Describing this book as of a mash up of “mean girls” and “scream” was spot on. Any fans of 90’s slasher films where groups of teens are terrorised en masse will love this as much as I did.
I love nothing more than 90’s slasher vibes , and Summer rental reminded me of the books I loved so much as a teenager - point horror. Fast, fun, paced reads with lots of twists and jump scares. The plots tend to be fairly predictable but that’s part of their appeal. It really reminded me of “Ten” by Gretchen O’Neil another book which I thoroughly enjoyed.
The other thing I love is slasher/ locked room thrillers where the victims are cut off by storms whether that be tropical or snow, it adds to the intensity and enhances the atmosphere and so for me this book ticked so, so many boxes. I loved it,. It was hugely entertaining and I couldn’t put it down. It’s not a high concept crime thriller, but it’s not trying to be. It is what it is, and if that’s your type of read grab this book!
I can’t wait to read Ski Weekend now and will keep my eye out for this authors future titles.

First thank you Netgalley and Ic13 Books for the arc! The book description claims it’s a combo of Mean Girls and Scream and that fits perfectly! I just finished Summer Rental and man was it enjoyable! I’m a sucker for a classic slasher whether in video or print form and this did the trick! This book follows Riley and her friends as they head to Palm Key Island for one last weekend of partying before heading off to college. What starts as a fun weekend takes a quick turn when two of their friends go missing. As the story unfolds you’ll find out that everyone is hiding something, and this story will leave you gripped as the plots twists leaving you guessing who is terrorizing Riley and her friends.

When I saw Mean Girls meets Scream, I knew I had to read this one! I was ready for a book that was reminiscent of the slasher movies of my teen years, and the back half of The Summer Rental definitely gave me that vibe.

A group of teens have rented a house for a blowout Fourth of July weekend on an island in Florida. A hurricane is brewing off shore and heading right towards them, causing most of the people on the island to leave. Two members of their group are already missing though, and they want to wait until everyone is together before leaving. Bad choice!

The beginning half is all about setting up the back half- getting to know who is who in the group, what beef they have with each other, and what their relationships are. An eerie atmosphere hangs over the entire story as others flee the storm and our crew stays home. A townie tells them about the awful events that happened in their rental years ago, lending more tension and jump scares.

Most of the characters are insufferable and you really don't mind bad things happening to them. The slasher vibes only come along in the back half of the book, and that section was wrapped up a bit more quickly than expected. I would have loved the tension to build a bit earlier, but it was still a quick, easy, fun summer read.

Thank you to NetGalley and IC13 books for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion. I'd give this 3.5 rounding up to 4.

When I saw the description “MEAN GIRLS meets SCREAM”, I knew I had to read this. A group of recent high school graduates rent a beach house in Florida, celebrating their last hurrah before going off to college. However, things go wrong when two go missing, right as a hurricane hits. Riley and her friends are trapped, unable to leave their rental house, as someone or something is taking them one by one.

Summer Rental is a quick read, filled with jump scares and lots of twists. Fans of slasher films will enjoy this. There are plenty of gory moments at the end. My only critique was the pacing towards the end, I felt the ending was rushed and a little predictable (I had guessed who the killer was based on the drama and context). Overall, I enjoyed it and look forward to reading other books by Rektok Ross.

When the concept is Mean Girls meets Scream, how could you not run to pick this up? This thriller had me on the edge of my seat until the very end. This is the story of our main girl Riley and her group of friends who go on vacation after graduation. Shortly after arriving, Riley starts to notice that things feel a little off but she can't put her finger on it. They soon discover that the house is rumored to be haunted after a brutal killing that took place years before. Is the killer back to seek revenge and can secrets among friends ever truly stay buried?

I had such a great time reading this book and I highly recommend if you're looking for a fast-paced summer thriller.

4 Stars

Thank you NetGallery for this ARC in exchange for my honest review

Riley and her friends head to a beach house for the 4th July weekend. Riley is relatively new to the friendship group and coincidently the 4th July is the anniversary of a former member of the groups death. A group of boys from school also head south and the plan is to party. Then one of the group goes missing and a predicted hurricane moves closer. Now everyone is stranded in the house and a killer strikes.

This was a great read. I didn’t feel the need to concentrate hugely on the plot and could just enjoy. The rich kid characters were spoilt and nasty, quite unpleasant and Riley quite pathetic with her need to please-very well written characters. The suspense towards the end was great and I didn’t figure out the whodunnit.

Writing: 5/5
Character Development: 4/5
Plot: 5/5

Warnings: Violence

Themes: Thriller, Slasher, Mystery

Summer Rental is about a group of friends that go on a beach vacation for their last celebration after graduation. But when they find out their rental is a famous murder house weird things start happening and people start going missing. This book reminds me of a 90s slasher movie and I loved it! The writing was really well done and it made you connect with the characters. I didn’t guess the ending but after I go back through the story I notice little breadcrumbs through the story. There were a couple of times Riley was a little too paranoid for my liking but overall she was a good MC. I would love to read other books by this author.

This book is great for anyone who loves a 90s slasher with mean girls and secrets.

I received an arc of this book and am leaving an honest review.

I received an egalley of this from the publisher.

Ski Weekend was one of my favorite reads of 2021 so I was beyond excited when I found out about this book. This one's even better. (I know! I wouldn't have believed it either.)

If you're a horror movie fan, you absolutely need to read this. There are so many fun references and winks at the audience! (If you aren't, though, you'll still love this. Riley is a wonderful Final Girl and I love that she had to contend with both a hurricane and something that may be supernatural or could be a serial killer or could possibly just be an overwrought imagination, thanks to a creaky house and an urban legend about their rental. It's a LOT.

Summer Rental is genuinely unsettling but it's also just a ridiculous amount of fun. This is the actual perfect summer read and I cannot wait to read whatever Rektok Ross writes next. I know I'll love it.

Highly recommended.

Great teen horror novel that kept me guessing til the end as to what happened and where the missing kids ended up. It would make a great teen movie like Scream or I know what you did last summer. (Do they still make movies like that?)

I found your next summer thriller to be obsessed with. It’s Pretty Little Liars meets I Know What You Did Last Summer! What an addicting and atmospheric thriller! It grabbed my attention from the start and the suspense and intensity just continued to build throughout. I loved the creepy, locked room vibes. I was feeling claustrophobic as I was reading along and I felt like I needed to keep looking over my shoulder. It really had my adrenaline going!

Thank you so much NetGalley & IC13 Books for the arc!

Heart pounding thriller that left me on the edge of my seat. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this one. Definitely one of the best books this year.

Summer Rental is the perfect book for a day at the beach or poolside, a very amazing YA mystery that instantly gave me Mean Girls and Slasher/scream vibes which I absolutely loved.

When the popular and rich graduates of Bishop Lake high school go to celebrate and rent a house on Palm Key Island to have one last party before college they are only thinking about partying and having a blast the least thing they expect is a hurricane to hit and then become stranded on the remote island away from civilization trapped with no help in sight. If they thought this was the worst it could get, one of the group members has been murderer and the body count is only just rising.

Secrets are hidden and they are forced to confront them or is somebody killing each other to keep their secrets hidden.

A good amount of twists and turns that keeps you guessing and wondering who the killer is. Most of the characters I didn’t particularly warm up to except Riley and just a few others.

I really enjoyed this book, the overall plot goes at a fast but good paced read, aspects of suspense, thriller, toxic friendship and bullying. This book is a page turner which once you start reading you won’t be able to stop. I would definitely recommend this book to fellow book readers, I really liked this book and can’t wait to see what works come out by the author in the future.


Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the copy of this arc in exchange of an honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley and Ic13 Books for the ARC.

🌟🌟🌟🌟 4/5 stars

Summer Rental is the perfect poolside thriller and a very fun YA mystery. It follows Riley and her friends as they head to Palm Key Island for one last party weekend before college. They get a deal on a rental and invite all of their friends, including Riley’s crush Sebastian. Everyone has secrets, like what happened to their classmate Jordyn Chang, who mysteriously died last summer. Things take a turn when one of the friends goes missing and a hurricane cuts the group off from civilization. Someone knows their secrets..and is getting revenge.

Summer Rental reminded me of one of my favorite recent horror movies, Bodies Bodies Bodies. I love a slasher and this was an entertaining combination of Mean Girls and classic slashers. It was a quick read and super fast-paced. Took me right back to reading R.L. Stine and Lois Duncan during countless summers.

ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book was very different that what I had expected but was still a very enjoyable read! The plot does not immediately jump right into the "thriller" section, instead the focus is more on the relationships and the drama of the characters, however the twists and turns that happened in the second half of the book more than make up for the first part!! It is described as a combination of Scream and Mean Girls and I think that is very on point!! I felt like it read almost similar to "I Know What You Did Last Summer", the little bit of a campy plot feeling mixed with some suspense and twists to try and throw the reader off as to who the killer is. This was a very enjoyable summer read!!

I enjoyed the read. It was a little slow in the beginning. Totally was blindsided by the second half of the book. It was so good I had to stay up late to see how it ended. I will definitely read more from this author.

Mean Girls meets Scream is an accurate description for this thriller! When the 10-squad, the most popular and rich girls at Bishop Prep, decide to have a last hoorah during Fourth of July weekend, they never expect danger to be around the corner.

When their friends go missing after a night of partying and a tropical storm on the way, they decide to shelter out in their rented beach house. They soon find that there is no escape and they are trapped with a killer intent on taking them out one by one. Who is the killer? Everyone is a suspect and everyone has a secret. Including what happened to Jordyn Chang, a member of the 10-squad who died last summer.

This book had so many twists and turns. In the end, everyone seemed to be the killer and I did not expect the ending. There are some parts that I still have questions on that could have been explained in more detail. Overall, this book kept me guessing to the very end and I am excited to read other books from this author.

Thank you Rektok Ross and NetGalley for allowing my the opportunity to review Summer Rental.

When the popular graduates of Bishop Lake high school go on a Fourth of July celebration the rent a house with a dark history. Riley, the twin beauties Val and cam, Blake and Maya are all best friends and although Riley is the recent transplant from a different school she quickly became the new edition. They’re meeting the boys there which include Zeb Tyler Jonathan and Mason. They’re all rich spoiled and used to getting what they want will everyone except for Riley until last year she too had money to burn but now that her father has been arrested for corruption she has had to learn to live within her means this is just one thing her friends doesn’t know about Riley situation and it’s the reason they’re staying in a summer rental as opposed to the posh hotel on the island. Val is there to try and win Tyler away from Maya and after they hit the club it looks like that’s exactly what Val has done because Val and Tyler go missing in the group cannot find them. When they learn the hurricane is going to hit the island Zeb and Cam do not want to leave without Tyler and Val so they decide to stay and have a hurricane party Blake invites the bartender from the night before Roxy and the boys get evacuated from the hotel and come to stay at the summer rental. End it is all fun and games until Riley finds a dead body. I never know how much to give away in a review so I’m going to stop there and I will say I have noticed a lot of people gave this book 5 stars but the nitty-gritty of the book didn’t even start till over 50% of the boat is red which I thought took forever because mostly what you’re reading about is teenage drama which can be very interesting but in a horror book I was waiting for the horror and it seems when it does come it’s Bam Bam Bam and then the books over so for 70% of the book it’s just strange noises she sees people behind the rental something that never gets answered in the book don’t get me wrong this book was pretty good and I read the whole thing but I don’t think this is a five star read because as I said most of the book is who sleeping with you then looking for Val in the Horror is only the last 30% but again this is just my opinion I see other people love the book so maybe once again with the book I am missing something. I received this book from NetGalley and the publisher that I am leaving this review voluntarily please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.

Thank you to NetGalley and Ic13 Books for providing me with the ARC!

I really, really loved the message of this book, but I didn't really love how it was carried out. I think one of the issues was that I went into it expecting a full-on slasher-esque novel, so you can imagine my irritation when nothing but relationship drama occurs for the first 60% or so of the book. I didn't find any of the characters to be likeable (except for Grant, he was chill), including the main character, Riley. I feel like all the drama was a bit too overdone, and I couldn't bring myself to care about any of it. For me, the drama made the killer pretty obvious, and the twists at the end felt anticlimactic, although the message made up for some of it. The last bit of the novel was what I was expecting the whole thing to be like: suspenseful, gory, and totally chaotic, but it felt like it was over too soon.

Overall, this did end up being a solid summer thriller in the end, but I think I'm too over the cliche trope of girls fighting over boys and being drama queens instead of fighting actual threats.

I was graciously given this as an advanced reader. I enjoyed the book and thought I knew what was happening but was thrown off track at one point. The first half of the book moved a bit slow, but the second half was action packed. This truly was MEAN GIRLS meets SCREAM! I thought my friends in high school were drama. They don’t hold a candle to the group in this book. Haha. Thank you for gifting me this advanced reader copy. I look forward to reading more from Rektok Ross in the future.

Beach read with a thriller twist? I knew Summer Rental by Retok Ross would be right up my alley!

Senior student Riley March and her new group of friends want to go down to Palm Beach for their last hooray before leaving for college. They found a cheap rental house on the beach, with her and her four other “mean girl” friends. Not only are they trying to party and have a good time, but they are also trying to forget the significance of this weekend- the anniversary of their friend Jordyn’s suicide.

This book was such a fast paced- quick read! I will admit I was in a reading slump when picking it up, but it was a perfect break and got me out of my slump! It reads so quickly because it is technically YA; however, it did not feel like a young book when reading. I was SHOCKED by the ending and it most DEFINETLY had thriller and horror vibes. I will say, at some points the story was gory, so that may be a trigger warning for some people. Perfect book to binge on a rainy day this summer. This was my first book from Retok Ross, but I am so intrigued that it certainly will not be my last. Summer Rental is out June 13th, 2023, and it was a great 4 out of 5 stars read for me!