The Sanatorium: A Novel By Sarah Pearse
REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK. A New York Times bestseller! An eerie, atmospheric novel that had me completely on the edge of my seat. Reese Witherspoon. This spine-tingling, atmospheric thriller has it all and twists you'll never see coming. Richard Osman, New York Times bestselling author of The Thursday Murder Club Sarah Pearse's next book, The Retreat, is forthcoming. You won't want to leave. . . until you can't. Half-hidden by forest and overshadowed by threatening peaks, Le Sommet has always been a sinister place. Long plagued by troubling rumors, the former abandoned sanatorium has since been renovated into a five-star minimalist hotel. An imposing, isolated getaway spot high up in the Swiss Alps is the last place Elin Warner wants to be. But Elin's taken time off from her job as a detective, so when her estranged brother, Isaac and his fiancée, Laure, invite her to celebrate their engagement at the hotel, Elin really has no reason not to accept. Arriving in the midst of a threatening storm, Elin immediately feels on edge-there's something about the hotel that makes her nervous. And when they wake the following morning to discover Laure is missing, Elin must trust her instincts if they hope to find her.
- Author - Sarah Pearse
- Publisher - Penguin Publishing Group
- Publication date - 01-11-2022
- Page count - 416
- Hardcover
- Adult
- Mystery & Thriller
- Dimensions - 5.4 H x 8.3 W x 1 D
- ISBN-13 - 9780593296691
Web ID: 13393486
Don't listen to the negative reviews!!!
For an authors first novel, the main character was well developed and carried very well into the second novel. Others have said that the character development was unnecessary...really? The story was hard to follow and took all the way until the end to figure out who the killer was? Seriously...I love reading a mystery novel and figuring it out within the first few pages. Recommend to others, ABSOLUTELY!!! I'm a huge Patricia Cornwell fan and this one was right up my alley. Already read the 2nd novel from this author and can't wait to get my hands on the newest one!!!
Recommends this product
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Listen to the reviews
Grabbed this book hoping for a good mystery/whodunnit read but I wish I had thoroughly read the reviews first. The story was kind of hard to follow in the beginning and the first couple of chapters felt unnecessary. Hearing of constant memory flashbacks that don’t really relate to the story made it hard to follow at times. The ending wasn’t something the reader could have guessed, it felt thrown together towards the end last minute.
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Listen to the negative reviews.
Yes, I decided that I ultimately liked the book, but I wouldn't recommend it to others. It really would have benefitted from (more?) developmental editing at every stage. As the other reviewers have said: 1. The hero's flashbacks and questions from her sibling's childhood death could have reduced or removed entirely. 2. The ultimate motives behind the disappearances/murders weren't something that the reader could have guessed or figured out. 3. The inclusion of the (new?) villain in the epilogue was unnecessary. And beyond all of that: At the start of the story, we're told that the hero, Detective Sergeant Elin, is on leave from her job, and wouldn't have jurisdiction, anyway. Which is arguably okay. However, she repeatedly makes decisions and takes risks that a professional/competent detective wouldn't make. It kept pulling me out of the story.
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Great Read
Overall, this book brought twists and turns in almost every chapter. As a reader, you can feel the claustrophobia as the setting is one built around isolation. This was a great debut novel and I am looking forward to the next one!
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Full of twists to the very end.....
My normal genre of choice would not have led me to The Sanatorium but I read the book in such a short time - the twists had me so frustrated. Every time I thought I figured it out there was a new twist. And the very end has me sooooo stumped. I've gone back and read it three times. It's good!
Recommends this product
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Page-turner
Who wouldn't want the novel experience of staying in a luxury hotel that was once used as a sanatorium for tuberculosis patients? Developer Lucas Caron has high expectations for his Swiss resort and has spared no expense renovating the abandoned property. When Elin and her boyfriend Will arrive at the isolated property she immediately feels something is off at Le Sommet or could it be meeting up with her estranged brother and his new fiancée Laure to celebrate their engagement that has her anxious? When they awake the next morning and discover Laure to be missing, it sets off alarm bells for Elin, a detective on leave, and she starts her own investigation. As a devastating storm beats down on the hotel and help from the police is not coming, Elin is their only hope to uncover the mystery surrounding Le Sommet and calm guests' fears. Elin feels back in her element until they discover a body and now it's a race against time and the elements. I love a good page-turner that leaves the answers just past your fingertips though at times I found this to be repetitive and slightly confusing. I wasn't aware that "The Sanatorium" was the start of a series featuring Elin so now I will have to add "The Retreat" to my TBR list.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
OMG the pronoun problem.
Don’t use “they” as the pronoun when you’re referring to a singular killer, regardless of the gender. “They” is a plural pronoun…and this killer, I assume, is a singular entity. You’re supposed to be a writer, Sarah. It’s a basic rule. Even in today’s pronoun-challenged society.
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
3.5 stars
When I first saw the blurb for this one, it sounded right up my alley. But the average rating was (and still is) lower than what I prefer to read (so many books, so little time and all that). It kept popping up in different places, most recently in a book club at work, so I figured it was meant to be read. I picked it up at the library and finished it in a couple of days! It was definitely up my alley and I enjoyed it. If you liked Ruth Ware's One by One you'll probably like this one too - it was a trapped room type of murder mystery in a snowy mountain chalet. The only disappointing bit was the killer's motive. Some bad stuff happened to them, but it didn't seem plausible to me that it would cause them to do all the things they ended up doing throughout the book. I see it's become a series with the main character, but I'm again hesitant to pick up part two since this was only a 3.5 for me.
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com