First of all, I would like to thank NetGalley, Samantha Vérant and Storm Publishing for giving me the opportunity to read this book before it is published. It was also my first experience reading an ARC!

About the book, I was really confused for nearly 30% of it but after some back story (I absolutely loved the chapters in the past from Liv and Kat's points of view), I began to really enjoy the story and the characters.
This book made me think of the quote 'there's always more than one side to every story' (or something like that haha) as I wasn't always sure what story to believe. Even after I finished the book, I still have some questions but overall I really enjoyed this read and was at the edge of my seat after some of the revelations and plotwists (there are MANY!).
I can't wait to read more books from Samantha Vérant!

The Writers’ Retreat is an atmospheric and twisty thriller that plays with the classic premise of isolation, ambition, and secrets in a stunning, remote location. A week-long retreat at a luxurious estate in the Catskills sounds like a dream for aspiring author Liv Montgomery — until it becomes a nightmare. When murder enters the picture and Liv finds herself literally holding the knife, the story spirals into a suspenseful exploration of motives, manipulation, and the dangerous allure of the past.

I’m always intrigued by books about authors and the creative process, and this one delivers plenty of that intrigue. The premise is compelling, and there’s no shortage of tension, twists, and secrets to unravel. The story moves at a solid pace and will likely keep fans of authors like Ruth Ware and Lucy Foley turning the pages late into the night.

That said, I personally find it difficult to fully connect with stories centered around overly privileged, extravagantly wealthy characters who seem to treat life — and other people — like a game. Whether it’s boredom, entitlement, or a toxic mix of money and ego driving them, it’s not a world I naturally gravitate toward. Still, for readers who enjoy peering into the morally murky lives of the elite, and who relish stories of beautiful settings turned sinister, this is definitely a gripping and entertaining read.

In short: twisty, sharply written, and full of secrets — a great choice for readers drawn to dark tales set among the glittering elite. 3,5 stars.

The Writers' Retreat had all the ingredients I usually enjoy in a closed-circle thriller: writers gathered in a luxurious, remote cabin with no phone signal, and a layer of Gossip Girl-style drama. The first third of the book was really promising, I was especially intrigued by the unexpected cult storyline, which added a creepy, mysterious edge.

That said, as the story progressed, I felt the tension started to fade. The atmosphere didn’t quite deliver the suspense I was hoping for, and while the characters' backgrounds were explored through flashbacks, their personalities lacked a bit of depth for me. The dynamics between them, especially the "mean girls" energy took up a lot of space and sometimes overshadowed the thriller aspect.

I still appreciated the plot twists, even if some were predictable, and I genuinely liked the premise. It wasn’t quite the intense, claustrophobic read I expected, but I’m still curious to read more from this author in the future.

Thank you to Storm Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I absolutely devoured this ARC! The Writers Retreat was such a fun, fast-paced read that kept me guessing the entire time. The tension and twists had me hooked from the very first chapter, and I loved how the story balanced suspense with just the right amount of drama and wit. The ending was perfect — satisfying without being predictable. If you’re looking for a clever, twisty thriller set against a unique backdrop, definitely add this one to your TBR! Thank you NetGalley & Storm Publishing for the opportunity!

The Writers' Retreat by Samantha Vérant is an absolute page-turner of a thriller.

The story centres on two women. Liv Montgomery, a struggling writer, who has been working in a bookstore in Brooklyn whilst writing her novel, and Kat Sterling an heiress.

Liv gets an invitation to attend a writer’s retreat at a resort in the Catskills in upstate New York. It’s a great opportunity that she has craved but is taken off guard when Kat Sterling arrives. The tension builds and so does the body count….

The story moves along from both of their different POVs. It also moves back and forth from the present to their past, where you learn more about how they met and their friendship with its power imbalance and toxicity.

Both are quite unreliable narrators, so there are so many twists and turns. I found myself flip-flopping between who I believed whilst reading.

I look forward to reading more by Samantha Vérant.

Huge thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, Storm Publishing, for the e-ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Kat, Sienna and Morgan all attend an exclusive boarding school as teenagers and get sucked in to a nearby cult. Things happen which shape and haunt the rest of their lives. When Liv- an aspiring writer- falls into their circle as a university student she seeks to make sense of their world - but is everyone who they seem? After two murders the pressure increases to unmask a killer in the group. A twisty, turny thriller with constantly moving goalposts. I enjoyed it but it also confused me in places too! Many thanks to Net Galley for the ARC.

Thank you to Netgalley and Storm Publishing for advance ebook.

Stunning views.

Solitude.

Murder.

It’s every writer’s dream. The chance to get away for a while, to carve out time and space to focus on your craft in a small group of like-minded creatives. And where better to do it than in a sprawling luxury estate in the Catskills? Surrounded by nothing but rugged mountains and wilderness, where not a soul will hear you scream…

When Liv Montgomery is invited on an exclusive, week-long writing retreat, she can’t believe her luck. But some of her fellow novice writers are better at spinning a yarn than they seem. And Liv winning a place was certainly no accident. Then the plot takes a turn towards murder, and Liv is found holding the knife…

I found that this book drew me in quickly. It was fast paced. A great beach read! 3.5 out of 5 ⭐️

This twisty mystery filled with spoiled, rich characters made for an engaging story. I kept getting visions of Mean Girls, the grownup addition, with a little more horror added to it. The creep factor was high, and mind games were the name of the game. Secrets and lies were rampant as well.

This retreat location was a little too eerie, especially as you learn the back story. There are a lot of topics covered in this story, but it flows well. It is a little bit of a slower paced book at the beginning, but it picks up steam and finishes well.

Thank you to Storm Publishing and NetGalley for this ARC. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Ever dreamed of being invited to an exclusive writing retreat to help finish up the book you've been working on? What if that dream becomes a nightmare?

Liv is a writer who receives this exclusive invitation. Excited, she arrives at the secluded location, but it's familiar - She's heard stories about this place. This place has been in the news. It has a sordid past.
And that's not all - Friends (or frenemies) from Liv's past are also in attendance and people in her life start dying.

This book is dual-POV and dual-timeline between Liv and her former friend Kat, and the present timeline at the writing retreat and the past, taking the reader through how Liv & Kat met and their complicated relationship.

Full of secrets, betrayal, deception, and murder you never know who you can trust throughout this book. Everyone is lying and deceiving one another and no one seems to have good intentions.

There was a great twist that I wasn't expecting and it was fun trying to figure out where things were going and what was true.

The books starts off with a very engaging prologue and it continues to hold the readers attention throughout the book. The writing was very coherent, and I did not have any problem comprehending what I was reading and who I was reading about. The story continued to hold my interest although there were a few plot holes and a few things that confused me but I will get to that in a bit.

In my opinion, the characters lacked depth. The rich girls were portrayed as superficial so I don’t have any qualms there but a few other characters like Morgan, Liv and Trinity needed a bit more depth to their characters. A bit more history to their names so we could understand them better. None of the main characters were fleshed out so I had a hard time understanding their thought processes and actions. The main characters’ motives and feelings were unrelatable,in fact everyone was very unrelatable. The fights between characters felt a little juvenile, their erratic behaviour was hard to understand given their little background. All the while I was thinking, wait why are they acting like this? Is this really something to get upset about? To this extent? I don’t get it?! So it was hard for me to connect with the characters. I think Liv and Morgan could have been fleshed out more, their histories could have been explored in detail so I could understand their motives. I would have loved to have read more about Tobias and his time at the Nyx but that was cut out and briefly touched, when it was a very important part of the story. The morally gray characters and the unreliable narrator trope were included in the plot which I really liked. However, because the characters were very superficial these tropes missed the mark.
I was disappointed when the cult setting was not explored because that could have been very interesting and would have made us understand our characters. A lot of things about the characters’ personalities and traumas were told to us instead of shown to us.
The relationship or more like obsession between the characters did not make sense to me. I know that there are people who obsess over other people but since the characters were not fleshed out I did not understand the allure of them. The constant fights between the characters, claiming people and relationships, the instant patch ups and teaming up just didn’t make sense because all of that was rushed.
I am curious about Tobias and the cult honestly so I would love a book about that and the time the MCs spent there. Also, we were never told how Tobias procured damning photos of the MCs.
The dialogue was very natural but the transition between fighting and patching up was so sporadic that at times it seemed a bit unnatural. One minute our MC would be talking sweetly to another character and the next she would start shouting and asking the other character to cut the crap and come to the point. There was no banter, no battle of the wits, no psychological warfare.
Aside from the issues I genuinely loved the setting of the retreat and the description of it. As a reader and someone who cannot imagine the settings in their mind I loved how simple the writer had kept the setting and how she did not go into details about the surroundings, the description was adequate enough to understand without it boring the reader.
I was hooked from the beginning till the end of the story, the writing was very easy to follow, and the overall pacing was fast. However, the final chapters were a little clumsy and rushed. The cult setting, the murders and that threesome should have been more elaborated since we never really got any explanation for them. There were some plot holes like why did Steven leave his inheritance to another character? Why did she not use it or why did she not show any interest in it even in her chapters? Who was the other woman in the threesome? The big show down at the end of the three main characters was underwhelming.
Reiterating myself here, because the characters, their motives and their actions were not explored, were not explained or shown to us in detail I felt the ending was clumsy and rushed. It felt underwhelming and I had so many questions instead of answers at the end. I had so many whys.
I did not understand why Kat was named Kis during her chats with Liv, I don’t know if it was intentional or a typo. Also I noticed one or two spelling mistakes in the book.
Finally To wrap it up, this was a very easy read, engaging and mysterious enough. However, this is where its strengths end because the weaknesses were a lot. The story had potential, great ingredients but they weren’t married right.
The characters lacked depth, which is why their actions and motives were so hard to comprehend.
This in turn led to some events not making sense and feeling underwhelming.
A lot of the things that the characters were doing were told to us, this is how they are and this is why they are the way they are and because of that they react the way that they do. This was all fed to us instead of methodically shown to us by giving details about the past, about their present and about their traumas. For example, Kat was the way that she was because she was rich and we were told rich parents are always absent and because they have money they fill their absence with presents so this was Kat’s trauma that’s it. That’s what we were told, when the author could have given us a glimpse of her past where she yearned for her parents maybe on a difficult day or a happy day but all she had were Rolexes and nannies to accompany her. That would’ve made us feel her trauma and we would have connected with her and then we could justify her actions based on these traumas. You see what I mean.
Lastly, I want to point out that while the book was engaging, it felt like a missed opportunity overall.

This one was utterly nuts! I found there were a lot of characters to keep up with and it did get a bit confusing (silly?!) at times, but on the whole, I enjoyed this one. Kat was a very scary individual and although Liv was a ‘nice’ character for most of it, she wasn’t to be crossed! It was a good whodunnit, it kept me guessing.

A slow start and underwhelming ending dulled what could’ve been a truly gripping thriller.

The Writers’ Retreat had a promising premise and some strong moments of suspense, but for me, the negatives slightly outweighed the positives. The first quarter was quite slow, leaning heavily into character history before the mystery really took off. I found it difficult to connect with the main character, which made it harder to feel fully immersed in the stakes. While the representation of mental illness among the characters was handled with care and nuance — something I really appreciated — the major plot twist was fairly easy to predict early on.



That said, the middle of the novel (from around 50–90%) was compelling and full of tension — I genuinely couldn’t put it down during that section. However, the momentum faltered again with an abrupt and unsatisfying ending. The open-ended conclusion left me feeling like something was missing, especially since my Kindle misled me into thinking there were more pages than there actually were due to an excerpt from another book.



Overall, this book had potential and some great ideas, but it didn’t quite stick the landing for me.

Thank you to NetGalley, Storm Publishing and Samantha Verant for an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Liv Montgomery is invited on an exclusive week long writing retreat, but some of her fellow novice writers are better at spinning a yarn than they seem. And Liv winning a spot was certainly no accident.

This one overall was pretty predictable for me. The characters? Rich, messy, and kind of insufferable. Our story is told between 2 POV’s - Liv, an insecure, introverted writer who gets invited to a mysterious retreat. But surprise, it’s hosted by her manipulative ex-friend Kat. Kat, ex best friend, rich heiress, who has a creepy cult past. Which leaves us to question….is the pattern repeating itself?

There’s drama, unreliable narrators, and a murder right before Liv arrives. Lots of tension, but I didn’t feel super connected to anyone. Interesting concept, but the execution didn’t totally land for me!

HOWEVER, I wasn’t sure how I felt about the ending, but after sitting with it, I’ve come to really appreciate it. It leaves things open-ended, inviting you to imagine what could happen next, and I actually love that it kept me thinking.

Overall I thought this was a good read! Just wouldn’t pick it up again for a reread.

I adore @samantha_verant twisted thriller style and so jumped at the chance to read an advance copy of The Writing Retreat. Hooked from the first page and kept entertained by red herrings, a dual POV and timeline and then a tense, twisty ending I just could not stop reading! The detailed descriptions of Nyx made me want to visit (but maybe not after the rest of the story!). The characters are well thought out and have enough depth for you to either love or loathe them and trust me you will!

"The Writer's Retreat" by Samantha Verant follows Liv, an aspiring writer invited to a luxurious and remote retreat in the Catskills. The title and cover grabbed my attention right away and the idea of a suspenseful writing retreat made me want to read more. If you're a fan of cult thrillers, the storyline might pull you in: a remote writing retreat, high-stakes tension, and a cast full of secrets. While anything "cult" is not one of my interests, I was intrigued enough to dive in.

Unfortunately, the story didn’t quite follow through. The pacing was sluggish, and I never felt truly invested in the characters or the mystery. I kept hoping for that slow-burn dread or emotional grip to take hold—but it just didn’t happen.

The final stretch does improve, with a decent twist and some satisfying closure. But for me, it was too little, too late. A strong concept with uneven execution.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Storm Publishing, and Samantha Verant for an Advanced Reader Copy.

What a fun cat and mouse book! Well written with enjoyable characters, this novel is written from multiple perspectives, making it even more fun, in my opinion. Liv’s fiance has been murdered, the same fiance she found in bed with her former best friend Kat. Liv is trying to pick up the pieces and finish her novel; she signs up for a writer’s retreat, which happens to be owned by Kat. When she informs her new flame, Mark (Kat’s former beau) he isn’t thrilled as his sister (Liv’s former friend, Sienna) is also going to be at the same retreat. Things happen at this retreat - former friends reunite, people die and secrets are unveiled. Cleverly written, this was a terrific book. I’ll be reading more by Ms. Verant! Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

The Writers' Retreat by Samantha Vérant, published by Storm Publishing, is a crime thriller.
Liv is a writer attending a writers retreat.
Before she left she was suspect in the death of an ex, and soon her past, her current boyfriend, and parts of her family show up, confusing me, I just couldn't keep up with the storyline, but the writing is ok and I was somewhat entertained, 3,5 stars.

2.5⭐️

This had such a great premise but lacked the execution to make it great. I was excited about a book about authors and the fact that the suspects are able to spin a tale to get the suspicion off of them. Unfortunately the idea was the the highlight of book for me.

I'm usually all for the trope of former friends reuniting after a crime but this one really didn't work for me. All of the characters read too similar and I continuously struggled to follow who was who. There wasn't enough of separation between the past and present POVs and that just made everything confusing. The motive for the latest killing felt so superficial and the main characters just all felt like mean girls.

Thanks Netgalley and Storm Publishing for providing this ARC to me!

This kept me up. The twists just kept coming and getting darker and darker. Really great read and an author whose i will read more of.

This book has a great premise: a woman trying to break through with her first novel gets a nibble on her manuscript and is urged to attend a writer's retreat in upstate NY. The first few pages even start with a believable setting, as our narrator finds herself working in a bookstore, waiting for her big break. But from there, the execution--and plot--seemed to go sideways for me.

This is a quick read and might be a fun beach book. For me, the events became too implausible, the characterizations were too flat, and the narrative flow was often uneven.

If you're looking for a quick escapist read, this might work for you. Unfortunately, it missed the mark for me.