Podcast review at www.artdistrictradio.com
https://smartlink.ausha.co/art-district-rss-podcasts/the-fog-by-brooke-hardwick

An atmospheric psychological thriller set on Rathlin Island in Northern Ireland. The narrator, Kate travels to the remote island for a writers retreat run by a local, Cormac Boyd. Kate has memory loss, and her husband has left her after their baby daughter’s death. There are three other writers in attendance for the 10 day program. The events are tense and sometimes chaotic, it’s hard to know what’s important and sometimes what’s real as Kate begins having flashbacks to the events with her husband.
I was drawn into the story and wanted to know what was going on. The conclusion draws it together and was cleverly done. But the writing did annoy me, lots of paragraphs filled with questions - a style that I find so irritating, it’s okay once of twice but over and over… way too much of it here. So I think it could’ve been shorter and written in a tighter fashion, it would’ve added to the tension for me anyway.

Trigger warning: infant death
In The Fog, Kate travels to a remote island in the Irish Channel for a ten-day writers’ retreat. She and a small group of select authors are each desperate for release from their writer’s block. The therapy incorporates mythology of the island and some highly unconventional methods. It triggers repressed memories in Kate and increases her attraction to the retreat director. While the weather grows wilder and wilder, the therapy grows more and more intense. Each writer is pushed to their limits as the end of the ten days approaches. Kate needs to understand exactly what happened before to move forward in the future. But can she handle the truth? And what danger has she put herself in?
The Fog is a dark, atmospheric gothic thriller interweaving events in the present and the past. It is a strong debut by its Australian-born, widely-travelled author. Recommended. 4.5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley, the author and publisher for a copy of the eARC in exchange for a honest review.

The Fog was not at all what I expected and I was waiting for ‘a fog’ to descend on the island and cause havoc. Not sure why but probably because I went in to it with only a brief skim of the synopsis or maybe because of the title. Although there were a couple of areas that I skimmed over when I found it to be overly detailed I could not stop reading this once I started.
Kate took the opportunity to apply for a 10 day writers retreat that was meant to help her to overcome her writers block.. The retreat was held at an isolated island and there were only 3 other guests, the owner and the handyman/cook.
She knew that she would have to search deep into herself to find the reasons for it but she was not ready for the memories that rose up. Kate was thrown into a number of tasks that led to more and more disturbing flashbacks that had Kate wanting to flee but there was nowhere to go. As all the guests start to fall apart as they also face demons the final twist on the last night that blew me away.

If you're looking for something dark and intensely atmospheric, welcome to The Fog.

If psychological thrillers are your thing, settle in dear reader. This debut novel from Brooke Hardwick will not leave you disappointed.

Kate has writer's block and chooses to go on a 10 day retreat to lift the block and start writing again. It quickly becomes clear that Kate has a little more going on than just writers' block. She has flashbacks from the marriage she escaped. No spoilers, but I feel I have to mention trigger warnings of coercive control, abortion and gaslighting. There are other characters who are there for the retreat - all with their own "stuff" as to why they could be locked in a writer's block. The other characters all fit in well and add to the story without it getting too complex. Mind you, with these other personalities, at times it felt like a crazy circus!

I like how the book marks time with Day One, Day Two, Day Three etc. The counting of days adds to the the suspense and anticipation of the inevitable Day 10. Another element of this novel I enjoyed was the unsettling mythology attached to Rathlin Island.

This book was not for me, it was a too dark and psychological. However I'm here to write a review, and from that perspective, this book will keep you turning the pages. If psychological trillers are your thing I can highly recommend The Fog.

I want to thank NetGalley for a digital ARC copy in exchange for an honest unbiased review.

#TheFog #NetGalley

Gaslighting, abusive relationships, coercive control, suicidal ideation, loss of a child, self harm, death of animals; mental trauma. Lots of mental trauma.

Right. What to say about this one? Perhaps less is best. Look, The Fog by Brooke Hardwick is very clearly a debut, and in a genre where you can sometimes get away with plot holes and unreliable narrators, this one still falls through the cracks.

The premise was interesting, writer's retreat in a remote location, but honestly, from the get go this one was all over the place. The constant flash backs, the extreme unreliability of the narrator, Kate, the unlikeable characters, the melodrama, the over descriptive descriptions of the wind, the rain, the wind, the cold, the wind... you get the picture.

This was not well written. It was a mess to listen to, only marginally better to read. The twist was absurd, but wait, there's more. Another twist. And then pages of retelling the story to explain the twists. Don't be drawn in by the atmospheric cover and intriguing premise. They're the only good parts about this book.

Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.

Wow, I have just finished reading “The Fog” and i’m still shaking in response to the chilling tension and anticipation of more twists to come. This book is, how do I even find the right words? intense, dramatic, dastardly, horrific, and so so creepingly disturbing and brilliant.

I feel like i’ve just been lost out in the fog myself, knocked about by extreme weather and caught up in a world of flashbacks, torture, gaslighting and trauma upon trauma. What is meant to be a ten day writers psychology retreat to help those, including our main character Kate, with writers block set on a remote island is so much more than how it is pitched.

This is intensely moving and gripping; a masterful and extremely evil plot. I am numb from the icy rain on my cheeks, I am drawn to the cliffs, the screaming noises are loud in the wind, I’m questioning everything I hear and read. This is so vivid, so completely unhinged … I need more.

Thank you so much Brooke Hardwick for this insane work of genius, it is hard believing this is your debut work and if you haven’t guessed already it has impacted me greatly! Thanks also to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster Australia for providing me with an ARC read in exchange for my review. This book is now available for purchase, I advise day reading and not risking reading it late at night!

I found The Fog by Brooke Hardwick to be a very creepy thriller that wound the reader in and then ensured they were as confused and almost as traumatised as the characters of this story.

Located on a cold, windy and rainy island in the freezing Irish channel with a very small population that it is extremely isolated, an exclusive 10 day retreat for writers with ‘writer’s block’ is being run by a wealthy but eccentric Director.

The main character, Kate, is suffering from trauma and hopes this retreat will be her saviour. Others also have similar hopes. All the characters are well developed and very multi-dimensional, giving the plot added depth.

There is a lot that is totally unexpected and the twist and turns are more like revolutions! The ending could probably called brutal and one that, was again, totally unexpected.

A highly recommended read.


This review is based on a complimentary copy from Simon & Schuster (Australia) via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

#TheFog #NetGalley

The Fog
Brooke Hardwick

“Hence the lighthouses. Any island with three lighthouses should give a sailor a fair warning. But that’s all a lighthouse can do. We can only warn sailors that disaster lies ahead. We can’t save them.”

A solid psychological thriller that definitely has you questioning who is your unreliable narrative. Who can you trust, what deceptions and misdirections are at play? What is genuine?

‘Why had i omitted those things from my memory? I hadn’t even chosen to ignore it - I completely erased it.’

A woman on the brink travels to a remote writer’s retreat to uncover the secrets of her past and lands herself in a deadly situation that could destroy her future.
The retreat director uses unorthodox techniques and harnesses the unique and eerie mythology of the island, and Kate finds herself more fascinated by him. As the retreat goes on, the therapies intensify with startling results and disturbing flashbacks occurring. Kate realises her past hides a frightening truth, but can she trust her own mind?

“Hen, one should never save a drowning man.”

“A drowning man has to save himself.”

Massive thanks to @simonandschuster and @bookehardwickwriter - The Fog is out now.

“I’m sure there were small slights and daily deceptions. Of course, there’s usually always the final betrayal; is that how it was between you?”

I will say that the ending was particularly neat and tidy, like possibly too much so. In the lands of far fetched, maybe this was testing.

“Family is like soil, pet… it may feel as though you’re buried by burden, but it’s the place from which everything grows.”

Please let me know if you have read this or keen to, always interested to know how you find it.

‘Best to pretend I don’t mind. Pretending isn’t lying - it merely softens the brutality of truth.’

“That’s the thing with bad weather. Good weather always comes before it.”


(REVIEW POSTED 12th September 2024)

Interesting premise but I felt this story was a bit muddled- particularly the end of the book and the ending.
The atmospheric location fits perfectly for a psychological thriller, where Kate is struggling with recovering memories that make her question her reality.

What a great debut novel!

Set on a remote island in the Irish Channel, this psychological thriller follows Kate as she embarks on a 10-day writer’s retreat to confront her trauma and battle her writer’s block.

During her stay, she encounters a cast of characters as wild and unpredictable as the island’s weather, including the enigmatic owner of the retreat.

The retreat’s unconventional methods help unearth her repressed trauma, leading to shocking revelations about her marriage and daughter.

As with all great psychological thrillers, you’ll be glued to the pages as the tension escalates, culminating in plot twists that will leave you breathless.

Recommended for book lovers who appreciate dramatic settings and gripping narratives!

A heartfelt thank you to @brookehardwickwriter, @netgalley, and @simonschusterau for the gifted copy!

#thefog #brookehardman #simonandschusterau #netgalley #netgalleyreads #lifeasabooklover #booklover #bibliophile #bookstagram #booksofinstagram #booksbooksbooks #aussieauthors #crimefiction #paychologicalthriller #bookreview

This book reeled me in pretty quickly and almost gave me vibes of “The Haunting”. It was fascinating to watch Kate regain her memories and realise the life she thought she lived was far from her actual reality.

What I didn’t expect was the ulterior motive behind the retreat itself and then that final twist at the very end kind of left me scratching my head a little? I think it would’ve been okay without it honestly.

Either way it was definitely an interesting read that had me questioning every single character in the book.

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC!

Kate travels to an isolated island for a 10 day writer’s block retreat. With strange techniques and frightening flashbacks to her recent life, Kate wonders what and who she can trust.
I must admit this started as a strange book for me. I really couldn’t get a handle on what it was really about, which in turn stopped me from becoming more involved with it.
But I persisted and found I became fascinated with Kate’s past. So very frightening as it was revealed.
There are some instances where I had to suspend belief but all come together for a climactic conclusion.
Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for a copy to read

rarely read ebooks as I much prefer a physical book or an audiobook, but for this one I made an exception. An eerie thriller by an Aussie author with the same first name as me, what better reason to read a book? This was the first time I’ve requested a book on NetGalley and I was so gripped that I read it on my phone in two days.

Kate has no memory of the events leading up to the disappearance of her husband from her life, but she knows that something awful has happened. At the recommendation of her writing group she applies to attend a remote retreat touted to uncover trauma and cure writer’s block. Held on an isolated island in the Irish Channel she arrives for the ten day retreat with a small group of writers. The retreat director’s methods are somewhat unusual and Kate finds herself experiencing horrifying flashes of memory as she struggles to know what’s real and what’s not. Is she in danger and what dark secrets is she about to uncover?

I love a remote setting for a thriller and this island cut off from the mainland by distance and weather conditions was the perfect creepy place for a psychological thriller. Kate’s unreliable recollections and the changing personalities of the other guests added an extra level of tension to this disturbing and creepy story. As the paranoia began to escalate, I felt a real sense of dread and experienced moments of anger where I just wanted to toss the phone across the room. The fact that the story could elicit such an emotional response really shows how engrossed I was.

With the sense of unease mounting and Kate’s emotions spiralling I knew this was going to end with a bang, but I couldn’t have predicted just how explosive that ending would be.

If you love a psychological thriller with an unreliable narrator and plenty of creepiness then The Fog by Brooke Hardwick is a book you need to read.

The slow creep of horror that accompanies gothic thrillers is one of the reasons this particular genre is so widely read.

There is something strangely enticing about reading a story where the protagonist has terrors and darkness visited upon them in ever-increasing, debilitating waves, coupled with a vicarious sense of bearing witness to someone else’s descent into a nightmarish set of circumstances, with it made all the more compelling if you are safe and sound in your own cosy little slice of the world.

And it’s even better for complete cowards like this reviewer if all this hairs-raised-on-theback-of-the-neck reading takes place during the daytime and with only those you love and trust nearby.

Best to avoid, for instance, remote islands off the coast of Northern Ireland, which is something Kate, the protagonist of The Fog by Brooke Hardwick, manifestly does not do when she accepts an invitation to a highly specialised writers’ retreat on Rathlin, a select invite-only getaway which promises to cure her writing block by digging down into, exposing and healing the depths of her trauma-shattered psyche.

On the surface, it’s just what Kate needs – a chance to exhume the troubling secrets of her past and to come to grips with why her dream marriage to the very lovely Hugh broke down in ways that still consume her a year or more later.

Sure, the island is bleak and dark, and the manor where the retreat will be based is as foreboding as it is richly expansive, but Kate is so desperate for answers that she’s willing to put up with the pagan ritual-laced therapies which verge on the cruel at times, fellow retreat goers who seem to be falling further into madness as the ten days wear on rather than finding any form of healing, and a setting which seems straight out of horror movie central.

Kate hears odd sounds in the middle of the night, finds herself lost in boggy wastelands and weirdly intrigued by the retreat leader Cormac who offers the sort of unconditional love and support that Kate is craving, and while it all unnerves her to varying degrees, she sticks with the program because she doesn’t any remaining options left to her.

It’s either find the truth and walk into a brighter, more healed future, or … well, Kate, doesn’t want to think about that, and so as things get weirder and stranger and more inexplicable, she hangs in there, hoping that out of the most unorthodox of therapeutic settings, she’ll find some sense of peace and closure.

As the retreat goes on, and The Fog weaves it weirdly disconcerting but utterly compelling spell on you, you hear witness to what one desperate person will do to fix the past, and set herself up for a future that they suspect won’t happen if they walk away.

Kate is fresh out of choices, and so, this increasingly bizarre retreat is the only way out for her from the lingering pain and trauma of her past; if it fails, then that, most likely, is that.

What makes The Fog so brilliantly absorbing is the way that Hardwick ramps up the scares and the tension without once losing sight of the raw, bloodied & broken humanity at its heart.

No one in this story is psychologically or emotionally well, and the story ends up resting on various degrees of brokenness, and as these are exposed, with Kate experiencing more and more illuminating flashbacks, The Fog slowly but surely begins to expose just dark and twisted life can be for those lost in the trauma of secrets without a name and with seemingly no end.

The way that the layers are peeled off Kate are thoughtfully and sensitively done (by the writer, not so kuch the therapist), and while there is a sense of gothic melodrama to proceedings, the novel manages to somehow stay quite affectingly grounded, especially as the final act beckons and the temptation to go big and overwrought no doubt beckons.

The Fog, however, while it delivers the most incredible of endings, and answers a ton of questions that have been building up through its unnerving slow burn of a narrative, doesn’t lose its focus nor its sense of groundedness and so, even when all the dark truths are being laid bare, and characters exposed for who they really are – sometimes good, other times oh dear go NO bad – you still feel like here are real people grappling with all too real things in a setting that for all its gothic horror, still harbours the most basic and honest of human realities.

Key to this focus is, of course, Kate.

While she undergoes some very bleak and emotionally harrowing moments which leave her feeling like she’s going very mad indeed, and her dream of finding healing recedes well into an unreachable distance, she sticks with it somehow, the very picture of someone who has undergone severe trauma, wants to find some release from it and who will do anything to make it happen.

As she comes to understand what is true and what is not, and how vastly different what happened to her is versus what she remembers it to be, you are always left feeling, thanks to Hardwick’s beautifully empathetic and well-judged writing, as if you are sharing the journey with a very normal broken person in markedly abnormal circumstances.

It’s this anchor to very relatable, grounded humanity that keeps The Fog on an arrestingly even keel, and even as things beginning to spiral into some very nightmarish places in the brilliantly executed final act, Hardwick never lets us forget that there are real people walking amidst gothic terrors.

Atmospheric as hell (quite literally, it feels, at times) and possessed of both narrative grandeur and harrowing emotional intimacy, The Fog is a first-rate gothic thriller that delivers all the scares and the thrills and a slow-building sense of psychological horror made manifest, leaving you feeling haunted and yet released, as Kate’s finds her hopes for the future broken and shattered at the one place she thought she’d find healing, and she has to fight, and fight hard, to grasp hold of a redeemed future that matters so much to her.

⭐️⭐️⭐️
This story was an absolute roller-coaster of emotions. While I did enjoy this story i found Kate to be a bit frustrating which would pull me out of the story. Definitely I book I would still recommend though.

Ooh! This is one grippy, edge-of-your-seat psychological thriller! Packed with unexpected twists, The Fog had me hooked from the first chapter to the last and I honestly had no idea that the story would end as it did. Setting the book on remote Rathlin Island is a master stroke by author Brooke Hardwick, as the weather, the sea and the remotness all contributed to ramping up the suspense. The characters were fascinating too. It was clear from the start that Kate, the central character in this story, is facing a range of emotional issues, all of which come out along the way. Surrounding her are a cast of characters who are mostly not particularly nice. Add to this the various strange goings on around the isolated manor house where the retreat is held and you know nothing is as it seems and nobody is necessarily going to be trustworthy. I absolutely adored this story both for its characters and for its plot and I will certainly look for more books from this author.

The Fog – Brooke Hardwick
With thanks to Net Galley, Simon + Schuster Australia and the author, Brooke Hardwick, for the opportunity to read this eARC.
This debut novel from Australian author, Brooke Hardwick, is a real doozy.

Described as a ‘spine chilling, gothic thriller, we instantly meet our main character Kate who is suffering. Is it just writers block? What is happening in her marriage? She plans to attend a 10-day retreat on a remote island in Ireland to help find the answers.

A Twisted tale filled with revelations from our MC as her trauma unfolds and her memories unlock, she starts to remember what she has truly suffered at the hands of her now vanished husband Hugh. We quickly build the visuals of this small island community, the omnipresent wind, the roar of the ocean, the isolation, the menacing cliffs, and as the therapy builds, so do her memories. But what are these strange happenings that keep occurring? Kate runs into trouble and injuries, black outs and manic moments where she struggles with reality, memories and her mind. Is she seeing things?

With a cast full of intrigue and stories that are woven cleverly, there is a constant state of spinning in the readers mind, trying to grasp on to the different threads and figure out where we are headed. As much as Kate manically tries to piece back her memories and understand what it is that she has been through in the last few years, we the reader, go through the story in a similar fashion, never knowing who to trust, who to put faith in, what to believe – including our main character, Kate. The style in which this has been written, the erratic way that her memories have returned to her make for a quick devouring. Kate’s constant state of flux keeps the readers on their toes, and distracted from some of the clues on offer as to how this retreat might end.

This novel is manic, thrilling and atmospheric, a tale of trauma, memory and psychosis, and a tale of rediscovering oneself that has been interlaced with dread, menace, intrigue, and a whole lot of uncertainty. Whilst it is a slow build up to the eventual climax, the tension forged through bite sized (tantalising) character discoveries and developments makes for an obsessive page turner and subsequently, a very quick read!

Brooke Hardwick deploys every gothic trope she can in her debut The Fog. Right from the opening there is the mansion on the remote Irish Island, the taciturn, possible violent Scottish factotum, the christmatic guru, an addled heroine who can't trust her memory and has visions of blood, wild weather, cliff tops and trauma. Unfortunately, what all of this adds up to is more gothic style over literary substance with a bizarre premise and contrivances galore.
Kate has signed up for a ten day writers block therapy session on a remote Island. It turns out that Kate has been writing a book that somewhat reflects her life, her marriage and pregnancy but has found herself blocked. The small group therapy is run by Cormac who does not appear to have any real qualifications but is quite happy to put his charges in dangerous or traumatic situations to help them 'express their feelings'. Kate not only finds herself expressing her feelings but also reliving and re-evaluating her marriage to Hugh which, now that she thinks about it/remembers it properly was pretty ghastly. It is unclear why it is only now she is remembering his uber-controlling actions in a new light except maybe for... trauma? Meanwhile the other guests are wierd and spooky, dangerous things keep happening on the Island - brakes fail, blood is spilt, strange objects appear in Kate's room - all building a sense of unease and danger.
Hardwick knows all the cliches but she makes heavy going of the story, which is laboured, hard to engage with and more than a little contrived. Readers into stories set on windswept (there is alot of wind), desolate islands where creepy things happen to people who should not have been there in the forst place may enjoy this one. Others will be looking for their gothic fix elsewhere.