I release myself from the shackles of the outside world and embrace the wilderness within.

As Bella drops her son off at university, she’s devastated. It’s been the two of them ever since Asher was born. The only thing helping her through is the upcoming week-long wilderness retreat in Sweden. It’ll be her chance to reconnect and recharge.

At the retreat, Bella basks in the beauty of the modern lodge, with its luxury rooms and picture-perfect views, the glistening lake and lush forest. For the full detox effect, everyone must surrender their phones.

The holiday seems idyllic until the person who ruined Bella’s life years ago arrives, threatening everything she’s worked hard for and will do anything to protect. Suddenly, a terrified Bella is trapped in the wild, knowing someone wants her dead…

My Review

If anyone ‘buys’ you a retreat in the middle of nowhere ‘to release yourself from the shackles of the outside world and embrace the wilderness within’, be very wary. Especially if it’s in a place called Dead Man’s Wood in an isolated location in Sweden (or anywhere else for that matter). And there’s a storm. And you are cut off from civilisation by fallen trees. And some of the others are self-obsessed twats. And someone is trying to kill you.

Single mum Bella’s son Asher has just gone off to university, after spending his whole life with just her. She is devastated to the point of overkill. Maybe it’s her creativity as a composer (she just composed the score for a film about a serial killer), that gives her an overactive imagination and I thought I was overprotective! The retreat is a gift from her sister in the hope that it will give her something else to focus on.

At the airport she is ‘accosted’ by fellow ‘retreatee’ (inmate? Victim?) Oscar Wildman (with a name like that I was bound to be an author – yes Oscar we get it), and soon meets the others on the journey. Krista is an older lady with a sad past, Hamar is half-Swedish and likes practical jokes (eg pushing people into freezing cold water without even checking whether they can swim, ha ha not), T is whatever, and Lena is a journalist who is reporting on her stay. They are met by the owners Stuart and Marie. The only staff are Saga and Rosel, who cook and clean.

It’s not long before things start to get weird and Bella begins to feel creeped out, assuming it’s all about her. To make it worse, everyone has to hand in their phones so they can truly experience the full detox. Then to add insult to injury, the guest speaker turns out to be someone from her past. Someone she had wanted to forget and never see again. And he has his wife with him. Even worse.

I so enjoyed this book. The characters are well-drawn and entertaining. Bella is annoying and I often struggled to sympathise, but I warmed to her in the end. I got the perpetrator totally wrong for most of the story, though I did get something else right – no spoilers. My fellow ‘pigeons’ and I had great fun trying to work out who was doing what, so buddy-reading with an online book club is highly recommended.

Many thanks to The Pigeonhole, the author, and my fellow Pigeons for making this such an enjoyable read.

About the Author

Jennifer Moore is a freelance writer, novelist and children’s author. She was the first UK winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and was previously shortlisted for the Greenhouse Funny Prize. Her short fiction and poetry have appeared in numerous publications on both sides of the Atlantic, including in the Guardian, Mslexia, The First Line, Fiction Desk and Short Fiction.