The Writing Retreat – Julia Bartz

A book deal to die for.

Five attendees are selected for a month-long writing retreat at the remote estate of Roza Vallo, the controversial high priestess of feminist horror. Alex, a struggling writer, is thrilled.

Upon arrival, they discover they must complete an entire novel from scratch, and the best one will receive a seven-figure publishing deal. Alex’s long-extinguished dream now seems within reach.

But then the women begin to die.

Trapped, terrified yet still desperately writing, it is clear there is more than a publishing deal at stake at Blackbriar Estate. Alex must confront her own demons – and finish her novel – to save herself.

 

The premise, as with many books, always make the book sound amazing, but, sadly, in reality it turns out to be not so great.

Here are my issues with this ridiculous novel.

1 – The female lead, Alex, is a pathetic drunk, and I hate female drunks in books. It turns me off a book, it turns me off a character, and makes me want to punch them in the head.

2 – Chapter six we had pronoun garbage. I don’t give a fuck about your bullshit pronouns, just whether you behave like a decent human being.

3 – Alex was a pathetic drunken bitch.

4 – Alex found a door and a camera. She then went to bed and told no one. Why would you not go and get the others to try and get into the room?

5 – I felt like slapping Alex and telling her to snap the fuck out of it, like Cher did to Nicholas Cage in Moonstruck.

Overall, the story was a very slow start. I didn’t need to know about Alex’s mental issues when it came to her ex-best friend. I didn’t need to know about her possibly being a lesbian, I didn’t need to know about the drug use happening against their will, or the sex that happened under LSD that none of them had any idea about. Just…gross.

I personally think adding in sex scenes ruins a perfectly good action/adventure/mystery show, movie or book, and I just want to see action, and the mystery unfold and then solved. I don’t need to read about people getting high and fucking.

And then the end came and the stupid bullshit happened. I won’t ruin it for those who haven’t read it, but fucking hell, what Roza was up to and what the girls did and didn’t do. They didn’t fight, they didn’t stand up for themselves, and unfortunately, that’s what happens when you’re emotionally weak, and an alcoholic who can’t think straight. I wanted to smack the crap out of most of the cast which ruined a perfectly good concept. It became ridiculously outrageous.

I’ll give it 4/10 and that’s generous.

There are plenty of novels about authors going to writer retreats, and they all seem to have the same concept. I know it’s the locked room trope, probably made most famous by Agatha Christie, And Then There Were None, Murder On The Orient Express, etc, but these writer retreat novels are getting boring and I’ve only read one.

 

The Fiction Writer – Jillian Cantor

Last night I dreamt I went to Malibu again…

Once-rising literary star Olivia Fitzgerald is in a downward spiral. After her second novel, a retelling of Rebecca, fails, her third novel can’t find a publisher. And Olivia’s boyfriend breaking up with her hasn’t helped her creativity much either. Broke, newly single and struggling to write another book, she jumps at the chance for a high-paying ghostwriting job when her agent calls with the opportunity.

It almost seems too good to be true: all she has to do is spend a few weeks in Malibu interviewing Henry ‘Ash’ Asherwood, a recently widowed billionaire recluse, who wants her to write a book about a stunning family secret involving his grandmother and Daphne du Maurier.

But when she arrives at his Malibu estate, nothing is what it seems. For one thing, Ash is strangely reluctant to truly share his family secrets with Olivia, and she keeps catching him in lies. For another, he seems more interested in her than their writing project. (Though is that really such a bad thing?) And when she discovers a more recent secret, Olivia finds herself caught up in a gothic mystery of her own.

 

Much better than The Writing Retreat, but still contained a muddle-headed woman which turned me off.

I’m of the same opinion as Jackie Collins. I want to read about strong women standing up for themselves, who kick-ass and don’t get their ass kicked. Not women I want to punch in the head by chapter three.

A far better concept than the previous book, this kept me entertained from start to finish. But, as it turns out, it wasn’t about his grandmother at all. Some twists and turns pile up and it gets a little confusing at times, once you know that Ash’s deceased wife, Angelica, may not be dead, may be writing a book, but that book could have also been written by his grandmother, and then Angelica isn’t really Angelica, and her cousins are in the mix…yeah, it gets a little confusing.

Olivia, the muddle-headed woman I wanted to punch in the head, is reasonably stupid. In one scene, she doesn’t yet know she’s been drugged, Ash comes into her room at night, goes and gets her some pills, she tries to swallow and drink some water but does one of them turn a fucking light on? No. Yet they keep saying they couldn’t see. So, turn the fucking light on!

There was constant mention of Ash being People’s twice-named Sexiest Man Alive. And I mean constant mention. Through the whole book. Even at the end when he was voted for a third time.

Just stop. It got really fucking boring really fucking quickly.

She also kept mentioning “author brain”, as in, we authors overthink things happening in real life and always see a mystery in everything because, you know, we do as authors. Oh, fuck right off. If she had bothered listening to that fucking author brain, she wouldn’t have got into the mess she did. Stupid bitch.

There were red flags everywhere, but did she take notice? No. Thought she knew better, got herself into a couple of issues, even though she got out of them, it could have ended up worse.

God, women, always ignoring the red flags that men fly around them. Why? Probably because we were raised to accept all and be kind, and nice, and polite, and say nothing against our man. Fuck that shit. Women need to wake up.

No wonder I prefer to read about strong women kicking ass and not getting their ass kicked.

I’ll give it 7/10 for a great concept, but it was a little confusing towards the end trying to keep up with everyone and who was alive and who wasn’t, and because Olivia needed a 2×4 upside the head, and the bad guys didn’t lose, even though they didn’t win.

 

Horror Hotel – Victoria Fulton and Faith McClaren

Enjoy your stay…

When the YouTube-famous Ghost Gang – Chrissy, Chase, Emma, and Kiki – visit a haunted L.A. hotel notorious for tragedy to secretly film after dark, they expect it to be just like their previous paranormal huntings. Spooky enough to attract subscribers-and ultimately harmless.

But when they stumble upon something unexpected in the former room of a gruesome serial killer, they quickly realize that they’re in over their heads.

Sometimes, it’s the dead who need our help – and the living we should fear.

 

Great concept for kids who love spooky hauntings, and paranormal horror.

Chrissy, a teenage girl who can see and feel ghosts, is found by Chase, who loves all things paranormal. They hook up with some friends to create a web series on their YouTube channel. They give Chrissy a new name, Ghost Girl, and she goes around doing readings for people.

Then they change the name to The Ghost Gang, and start exploring haunted sites, gaining subscribers by the thousands. But, in order to hit the million subscriber mark, they embark on an overnight journey from Vegas to L.A. to stay at America’s most haunted hotel, The Hearst Hotel. As the night progresses, so much mayhem and horror come to the fore. Chrissy sees dead people everywhere. And then the rest of them see dead people everywhere as they keep finding murdered hotel staff. Finally in the wee hours of the morning, one of the Ghost Gang is stabbed, one is nearly murdered, and the ghosts of Hearst Hotel are in a fight to the death.

It just isn’t theirs.

I don’t often read young adult, Karen M McManus has been the main author I’ve read in recent years, but this was a great book and I’m amped to read the follow up.

I’ll give this book a 7/10 because it was pretty good, but 3 off because using an Aussie as a mass murderer was not cool!

 

Cursed Cruise – Victoria Fulton and Faith McClaren

All aboard…

After their fateful stay at the Hearst Hotel, the Ghost Gang is back with more spooks and more subscribers. They’ve been invited to record onboard the RMS Queen Anne, a transatlantic luxury ocean liner with a colorful past of violent deaths of hundreds of passengers-souls that bought a one-way ticket to the afterlife (and never disembarked).

When Chrissy, Chase, Kiki, and Emma board the ship, they have a funny feeling they’ve been sucked into a ghostly time warp – a theory that takes a frightening turn when Chrissy goes missing on the first night.

Unbeknownst to the rest of the group, Chrissy has been sucked into another time by a passenger who wants the Ghost Gang to know her untimely death was not an accident and the perpetrator is still alive – and on board this ship.

 

The follow up to Horror Hotel is one that tugged on my heart strings from the start.

It’s very similar to the movie Ghost Ship with Juliana Margulies, the cover is even the same vibe. There are many a ghostie on this cruise and Chrissy can see them from the start. The wee little girl who drowned in the pool with her teddy who just wants to find her mummy, the possibility of an ancient Egyptian mummy being on board which has put the curse on the ship, and a rival ghost gang get the Ghost Gang into a tizz as Chrissy is possessed by the missing, maybe murdered fiancée who was in love with the bartender now cruise director forty years previous. Oi, so much to cry about, even in young adult books.

I’ll give this 7/10 because killing a seven year old little girl in a blue dress with her teddy was a turn off. DO NOT KILL KIDS!

Also, I liked these two books so much, I bought them.