Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this ALC. This was just an ok listen for me. Nothing horrible. Nothing great. It starts out strong but then falls off.

Thank you Netgally and SOURCEBOOKS Landmark for the ARC of The Resort by Sara Ochs. This novel starts out with a prologue that sets the tone for an ominous outcome of the book portraying someone's last moments before their murder. We then flash back between Cass, who is a dive instructor on Koh Sang and a Permanent and Brooke who is a travel influencer traveling to the area. The story changes pov between Cass and Brooke as they try to discover the truth while hiding their own secrets. This story keeps you guessing and holds a twist I didn't see coming.

It’s no secret that I love a thriller set in paradise and The Resort by @saraochsauthor did not disappoint! I switched between the ebook and audiobook while reading this novel. It is set on a remote island in Thailand that is known for scuba diving and full moon parties. The prologue grabbed my attention with a murder and did not let my attention go! The story is full of secrets and twists, with an unpredictable ending!

If you are like me and love a novel about murder in paradise, then I highly recommend grabbing this book. It’s perfect for a beach read or wishing you were on a beach, somewhere warm.

Thank you @bookmarked and @recordedbooks for allowing me to read and listen to this book in exchange for my honest review.

(This same review was posted on the Barnes & Noble website)

The Resort will transport you to a beautiful island in Thailand where you can learn to dive, take yoga classes, and enjoy the scenery and the local fare. But the staff at the resort are all hiding secrets and trying to escape their pasts.

Cass is a dive instructor at the resort and is living a life she never thought possible. She's recently engaged and teaching resortgoers how to dive. Brooke is a travel influencer who visits the resort and befriends Cass and the group of residents that live there, known as The Permanents. When one of the visitors of the resort is found dead during a dive trip, the book takes off.

Every chapter features a new development, a new revelation, or a new layer that I didn't see coming. And just when I thought I had it all figured out, I was wrong.

The Resort is carefully crafted to keep readers on the edge of their seats and guessing until the very end.

Thank you Sourcebooks Landmark and NetGalley for the eARC!

On a remote party island in Thailand, tourists are suddenly and mysteriously injured or killed. A woman at the bottom of a cliff and a dive gone wrong are initially deemed accidents. But there are questions. Now, a storm has cut off the island. Is there a killer on the loose? Who will survive?

This is a page-turner of a debut novel! Some classic mystery/thriller tropes are peppered with secrets, lies, revenge, and murder for a gripping read. The twists were good, and the ending took me by surprise. Don't skip the epilogue! This one threw me for a loop.

I loved the atmospheric resort setting. Ochs writes it vividly, making this island go from paradise to a creepy place to be trapped. Told in the dual POV of Cass, a dive instructor, and Brooke, a travel influencer. The two decide to take matters into their own hands and investigate. The characters are well-developed and memorable, and I thought Brooke's character was particularly well done.

Cass is part of a group of ex-pats living on the island who moved there to escape their past and make new lives for themselves. But the secrets they harbor come to light, and drama unfolds. A large suspect pool and plenty of motives kept me guessing. The action builds at a slow-burn pace at first, but once it takes off, the story becomes suspenseful and has a shocking ending. Escapist fun and a solid debut, Ochs is an author I look forward to reading more from!

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for the opportunity to review this ARC.

I love the premise and the cover. The setting was great, a dive hotel on a remote island in Thailand. It was described well and I could easily picture what it was like.

The pacing was a little difficult to get through. The beginning was interesting, the middle was pretty slow, and the end was crazy. I thought the end was a little too out-there for me, I like a more believable story.

I did enjoy the epilogue, and would be interested in seeing how this plays out.

Secrets. So many secrets. EVERYONE seems to be hiding from the past. Who to trust is often whispered. Set on a beautiful Southeast Asia resort with beautiful backdrops and the perfect blue ocean. This is a summer beach read that will keep readers wondering.

Cass is a scuba diving instructer on a remote island in Thailand. Brooke is a travel influencer who just arrived on the island. All Brooke wants is to fit in with the group of resident expats who live and work on the island, The Permanents. But there's a lot more than meets the eye with the island. A woman recently fell to her death and when more people die under suspicious circumstances it's clear something a lot more sinister is going on.

This is told from the perspectives of both Cass and Brooke. I love a dual perspective and read this in a weekend. I couldn't put this book down and found myself transported to the beaches of the island, which was a great escape from the Canadian winter that's my reality. This novel was a great escape from the cold and had a lot of twists. It started out very innocently but within a few chapters there was a shocking event and this kept me hooked. The Resort is action packed and the main characters digging into both their pasts and present events were intertwined perfectly. I'll admit to not liking some of the twists and character motivations that are explained as the book progresses. There were some twists that completely shocked and the final chapter of this book made it a solid 4 star read for me. If you like beaches, murder and deception than this one is for you!

Thank you to Netgalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

This debut novel had everything you expect in a thriller: an unreliable narrator, a remote setting, the cover up of multiple murders, and numerous red herrings. That was the problem I had with it. It felt like a paint-by-numbers thriller with little character development and stereotyped bad guys. I can't really recommend this one.

This book was so good and suspenseful, it kept me guessing until the very end!! Sara Ochs is definitely an author that I will read from again!

I love this cover, and was intrigued by "two mysterious women" in "a searing vacation thriller."

Set on a remote island in Thailand, The Resort does have an isolated, small-cast feel, though its setting wasn't atmospheric enough to make me feel the heat while reading on a frigid night.

Overall I'd characterize this as a rocky read. It feels like it wants to be light and entertaining at times, but then others are dramatic and morbid (e.g., the opening scene is in the POV of a person dying). My interest in the characters and plot similarly ebbed and flowed.

And yet! The epilogue almost redeemed all of it. I don't think it quite did, but it did leave me wanting a sequel, despite not having a super positive opinion of the first 95% of the book.

DNF at 50%. I’m always drawn to thrillers and this one taking place at a resort in Thailand drew me right in. However it just didn’t work for me - it was very slow and I was bored. I listened to the audiobook and think it also wasn’t helped by one of the narrators giving a very one note delivery. I ended up deciding not to finish. Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the free ebook and audiobook to review.

3.5 Thai stars

Who doesn’t yearn to move to a small Thai island? Especially if you can escape your past.

Koh Sang is a small resort known for outstanding scuba diving. Cass has been there for a few years and is a scuba instructor. We know from the beginning that she’s hiding some secrets. She’s just gotten engaged to gorgeous Logan.

The other viewpoint in the book comes from Brooke. She’s an influencer who has built her presence and spends lots of time on social media. She starts socializing with Cass and the crew there, called the Permanents.

This one is a slow build, introducing the characters. However, the dead bodies started piling up, and I knew we were in for some more action! Was there one murderer or unrelated people committing the crimes? Could they have been accidental deaths? Are the murders connected?

This ending definitely took me by surprise. I realized that most of the clues were there for me along the way, but I was still surprised.

This is a debut writer that I’ll be watching! I enjoyed my escape to a sultry island when it’s cold and wintry for me. Published in the UK as “The Dive”

This one surprised me. Starting off a bit slow I plowed through hoping that the twists would make it worth my time and boy was I right! Sometimes the island paradise we all see before us hides a dark truth and that’s exactly the case in this story. When people go to escape there is usually a reason. The story picks up well about half way through and then it was an absolute page turner with so many turns, accusations and lies you won’t know who to believe.

The Resort brought me along on a gorgeous trip to Thailand, which quickly turned deadly and mysterious.

Told through a dual POV, The Resort is about multiple murders occurring on a small island. Brooke is a travel influencer who has been on the island for just a couple of weeks, slowly growing a bond with Cass and the other residents Brooke refers to as the Permanents, people who came for vacation and never left. Cass has dark secrets in her past, which are referred to but not fully revealed until we come close to the end.

The atmosphere was incredible, with the secluded island turning from peaceful to terrifying overnight. I felt like I was there as the author spoke of lush jungles, cliff walks, and scuba diving off the shore. It felt like the perfect setting for a scary story or slasher movie. The plot is full of twists and turns, and the shocking finale had me captivated!

The two women each have something that they aren’t telling us, and their secrets kept me intrigued as I read and listened to this one. The two female characters are well developed and have interesting backstories that help to explain their actions in the story.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

Mystery thriller set in Thailand fails to deliver.

A group of permanent residents on the island of Koh Sang, nestled in the Gulf of Thailand, have become like family over the years. Although they have all run from something in their pasts, they now work and live in this resort community and take care of each other. The recent death of a guest has upset the group dynamics, but the permanents have not seen the worst of it yet. A minor influencer, Brooke, arrives on the island ostensibly to promote tourism to this idyllic but relatively unknown SCUBA paradise, but soon it becomes obvious to all that she has an agenda.

This started out well but quickly deteriorated into lots of melodrama and took forever to get to the point. The motives behind the behaviors of all the characters seemed to ring false and the extent of their reactions was quite overdone. I didn't like any of the characters with all their secrets and lies. Their personal traumas and the reasons for each coming to Koh Sang were revealed much too late. It drug on and the detail I wanted to know was so slowly revealed that I was over it all by the time I got the answers. A last-ditch attempt at a final, crazy twist pushed the conclusion into the incredible.

I both read the e-book ARC and listened to the audio recording of this book thanks to NetGalley and the publisher. I am not recommending.

This is a debut book by Sara Ochs. It’s written very well, the characters are all well defined and mostly likable. The setting is perfectly described. I really enjoyed it, it probably helped reading in the winter. The book started off with a bang and the ending was nail biting, I stayed up half the night to finish it.

Koh Sang is a party island off of Thailand, where people come to get away from it all. Even the people living on the island, they all have something they are getting away from. There is a great cast of local characters that live on the island, they are quirky and fun. When bodies of tourists start piling up, everyone’s secrets start to come out. Some people are willing to do more to keep theirs hidden. This is a fun quick read that I highly recommend!

This told via two perspectives, Cass who has made a permanent home on the island and Brooke, a travel influencer on vacation. Right away you realize that not only do Brooke and Cass both have some sort of secrets in their pasts, half of the residents on the island do as well. Cass has a group of friends turned family who all seemed to flee to the island to escape something in their pasts as well. So there’s plenty of secrets and skeletons in closets and I was so confident I knew how things would play out and I was wrong. I loved the setting of this beautiful island hiding deadly secrets that gave everything an unsettling feeling. It was a constant guessing game for me and the final twist was a really good shock. I’m definitely impressed this was a debut, if you like a slow burn that actually pays off in the end try this!

Overall rating: 4/5

A cast of Expats from all over the world end up as found family on a remote party island in Thailand. All have a reason for leaving their roots and will do everything in their power to protect the family they have created. Some are even living under assumed names. Remember, you cannot hide from Social Media.
The author slowly peels back the mask of each person as the body count climbs which lends itself more to a mystery than a thriller. However, THAT ENDING. That's what I'm talking about. I had to go back to reread it as I was a bit lulled by the pacing.
3.5 stars rounded to 4 stars as the ending came in hot.

Thank you to Sourcebooks and Netgalley for an early copy. All opinions are my own.

This one was a DNF for me, but I am so thankful to the publisher, author, and Netgalley for granting me advanced digital access to this one before it hits shelves on February 13, 2024.