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Publisher’s Summary

A young author is invited to an exclusive writer’s retreat that soon descends into a pulse-pounding nightmare…

Alex has all but given up on her dreams of becoming a published author when she receives a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: attend an exclusive, month-long writing retreat at the estate of feminist horror writer Roza Vallo. Even the knowledge that Wren, her former best friend and current rival, is attending doesn’t dampen her excitement.

But when the attendees arrive, Roza drops a bombshell—they must all complete an entire novel from scratch during the next month, and the author of the best one will receive a life-changing seven-figure publishing deal. Determined to win this seemingly impossible contest, Alex buckles down and tries to ignore the strange happenings at the estate, including Roza’s erratic behavior, Wren’s cruel mind games, and the alleged haunting of the mansion itself. But when one of the writers vanishes during a snowstorm, Alex realizes that something very sinister is afoot. With the clock running out, she must discover the truth—or suffer the same fate.

What I Loved

The setting of this book was so promising and I was really excited for a campy, locked-room mystery set in a haunted Victorian mansion. The characters included a feminist horror-writing icon, a group of young writers, and the standard “loyal retainers” in Roza’s household staff. The location was a massive Victorian mansion set in upstate New York, miles and miles from any other homes, in February, with a blizzard coming. A PERFECT modern Gothic set up. But unfortunately, it just didn’t provide the payoff I was looking for.

What I Didn’t

I really can enjoy a campy genre book, but this one just didn’t do it for me. The pacing was all over the place and started off soooo slow. Then about the halfway mark it goes from 0-100 in a very strange twist. There is so much build up about the relationship between Alex and Wren, and many allusions to a bloody altercation that had happened between them, but the reveal was a let down. These characters are women in their late 20s (Alex is worried that at 30 she is too old for the retreat) but the reveal of their falling out seemed more appropriate for high school or college-aged mean girls.

The characters fell flat for me, especially the antagonists. Their motivations and subsequent actions were not believable and very one-dimensional. The attempted “book within a book” device was clunky but had some promise. I wish there had been either more of it or none of it; the ratio of it was off to me. Arguably, the most interesting plot point that revolved around the potential haunting of the home by its previous residents was brought up once in a really interesting way and then pretty quickly dropped. Overall, this book just did not do it for me.

Last Words

The set up of this novel seemed like the perfect winter modern Gothic, but the novel just didn’t live up to it’s premise for me.