’ trip. Literally none of them (maybe Liz) has any business hiking a freaking mountain in Norway but none of them asked for my opinion. Each woman has a story, a background and baggage that she is bringing along on the trip. This was a great example of how genre fiction doesn’t have to be all tropes and big reveals but can have a more substantive side to it. While I did like the book overall, the unlikeability of most of the characters was difficult to look past at times (looking at you, Liz, for thinking it was in any way appropriate to plan this trip for a group of women who consistently show zero inclination to athletic pursuits of any kind) and the twist was kind of a letdown - there were some interesting ways it could have gone and I was kind of disappointed the author didn’t go in one of those directions. Just picked up Lucy Clarke’s 2022 releases (One of the Girls) and will definitely be giving it a try!

eARC received from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

This was a good book! It started out slow and I almost stopped reading it but the character development was done so well that I kept on. The norwegian setting is wonderfully atmospheric and adds a lot. The pacing of this book after the first half is amazing - so much tension and so many twists.

The Hike was such a quick, easy and fun read! It was a twisty, riveting page-turner full of secrets and drama. I loved the setting and the descriptions which made me feel like I was there and part of the book. I liked the interactions between the characters and their development throughout the book. The perfectly timed twists made it fast paced and hard to put down. Somehow this was my first Lucy Clarke but it certainly won’t be my last!

Thank you to NetGalley and Putnam for my early digital copy for my honest thoughts and review!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy.

The Hike is my first time reading a Lucy Clarke novel. The story follows four lifelong friends from childhood who embark on a multi-day hike in Norway. The story begins by setting up each of the four characters, It started a bit slow for me as the characters were being setup.

Once the mystery part kicked in the story picked up for me and it was more difficult to put down. The story contains multiple POVs, which I enjoy and made it fun to get inside the head of the different characters. Overall, a good read, nice introduction to the author and one I would recommend to friends.

Mysterious and creepy atmosphere? Always a win for a thriller!

Friends Liz, Helena, Maggie, and Joni take a yearly vacation together. This year, Liz picks hiking in the secluded mountains of Norway. While on the trip, we learn more history about the 4 friends and how their friendship may be built on more lies and secrets than what any of them believed. Simultaneously, the mysterious mountains have hidden a disappearance of a local and the secrets surrounding her disappearance will have everyone guessing.

I always love a good atmospheric thriller.
This could have probably been 100 pages shorter and there were definitely unnecessary chapters, which caused pacing issues and lulls in the story.

I definitely didn't see many of the twists coming and the story kept me guessing! Overall, definitely a solid thriller!
Thank you to #Netgalley, Penguin Group Putnam and G.P. Putnam Sons for an eArc of this story! All opinions are my own!

This is definitely more of a slow burn type of book as opposed to being nonstop action. Much of it focuses on developing characters and the complexities of the friendships and relationships of the four main characters rather than bombarding the reader with nonstop action. It reminded me a bit of the movie The Descent in that way. (Minus the creepy, blind cave creatures and add cocaine and shady Norwegian men). While I absolutely enjoyed the book and have no REAL complaints, I will say that if you're not into books that build slowly for 80% to climax for the last 20%, you may want to sit this one out. That said, I was personally really into it (as well as the other book I've read by this author previously), and I look forward to reading what Lucy Clarke writes next!

🥾The Hike ~ Lucy Clarke

When four friends set out on a hiking/girl’s trip in the mountains of Norway, they know that there will be challenges - rough terrain, inclement weather, elevation. Little do they know, they’re about to find themselves roped into a massive coverup that none of them saw coming. *** Loved Clarke’s One of the Girls from last summer so was excited for this and I thought it had a really strong start. Good character development from the jump - I had a clear vision of who each of these women were and what hidden baggage they were coming on this hike with, making me more interested in the story. The end got a little wacky. I found myself kinda just wanting it to be done. Enjoyed it; not a total loss - but not as salacious and naughty as One of the Girls, which I really enjoyed. (Out August 29, 2023)