#BlogTour #TheRetreat by Mark Edwards @MrEdwards @MidasPR @AmazonPub #Thriller #SleepStealer

The Retreat by Mark Edwards is one of the most intense books I’ve read for a while! It’s my stop on the blog tour today and I’m delighted to share my review with you.

Dark, creepy, and mysterious, it has everything you want from a thriller and my God it will have you on the edge of your seats!

Here’s the blurb …

Thomas & Mercer (10 May 2018)

A missing child. A desperate mother. And a house full of secrets.

Two years ago, Julia lost her family in a tragic accident. Her husband drowned trying to save their daughter, Lily, in the river near their rural home. But the little girl’s body was never found—and Julia believes Lily is somehow still alive.

Alone and broke, Julia opens her house as a writers’ retreat. One of the first guests is Lucas, a horror novelist, who becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to Lily. But within days of his arrival, the peace of the retreat is shattered by a series of eerie events.

When Lucas’s investigation leads him and Julia into the woods, they discover a dark secret—a secret that someone will do anything to protect…

What really happened that day by the river? Why was Lily never found? And who, or what, is haunting the retreat?

From the bestselling author of Follow You Home and The Magpies comes his most terrifying novel yet.

My thoughts …

Lucas is an author with writer’s block so he heads to a new writing retreat in his childhood home deep in the Welsh countryside.

The book that shot him to fame was all about a monster who stole children, so when he discovers that the owner of the retreat has a missing-presumed-dead daughter, Lily, he thinks he can help her get to the bottom of what happened.

As spooky things start to happen to the other guests at the retreat, Lucas is certain that owner, Julia, is hiding something. Then his suspicions turn to the other guests and the locals.

He has to face a past he knew nothing about and a future that is no longer what he thought it would be.

OMFG!

What a bloody book!

I was immediately sucked in to the story of Lily’s disappearance and the spooky goings on at her mum’s new writer’s retreat.

Full of atmospheric folklore and mythical tales of witches and sacrifices, The Retreat is one of the most thrilling books I’ve read this year and is right up there in my top five.

Edwards brings to the pages a captivating tale of historic secrets and fear, his writing is slick and intelligent and had me hooked from the start.

This is one you need to add to your TBR pile NOW!

Hugest thanks to the author and publishers for my spot on the tour. Make sure you keep up with the rest of it:

About the author …

Mark Edwards writes psychological thrillers in which terrifying things happen to ordinary people. Mark’s first solo novel, The Magpies (2013), reached the No.1 spot on the Amazon UK Kindle bestseller list, as did his third novel Because She Loves Me (2014), and Follow Me Home (2015). His previous novels, The Devil’s Work (2016) and The Lucky Ones (2017) were also published to great critical acclaim and commercial success. He has also co-written various crime novels with Louise Voss such as Killing Cupid (2011) and The Blissfully Dead (2015). His titles with Amazon Publishing have reached over a million readers.

Mark grew up on the south coast of England and started writing in his twenties while working in a number of dead-end jobs. He lived in Tokyo for a year, and is a great admirer of Japanese writers and horror films. Mark lives near Wolverhamtpon, England, with his wife, their three children and a ginger cat. The Retreat was strongly inspired by local folklore and urban myths from Mark’s childhood and by his daughter Poppy. When walking their dog in the woods, Poppy told Mark a story about her friends arguing about whether a local legend was true or not. Poppy and Mark would brainstorm ideas for the book on their daily walks, and Mark now credits her as his co-writer and a budding author herself. www.markedwardsauthor.com