THE ICE RETREAT
RUTH KELLY
*****
HEALER?
Meet Hollie Jenson, presenter of the smash-hit docu-series Bad Medicine, which exposes the perils of extreme therapies. Her next target: a new retreat run by wellness guru Ariel Rose, who claims to have discovered the secret to healing pain through her three-day ice rebirth treatment.
LIAR?
Acting on a mother's plea to find her son, who vanished soon after his stay, Hollie ventures into the Swiss mountains where the retreat occupies a former observatory. There she will search for the boy, and hopes to expose Ariel as the charlatan she believes her to be.
KILLER?
As the isolation of the valley sets in, Hollie finds herself in an increasingly dangerous situation. There is much more to the retreat than meets the eye, and she must confront explosive secrets from her own past if she is to ever make it out alive . . .
MY REVIEW
*****
I really enjoyed Ruth Kelly’s The Escape, so I was excited to read another standalone thriller from her – The Ice Retreat.
Hollie Jenson is on a mission to prove that wellness guru Ariel Rose is doing more harm than good with her ice rebirth treatments. When she is invited to visit them to see the treatments for herself, she jumps at the chance – but what is really going on at the remote centre?
I really enjoy thrillers that centre on the wellness industry so requesting this book was a no brainer for me. The opening chapter completely gripped me, and wellness patient Florence’s point of view is interspersed throughout the book, along with flashbacks to really keep the tension and stakes sky-high.
Hollie is an interesting character - she is certainly flawed and makes some really questionable decisions – you get the feeling of an unreliable narrator from her throughout. She keeps some of her backstory really close to her chest, but despite this, you believe that what she is trying to uncover is important and so you are fully on her side.
I enjoyed the chapters set at the wellness centre - the isolated retreat in the middle of the Swiss Mountains out of season makes for a claustrophobic and locked-room style of thriller. I wish there had been slightly more of the exploration of the retreat before the reveal of what was actually going on though. The reveal itself kind of came out of nowhere and almost went into sci-fi territory - I think I still have some unanswered questions about what was going on, but the pace really ramped up, so I think as readers we were just swept along at breakneck speed. The ending is very action packed and I did not see some of the twists and turns coming.
Overall, The Ice Retreat is a gripping thriller that I finished in two sittings – perfect for those dark and wintery nights. Thank you to NetGalley & Pan Macmillan for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
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