I enjoyed the setting of this book. It was definitely a vibe, however I didn’t enjoy the execution of the story. I had a hard time getting through the chapters and fell bored some times.

I loved the exotic setting but did not connect with any of the characters. Could be they read a little young for me or maybe they were just unlikable. Such a slow burn, which is not a favorite of mine, but I was interested in seeing if my initial guess was correct. And it was. Yay me. But when the slow burn, burns off, the fireworks begin. No warning in the change just hello, lets speed things up and change all that you know.

While I didn't love this one, I think the author is one to watch and I'll be interested in her next book.

And the audiobook has a full cast narrating all the characters, but since the book is mainly told from Brook and Cass's POVs, they didn't all have a lot of narration. While the two women have different narrators, I still at times had a little trouble knowing who the narrator was at times. I would need to switch back to the book to set myself straight.

This book definitely improved as it progressed. I started by listening to the audio edition, but found the voices of the two main charcters so much alike, I was't sure who was who. Switched to the kindle edition which was more satisfying. I love destination mysteries that make me want to visit the place, and this one certainly did that. Very interesting ending, which I will not give away. As little as I know about diving, main character is a diving instructor, I know not to dive alone, especially when there is a storm coming in!

🌴 The Resort - Sara Ochs

3 ⭐️ - This was good! If you like deserted islands, dead bodies, and mysterious characters, this one’s for you. This would be a good book to break up your beachy light reads this summer! Look for this one hitting shelves on 2/13!


I read a lot of thrillers and while a lot of them have twins and turns that surprise me, this one felt a little predictable. The characters are unreliable, liars, and mysterious. The changing POV helps give this book a quick, suspicious vibe that makes you want to keep reading. Trust no one but yourself! If you’re a Lucy Foley fan, you’ll enjoy this one!
Thank you Netgalley, RB Media, and Sourcebooks Landmark for the early listener and reader copies! This one is also a February Book of the Month pick!

Thank you to @Netgalley and @SourceBooks for allowing me to read The Resort by Sara Ochs early! I read the synopsis and I knew it sounded like just the book for me.

The Resort takes place on an island off the coast of Thailand. You follow two women. One woman has been living there for a few years, she’s recently engaged, and she’s clearly hiding something. The other woman has been there for a few weeks and has some secrets of her own. This is a party island until it seems to be having a lot of dead bodies as of lately…. Maybe the party will be over soon?

❤️Review❤️

I liked the setting of this book. I’m a sucker for books that take place on a remote island with a resort. There are a lot of characters to keep track of, but for the most part I stayed invested in trying to figure out what was going on. The hard part is everyone on this island has secrets and could be considered unreliable. So it was hard to really put your finger on what was going on. By the end it felt like it was trying a little too much with all of these side plots going on. Multiple deaths and histories that didn’t always feel like they had a place. I would have liked it to be a little more focused instead of feeling all over the place. I do however see this being a perfect page turner for the beach this summer. So I would definitely check it out if it was something you’d be interested in.

3 stars! ⭐️⭐️⭐️

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We follow two women called The Permanents or as we would call them expats… and a murder who are all set upon each other at a resort in Thailand. Cass is a local scuba diver who instructs tourists. She is instructing the two expats when unexpectedly there’s a death in the group. But this isn’t the first death and secrets about Cass are coming to light.

I guess I had high hopes when I saw this story. It isn’t bad but it wasn’t like wow. It definitely was a slow build with a big twist. And some slow builds can turn me off. There are a lot of red flags with people while reading so of course you’ll be like this person.. not this person when trying to figure the story out and I liked that. Definitely more plot than character. The story itself is told in Cass’s pov and Brooke(one of the permanents) pov and being trapped on this island. They both have secrets and they both have pasts.

So all in all, I enjoyed what Sara was trying to portray but I think the slow build turned me off.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC! Unfortunately, The Resort wasn’t for me. This trope is overdone and I found the novel to be predictable and there wasn’t anything memorable or unique for me, as an avid thriller reader. I think someone who hasn’t read many thrillers with this trope would adore this!

This had one of the BEST endings/epilogue I had ever read.
Twisty throughout and you never knew which character to trust.
Twisty at the end, and you think it’s all done… but nope! Boom, final twist to mess you up!

I really enjoyed this!

I love multiple points of view in a thriller and it really worked well in this one.

A remote setting is also a fave. This one had many untrustworthy characters. I didn't know who to trust or what to believe. Murders. Storms. Secrets. Lies.

I questioned everything and there were so many twist!

Full cast audio was fantastic!

Many thanks to NetGalley, Sourcebooks Landmark and RB Media for an ARC and ALC in exchange for my honest review.

Wow! This book was the thriller that just couldn’t quit. Most thrillers dole out questions and information in drips, until finally the tap opens and the story is fully told. This book was more like drinking from a fire hose- it starts off with you asking a bazillion questions, and they just keep building and building until the end. This book would be incredible adapted into a movie. Not only was the scenery and the plot completely cinematic and so well written, but it just keeps you on the edge of your seat until the very last page.

If you like answers and plot stability, do not read this book. If you like unreliable narrators, deep backstories, and the certainty that it will all go wrong and maybe not go right (which makes an excellent thriller), this book is definitely for you. It’s hard to gush about this book because it throws you off guard and keeps you there, so I don’t think it is something you’d want to reread multiple times unless you thrive in anxiety. But it was such a strongly crafted story and both made me want to go on vacation to an island in Thailand immediately and also made me never want to go there. And isn’t that what a great thriller is all about?

Thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks for the ARC!

The Resort is a rereleased thriller by author Sara Ochs, originally published as The Dive.

The titular resort is on the Thai island of Koh Sang and is staffed by a dramatic cast of young ex-pats who all seem to be running from their pasts. One of those staff members, a dive instructor named Cass, is one of our two main narrators. The other is Brooke, a travel influencer on an unnamed revenge mission. A string of resort-related deaths turns everyone into a suspect. Everyone is sketchy. Everyone has an ax to grind.

This story is…okay. I enjoyed the dual-perspective narrative, though it took me a while to remember which details pertain to which characters because everyone’s hiding something and projecting a false exterior. While I was interested in figuring out what the heck is going on on this island, I didn’t find the story to be PROPULSIVE, which made it feel longer than it is. This could be because the characters feel pretty flat, and it seems like every chapter ends with a new, misguided revelation about someone’s guilt. Honestly, it kinda felt like reading a Fear Street Super Chiller, particularly Party Summer. While I have a special place in my heart for those R.L. Stine books, I didn’t think that’s what I’d signed up for here.

Huge ⚠️ trigger warnings ⚠️ for sexual assault, rape, grooming of minors, suicide, child abuse, gaslighting, mental health stigma, and probably some others I’ve missed.

Despite this, I would still be interested in picking up future work by this author.

Review posted on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5888769387

Many thanks to NetGalley, Sourcebooks Landmark, and Recorded Books Media for gifting me both a digital and audio ARC of this thriller by Sara Ochs and perfectly narrated by the cast of Miranda Raison, Dakota Blue Richards, Joe Jameson, and Pema Monaghan - 4 stars!

Cass escapes from her troubles to a beautiful, remote island in Thailand. She joins a group of ex-pats, called the Permanents, is a dive instructor, and just got engaged. Life is perfect, right? Well...besides the fact that she finds a dead body on her dive. Soon, everyone's secrets are going to be spilled.

This was a wonderful, atmospheric novel, with a locked-room mystery feel., told from the POV of Cass and Brooke, a beautiful instagram travel influencer, on the island with secrets of her own. I had no clue where this one was going or who could be trusted. And that ending was a shocker! Perfect escape read during the winter. A debut writer that I'm looking forward to reading more from!

I needed this book. I was in a funk and needed an amazing book to pull me out and The Resort did just that. I snuck reading at work, I read way past bedtime. When I was not reading, I was thinking about the book.

The suspense and the thrills kept coming. It seemed that all was wonderful on this island until dead bodies kept showing up. Who dun-it? There had to be more than just who the killer was to this story and there was. Every character had a story and as they came it out it made me wonder what else was going to be revealed. I cannot lie, I had no clue who actually was the killer and when all was revealed it all came together perfectly.

The Resort is a phenomenal thriller with plenty of suspense, a tad of romance, and a great island location. I recommend it to anyone who is looking for a great thriller/suspense book.

2.5/5 One death, turns to two and then a third that's clearly murder, time to get off the island. Unreliable main character because of Xanax use and past trauma. A lot of tell not show at the end along with I would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for you meddling and then an epilogue with psych! this is what really happened. I'm eye rolling at this point.

Sara Ochs hit it out of the ballpark with her first novel The Resort; I was hooked from the first page to the last. Cass Morris appears to be living her dream: living on a beautiful island, newly engaged and loving her job as a diving instructor. Cass had a previous life that she keeps secret, yet even after a few years and a new look, she fears she will be exposed, and her new life will be shattered. She is part of the island group known as The Permanents, those who live there full time, they are her family. A beautiful 20+ social influencer named Brooke arrives on the island, with the intention of showcasing its beauty; she and Cass become fast friends. Cass occasionally gets the feeling she has met Brooke- has she? Brooke learns that a beautiful young woman died after a fall from the island's highest mountain.during a solo morning hike just a few days before she arrived; the local Thailand police have declared it an accident. Was it?
The Resort is a gripping and exciting book, I could share so much more, however I'm simply going to encourage you to read it ASAP. I I will share there are secrets galore amongst those on the island, more "accidents," police corruption, romance and intrique. I highly recommend this suspense and action filled debut novel by Sara Ochs. Thanks to NetGalley, Sourcebooks Landmark Publishing and the author for the opportunity to read an ARC of The Resort. 4.5 Stars

Very good. Keeps you guessing until the very end. Then, with everything wrapping up, there is a major twist that actually makes sense. As out of left field it seemed, it was easily reconciled with the story..

3.5 stars rounded up
The Koh Sang Resort is on a small, isolated island in Thailand. Cass moved there several years ago to leave behind some issues in the US and is now a dive instructor. She hangs out with a group of expats, one of which is now her fiancée. Brooke is a travel influencer vacationing on the island and has become friends with Cass. The story is told from both POVs. Things are great until a dive student turns up dead. Then, Cass and Brooke partner up to investigate the death. The story is told from both POVs. The story started slow, but then picked up after the dead body. I liked the alternating POVs, which made it easy to keep track of what was going on and helped with pacing.

Thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for the ARC in exchange for a review.

It's been a while since I've read such a great thriller that kept me on the edge of my seat!

I'm not even sure how to summarize this book because so much happened.
There was murder. There was betrayal. There was angst. There was tension. There was turmoil. There were twists. There were OMG moments.

I loved the setting. Anytime the setting is somewhere remote, I'm all in. My only drawback is that there were SO many characters introduced initially, and more continually introduced throughout the book; so I found myself getting confused pretty easily. I loved the dual POV. The twists were so good (some predictable, but some I definitely didn't see coming). I truly enjoyed every second of this.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebook Landmarks for an eARC of this book! All opinions are my own!

Wow. I am in shock from this book. The plot was so wild and I thought I knew how it was going to play out. It did end exactly as I expected. And then the epilogue 🤯 The revenge plot. Everyone having a wild past they are running from. A bunch of broken people creating a life on a resort island in Thailand. What a wild ride this one was. There were quite a few triggers in this book that I think deserve some warning like suicide, mental health, and SA so keep those in mind. But I highly recommend this one for a quick read and a very twisty thriller!

I am so impressed with this very engaging book by debut author Sara Ochs.

The setting:
What could be more pleasurable to read about than the beautiful, laid back living on an island in Thailand? I almost wanted to book a flight and head over for some scuba lessons!

The characters:
There is a really great cast of characters with people from several continents, all with something in their past they are trying to hide, or get away from.

The murders:
Who is killing the tourists? And how tight knit are the group known as The Permanents?

Read this - you won't be disappointed! It's a quick read and the twists and turns will keep you guessing!