I went into this book not knowing what to expect but it was so much fun. It read very quickly, building dread and tension along the way. It felt very slasher movie and I ate it up.

Thanks to Poisoned Pen Press for letting me enjoy this title early in exchange for my honest review.

If you are looking for a light slasher gore fiction, this is for you. The story is about Hannah, who is still reeling from the unexpected death of her boyfriend/fiance and was invited to go on a wellness Yoga retreat by her friends and things starts to happen there.

It's difficult for me to warmed up to the main character. I see her as a selfish, mopey and not a 'bright' person which makes it difficult for me to follow through the storyline and root for her character. Most of the characters are just superficial characters that you normally see in slasher films.
The ending was satisfying for me as the author didn't go for the unbelievable plot twist kind of ending.

A solid 2.80 for the book. Thank you to netgalley for this digital ARC.

Not the worst slasher I've read, but pretty bland nonetheless. The characters are very stereotypical and bordering on caricatures with barely anything to make them interesting; Hannah is not a very engaging main character, and she has major personality shifts throughout the story without anything in the writing justifying/explaining her perspectives; the desert setting feels underutilized; the singular Native character feels pretty tokenized and lacking the depth the story IS aiming for with her inclusion; the plot feels like it's just meandering along most of the time. The kills are vivid and really the saving grace of the story but everything around it is just... boring. There's three distinct plotlines and I don't think there's a point where any of them really merge naturally and feel cohesive; the ending wasn't that predictable, which could've been a good thing, but it's moreso because I don't feel like there was enough subtext in the story to make it make sense. Maybe this is a story that'd play out better on screen, but as a book, it's just not for me.

I love this cover. It is what drew me to this story without knowing a single thing about it. This story, about a group of friends attending a questionably moral meditative retreat, was lots of fun. It read like a horror movie, cringing at the blood bath that captured each victim. The suspects were plenty, then dwindled quickly, and while I did not guess the whodunit, the reveal left a little to be desired. I didn’t want a full blown explanation why, I wanted the reveal and already understand why. This felt a little too left field. But overall, an enjoyable and entertaining book that was fast paced. I’ll be checking out the author’s past and future work!

Come for the healing retreat, stay because you’re being hunted.

This book was a creepy, fast-paced descent into chaos and I loved it. The setup lures you in with promises of yoga, sound baths, and spiritual healing in the desert, but it quickly flips into a bloody, anxiety-inducing survival story. Hannah is a layered protagonist with a haunting past, and watching her unravel while trying to stay alive had me turning pages late into the night.

It’s Midsommar meets Scream with a dash of Nine Perfect Strangers. Eerie, atmospheric, and just unhinged enough to make you side-eye every character. There are some deeper themes about grief, guilt, and the illusion of healing, but they don’t overpower the pure horror fun.

Tropes:
🔪 Remote wellness retreat
🧘‍♀️ Yoga, hot springs, and suspicious serenity
👻 Past trauma that won’t stay buried
💀 Final girl energy
🌵 Desert isolation
🧠 Mental unraveling
👀 Cult-like guru vibes

Content Warnings (Spoiler-Free):
• Graphic violence
• Mental health struggles
• Trauma/grief
• Cult-like themes
• Substance use

This was a new to me author and this book could easily translate to the screen. It is reminiscent of horror movies like Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer and so many other summer movies. The author did a good job of keeping me in the dark until the final chapters and the flow of the book was very good.
The book center around Hannah, an unreliable character who suffered a traumatic event. In the hopes of helping, her friends convene at a retreat promising new age awakening. What follow is a rash of gorgy events by an unknown assailant.
If you know me, you know I cannot watch horror movies but I can definately read it.

Thank you to #CampNetGalley, the author and publishers for providing me with a free copy of this book to read and review. All opinions are my own and #freelygiven. Read at your own risk.

This was a decent slasher, but I unfortunately didn’t love it. I felt like the action took too long to really get going and I always hate when the killer is a character briefly mentioned. I feel cheated. The end of the book also felt a little rushed to me and I still have no idea how Tess is even alive after a stabbing and a gun shot. Overall, this one wasn’t my favorite.

4.5 stars!!

This is my first "slasher" book. I'm not even one for horror movies but thought I would give this a try. I absolutely loved it! I was horrified and kept having to take breaks after each death. Call me Hannah because I felt like I was going crazy. The entire time I was hypothesizing who it could be and what was going on and never once was I right. Highly recommend if you want to try out this genre!!

'Breathe In, Bleed Out' was my first dip into the slasher genre, and it turned out to be a great place to start. The book does a brilliant job of building tension, keeping a steady sense of unease right through to the end. Every time I thought I had things figured out, another twist came along and completely threw me, so I was guessing the whole way through.

What really impressed me was how the story explored the main character’s trauma and mental health. It felt honest and raw, adding real depth to the horror and making the whole experience more impactful. McAuley strikes a nice balance between suspense and emotion, which made it stand out from what I expected in a slasher. If you're new to the genre like I was, this is a solid and gripping read to start with.

I love me some good slasher books

Also—the cover? STUNNING. So eerie and eye-catching, it sets the tone perfectly.

Hannah thought she left the past in the wilderness after suffering a near death experience when she returned from her trip without her fiancé Ben, no one knows exactly what happened to him and Hannah intend to keep it that way. However, he didn’t stay buried and neither did the truth. After being invited to a remote healing retreat, Hannah thinks this is what she needed to finally heal, but in the eerie silence of Joshua Tree, what was suppose to be a “healing retreat” becomes a blood soaked nightmare. One by one, her friends are being picked off by a masked killer and Hannah can’t outrun the ghosts of her past or the killer..

I’ve been looking to read some summer slashers lately and thanks to Camp NetGalley I got the opportunity to read this advanced copy of Breathe In, Bleed Out! First of all, I enjoyed this book and it was well written. I also enjoyed reading the kills through the killers POV which was definitely interesting and something I have yet to come across when reading slashers or any thrillers in general. I will say that they aren’t too graphic but they’re descriptive enough where you can visualize just exactly how it happened which left me thinking “ouch” for some and slightly disturbed. I would say it’s the White Lotus meets Leatherface to better describe this story. I definitely didn’t know who the killer was and I thought I was in for a surprise but then it twisted again however finding out who it was definitely left me jaw dropped, however, I also would’ve enjoyed if it went another direction as well.

This book releases September 2, 2025 so just in time for Halloween season! Thank you Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley for this ARC!

Definitely a must-read for slasher fans. this book covers it all, freaky guru, self-help retreat, yoga and chakras. and of curse gruesome deaths.
The writing is not bad either.

5⭐

This was the perfect Summerween read. I loved it so much and didn't want to put it down!

Breathe In, Bleed Out (an incredible title by the way) follows Hannah, a Junior Doctor struggling with the loss of her fiancé on an icy climbing trip. Supported by medication and her therapist, she tries to work through her trauma and stop images of her late fiancé from haunting her. After getting suspended from work due to her mental health, her best friend, Tess, invites her on a wellbeing retreat that gave luxury, influencer summer camp vibes. This exclusive, tech-free retreat is held in the middle of the desert and promises to help her find peace with both spirits and herself. What follows is a blood soaked, twisty and gripping story as a murderer is on a rampage and the real nature of the retreat is revealed.

I was honestly gripped by this and was annoyed every time I had to put it down. Hannah was a really believable character and it was great to see mental health rep in a horror. Her MH was a great lens to see the story through as you didn't know if what she was seeing was real or in her imagination, adding to the fear. In fact, all the characters were great whether they were there to annoy you, make you chuckle or weird you out. The book was just long enough to allow you to get attached to a character which made some of the deaths heartbreaking as well as gruesome.

I thought I had the murderer guessed very quickly but wow was I wrong!

The literal only complaint I have is that the story of her fiancé deaths was quite bigged up but I found it a bit disappointing. Especially as it was nestled in between some really clever, gory murders.

However, I would highly recommend this book to every horror, slasher or Summerween fan out there!

Finally, the STUNNING cover needs a shout out. I honestly want it in a frame on my wall!

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for this bloody good E-ARC to read for Camp NetGalley!

⛏️🩸🧘🏻‍♀️

This is a solid summer slasher. The horror elements were well done and some good humor throughout. I didn’t find it very original and found the characters annoying (pretty stereotypical) but it kept me turning the page and had some interesting twists at the end. I would recommend those into slasher and just want a fun read.

Breathe In, Bleed Out successfully achieves the "keeping you on your toes" feeling as I cuddled up with blankets in bed flipping the pages. I read this in less than 24 hours and enjoyed the ride. The writing style was very simple and easy to follow which makes this title a great palate cleanser in between reads. The ending twist wasn't what I was expecting and I would recommend this title to other horror loving readers.

Thank you to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Breathe In, Bleed Out had me hooked from page one and didn’t let go until the very end. It’s a razor-sharp slasher with a beating heart; equal parts chilling, clever, and wildly addictive. I flew through it like I was being chased through the pages, constantly second-guessing myself about who the killer could be. Every time I thought I had it figured out? Plot twist.

What really sets this one apart is how much love and genre-savvy the author clearly poured into it. You can tell they get slashers, not just the blood and tension, but the rhythm, the red herrings, the character beats. It’s an homage without ever feeling derivative, and it hits all the right notes: suspenseful, stylish, and just plain fun (in that stabby, scream-y kind of way).

If you’re a fan of thrillers that keep you on your toes, with just enough heart to make you care and just enough horror to make you flinch, Breathe In, Bleed Out is 100% worth the read. Just maybe don’t read it alone at night.

I love a good slasher book or movie, so this was really fun. I picked up this book because NetGalley was doing a fun summer reading promo and it was on the list. It wasn't hard to choose this title in comparison to the others that were offered. Not that they looked bad, but I really like horror and spooky stuff so it was a no-brainer. Here's the what's what. Hannah is having a really hard time after the death of her fiance, Ben. His death occured while they were hiking together in an extreme climate with primitive camping supplies. The opening scene is her excruciating attempt to drag his body out of the forest and it's a scene that she relives in her dreams pretty often. She seeing a therapist and he's giving her meds that she's abusing a bit because they help her sleep and not have nightmares. This whole thing has messed her up so bad that she sometimes sees him while she's working or doing everyday tasks. She thinks she's losing her mind. Anyway, things go badly when she accidentally overdoses a patient at the hospital because she's too high to realize what she's done and gets sent home on leave to figure out her life. That's when her best friend, Tess steps in and tells her about an exclusive and reclusive resort where her and some friends can learn betterment under the watchful eye of Guru Pax. Hannah decided to go even though the crunchy process of yoga, sound baths, meditation and hot springs make her clinical mind feel uncomfortable. But once she gets there, she dumps her meds and starts to think that it might be working.That's when her friends start disappearing and she sees the cannibal miner that is legend in that area for his perverse bloodthirstiness. Is he real or a figment of her overactive imagination? What's happening to everyone? I enjoyed the dynamic between the characters but realize that I didn't love, or even like, any of them. I think that author did a good job describing the flawed relationships and unraveling of a person overwhelmed with trauma. Well written and fun. The ending was delightful.

Brian McAuley is clearly a fan of the slasher genre, a corner of horrordom he has paid much homage to with his growing body of work, as evidenced by Curse of the Reaper, two Candy Cain Kills books, and his latest, the wonderfully titled wellness retreat chiller Breathe In, Bleed Out. However, one of the more challenging aspects of crafting an homage story is that it can remind readers how much better the subject being paid homage to was originally. Tread too closely and the homage simply becomes derivative, sacrificing its own uniqueness and surprises while adding little to the growing canon those works inhabit.

Rather than carving out his own identity within the slasher genre, McAuley is more comfortable aping what’s come before, producing fair to middling books that earnestly wear their inspirations on their freshly laundered Fright-Rags sleeves, while contributing little that’s truly new or memorable, save for their flights of logic. Take, for instance, the overly sappy and saccharine unearned ending of Candy Cain Kills Again, which offered one of the most forced, craven, and disingenuous happy endings in recent memory by demanding that both its characters and its readers forget literally everything that occurred prior.

In Breathe In, Bleed Out McAuley turns his eye toward the wellness industry and influencer culture, with a few jabs at cultural appropriation, but does little to really explore these topics with any kind of depth beyond “It’s bad, m’kay?” He saves much of the messaging for what he intends his work to say for the book’s long, explanatory afterword rather than illustrating these ideas throughout the body of the story, playing it safe lest he offends those seeking spiritual enlightenment at secluded hippie cult communes or the sycophants who run them.

Our Final Girl this time around is Hannah, a medical intern forced into taking a leave of absence after getting high on the job and nearly killing a patient. She’s turned to therapy to get drugs to help her cope with the death of her fiancé. In an effort to help her heal, her best friend Tess has booked them and their friends for a weekend retreat at a secluded and highly secretive wellness resort. They’ll live in yurts, do yoga, meditate, commune with nature, and get high spiritually instead. Of course, the site of this secret desert commune just so happens to be a stone’s throw from where an old, gold-digging outlaw died centuries ago and has become the subject of a local urban legend and tourist trap for the nearest outlying town. It’s not long after arriving at camp that this merry band of yogateers come under assault by a lone figure clad in mining gear, a pickaxe wielding slasher icon to be in the vein of My Blood Valentine by way of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre by way of Scream with a dash of Josh Winning’s Heads Will Roll and a dozen other been there, done that derivations.

Hannah is a complete wreck of a character, and I mean this positively. She’s a mess. Psychologically scarred by intense trauma, she pops pills like they’re Tic Tacs and regularly hallucinates being stalked by her dead lover. She’s a complicated and complex character, with enough self-awareness that one can’t help rallying behind her when the chips are down and everyone seems intent on turning against her. She’s easily the best, brightest, and strongest aspect of Breathe In, Bleed Out.

Unfortunately, Hannah is stuck in a slight, lightweight narrative that does little to stand out in such a crowded genre as the horror slasher and spends so much of its page count reminding you of all those other slashers McAuley gleefully cribs from. While it’s not inherently a bad thing, Breathe In, Bleed Out, and much of McAuley’s growing bibliography, feels more like fanfiction than something original. There’s no freshness to his ideas, and even less in his messaging. Although the desert wellness retreat setting provides the opportunity for some neat kill scenes, like death by sauna and a violent yoga mat murder, McAuley never risks rising above or beyond those moments. He nods passingly at the dangers of our capitalism-driven, Instagram influencer-sponsored wellness industry, but doesn’t have anything deep, meaningful, or even new to say about it. He can point a weak finger at the subject, but he never mines deeply enough to really interrogate it in a meaningful way. Ditto mental health treatment, although here McAuley paints with too wide a brush, treating legitimate forms, like counseling, with too much cynicism and false equivocations.

Like so much of the influencer dominated fitness trends, Breathe In, Bleed Out deals in superficiality. It might appear sexy at first blush, flexing hard under the right lighting to show off toned curves and sleek definition, but it’s never truly provocative despite being so scantily clad. It’s a book built by and for online buzzwords, hashtags, and marketing trends, and the last thing McAuley wants is for his readers to be challenged or forced into thinking about something that might make them uncomfortable or squeamish outside the gory bits.

Thank you NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for approving this arc!

Brian McAuley strikes (literally!) again. Breathe In, Bleed Out is the ultimate slasher. After an unfortunate trip that ends with the death of her boyfriend, Hannah goes on a spiritual retreat with friends from college. In true slasher fashion, shit starts going down, leaving Hannah to determine if she is going crazy or if someone is out there trying to kill her.

For fans of Scream and My Bloody Valentine!

If you enjoy films like Scream, you’ll enjoy this book. It tells the story of Hannah, who is dealing with the loss of her fiancé and goes on a retreat with a group of her friends in an effort to find peace with the trauma.
Only the ghost of an old miner shows up and people start dying. Throw in a handful of inter-friendship drama and you’re in for a real treat trying to figure out who the real killer(s?) is.