Tag: Alps

‘The Sanatorium’ by Sarah Pearse

This book was published on 18th February, 2021.

The setting of this book was the thing that really drew me in to this novel – a thriller set high in the Swiss Alps, in an old sanatorium turned into a luxury hotel. Throw in a storm and avalanches that cut off the resort from the outside world and you have the perfect recipe for a tense and terrifying murder mystery.

The book centres on Elin Warner, a police officer on extended leave, who arrives at the hotel for her brother’s engagement celebrations. She has many personal struggles in her past and is estranged from her brother, Isaac, so is already uncomfortable with the idea of a family reunion when his fiancée, Laure, goes missing. As Elin starts to investigate the disappearance, the hotel gets cut off from police support and Elin finds herself thrown into a much bigger mystery than she first anticipated…

This book is certainly very tense – there were several points where I think I stopped breathing as I waited to find out what happened! The pace of the novel is well managed and kept me reading as I was keen to discover the truth, and there were plenty of twists along the way.

Pearse handles the setting of the old sanatorium very well – there is something very unnerving about a place of past suffering being turned into a luxury hotel and this is conveyed well. Elin never feels comfortable in the building and this puts the reader constantly on edge as she is faced with stark minimalism in the hotel’s furnishings, uncompromising weather conditions and eerie reminders of the past.

The relationships between the characters are also presented well. There is a real tension between Elin and Isaac which is believable, although I personally didn’t really like the repeated references to their shared past – while explaining their poor relationship, I thought this detracted a bit from the main narrative.

I’d recommend this book to anyone who likes tense and chilling mysteries. It is engaging and lively and will definitely keep you reading until you know what happened and – more importantly – why!

If you’d like a copy of this book, please use my affiliate link below – thanks for supporting my blog with any purchases.

Header photo by Marsumilae on Unsplash

Blog Tour: ‘The Chalet’ by Catherine Cooper

Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for ‘The Chalet’ by Catherine Cooper. This blog tour is organised by Random Things Tours. The book was published on 12th November, 2020 by Harper Collins.

With thanks to the blog tour host, author and publisher, as well as NetGalley, for my free review copy.

From the Publisher:

Four friends. One luxury getaway.


The perfect murder.


‘I was gripped from start to finish’ CASS GREEN


FRENCH ALPS, 1998
Two young men ski into a blizzard… but only one returns.


20 YEARS LATER
Four people connected to the missing man find themselves in that same resort.

Each has a secret.


Two may have blood on their hands. One is a killer-in-waiting. Someone knows what really happened that day.

And somebody will pay.


An exciting new debut for anyone who loves RUTH WARE, LUCY FOLEY, and C.L. TAYLOR.

My Review:

This felt like a strange book to be sitting down to at any time other than a bitter cold winter’s evening – a book set in a snowy ski resort and rooted in the treacherous conditions of a bitter blizzard!

Still, this was an engaging and pacy read that I devoured in one sitting – almost unheard of for me. It is really quite astounding that this is a debut novel from Catherine Cooper as it feels very assured.

The narrative moves between a tragedy in 1998 (when two brothers were lost in a snowstorm in the French Alps) and the modern day. Twenty years later, four friends hire a luxury chalet in the same French ski resort, but it soon becomes apparent that there are tensions under the surface and no-one is quite as they seem – and links back to the day the brothers got lost on the mountain begin to become evident.

Many of the characters are quite unpleasant, but this makes for an interesting and toxic environment and the luxury chalet soon becomes a claustrophobic nightmare.

The characters are all well developed and have their parts to play in the narrative. Ria seems to dislike her husband, Hugo, and keeps her secrets well hidden. Hugo is trying to impress an obnoxious client, Simon, and his downtrodden wife, Cass. Chalet girl, Millie, is trying to keep their holiday on track and chalet owner, Cameron, is there to promote his business. All these characters thrown together, each presenting their own stories through first person narration, make for a twisty and engrossing story as it becomes clear that someone is seeking revenge for the 1998 events.

This reads as a confidently plotted novel with plenty of twists and turns. I am genuinely surprised that it is a debut as the plot strands are so cleverly woven together and the range of narrative voices well-handled.

I’d recommend this to anyone who enjoys psychological thrillers as we do get to see the workings of the minds of various characters and what has brought them to the French Alps. As secrets are revealed and lies are told, you will want to carry on reading into the night!

About the Author:

CATHERINE COOPER is a freelance journalist writing for many national
newspapers and magazines, specialising in travel. Most recently she has
written several ski pieces for the Guardian and is currently compiling a 50
best family holidays round up for the Telegraph. She also makes regular
appearances as a talking head on daytime TV. She lives in France with her
husband and two teenage children, and is a keen skier.