Print List Price: | $18.00 |
Kindle Price: | $14.99 Save $3.01 (17%) |
Sold by: | Penguin Group (USA) LLC Price set by seller. |
Your Memberships & Subscriptions
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
OK
Audible sample Sample
The Return Kindle Edition
Julie is missing, and no one believes she will ever return—except Elise. Elise knows Julie better than anyone, and feels it in her bones that her best friend is out there and that one day Julie will come back. She’s right. Two years to the day that Julie went missing, she reappears with no memory of where she’s been or what happened to her.
Along with Molly and Mae, their two close friends from college, the women decide to reunite at a remote inn. But the second Elise sees Julie, she knows something is wrong—she’s emaciated, with sallow skin and odd appetites. And as the weekend unfurls, it becomes impossible to deny that the Julie who vanished two years ago is not the same Julie who came back. But then who—or what—is she?
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherBerkley
- Publication dateMarch 24, 2020
- File size1971 KB
Customers who bought this item also bought
Editorial Reviews
Review
"Hair-raising horror and pure entertainment...The tension and nuance of Harrison’s complicated female friendships add depth to an already delicious, chilling debut."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“The Return is supernatural horror at its very best! Sharp dialogue, complex relationships and mind-bending action will have readers locking their doors and checking under their beds. Rachel Harrison has reinvented this genre and will surely be hailed as a pioneer among her peers.”—Wendy Walker, National Bestselling Author of The Night Before
“Combining suspense and horror with razor-sharp insights into the nature of female friendships, Rachel Harrison’s The Return is a creepy, nerve-wracking, page-turning addition to the emerging field of horror thrillers.”—Alma Katsu, Author of The Deep and The Hunger
"By turns scary and funny, horrifying and real, The Return is impossible to put down. It takes an honest, scathing look at female friendship while at the same time pulling the reader into a perfect nightmare of a story."--Simone St. James, USA Today bestselling author of The Sun Down Motel
“The Return is moving and terrifying in equal measure. A brilliant rumination on friendship, pain, and the myriad of unsuccessful ways we all try to run from our past and fill the holes in our hearts. Harrison’s keen prose won’t let you go. Be warned, you’ll double check the locks on your doors before you try to sleep.”—Mallory O’Meara, National bestselling author of The Lady from the Black Lagoon
“A sharp, refreshing book about the mortifying ordeal of being known. This is a book that understands how terrifying a lasting friendship can truly be; Harrison brilliantly highlights the way friendships can tether a person to their worst memories, their worst selves, and their worst nightmares.”—Sarah Gailey, National bestselling author of Magic for Liars
"Harrison’s The Return expertly treads the fine line between thriller and horror. It’s as deliciously creepy as opening up a box of candy-coated spiders—and eating them all in one sitting."--Christina Dalcher, author of Vox
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
“What do you mean she’s missing?”
I watched frantic ants descend upon a nearby apple core and a face-down slice of pizza. A renegade splinter faction marched across the parking lot with tiny bits of food on their backs. The raccoons must have been in the garbage behind my office again, and I made a mental note to report it when I got back inside, but of course I forgot.
“She’s missing,” Molly said, her exasperation creeping in through the receiver. “I don’t know how else to explain it to you.”
“She’s not missing.”
Above all else, I knew two truths about Julie. The first was that she was the most stubborn, most determined person I’d ever met. And the second was she loved attention. Julie would never be missing. She might go dark, intentionally disappear herself for a few days here or there just to make sure someone noticed. A pop quiz: “Do you love me?” That she was capable of. That I believed. But missing, as in milk cartons and posters and hounds in fields, no way.
I told Molly as much.
“What year do you think this is? Milk cartons?”
“That’s my point. People don’t go missing anymore.”
“What? What world are you living in?”
I’d been asking myself that question for a long time. I didn’t have an answer for her.
“She left her house last Friday morning to go hiking and she never came back. Tristan filed a Missing Persons report. They have a team out looking for her.”
“Looking where?”
“Acadia National Park.”
“How’d you find out?”
“He called me.”
“He called you?”
“I don’t know why me, Elise, so don’t start.”
Tristan was Julie’s husband. None of us had ever met him. They had gone to the same high school and reconnected when Julie returned to her gloomy Massachusetts hometown to take care of her sick mother. They got married before her mom died, so she could be there. The ceremony and reception were held in someone’s backyard. We were sent two pictures from that day. One of them cutting a two-tiered, pale yellow cake topped with sugared daisies. The other was of Julie standing in a patch of generous sunlight, smiling with her head back, like she was mid-laugh, or the weight of her happiness was too much for her neck. She wore a birdcage veil.
It was a shock to all of us. It might have been the shock of our lives had she not gone missing.
“What do we do?” I asked Molly.
“I don’t think there’s anything to do. Just gotta wait. And prepare ourselves.”
I dug into my back pocket for my lighter. It was a white one. Julie once told me white lighters were bad luck. I cleared my throat, “It’s been how many days? Four? Five?”
“I thought you’d be freaking out.”
“Have you told Mae?”
“Are you smoking?” she asked me.
“No.”
“Yes, I called Mae first because I thought she’d be the calm, logical one. She was very upset. I know because she said she was very upset.”
Mae was hardwired to think showing emotion was bad manners. She had a sensitive nature, but she tried her best to suppress it. She never wanted to put anyone out by acknowledging she had feelings of her own.
An airplane groaned somewhere above the clumpy gray clouds. The rush of nicotine distracted me, and I missed something Molly said.
“Sorry?”
She scoffed. Molly was the funny one, so it was easy to forget when she wasn’t being funny she was being mean. She was capable of empathy, but on a case-by-case basis. Childhood bone cancer had taken her left leg below the knee, and sometimes she joked that’s where all her patience had been.
“This is serious.”
“I know,” I said, the lie leaving a chalky residue in my mouth.
She wasn’t missing.
This was classic Jules. She could fool Molly and Mae, but not me. She and I were made of the same stuff. It was the special sauce of our friendship, and the curse that made it turn ugly sometimes. Molly described our passive aggressive fights as “tangos.” Mae would frown and say, “There’s only tension because you two are so similar.” When things were good between us, we would brag about our similarities, say we were soul sisters. When they weren’t, we both knew, it was like spitting at a mirror.
There were times when I fantasized about vanishing. Chucking my phone into a sewer grate and taking the train to who-knows-where with nothing but a stack of cash. Cutting my hair with dull scissors in a shitty motel room. And if I had thought about it, Julie thought about it, too.
During one of our late-night dorm room confessionals, we bonded over obsessively imagining our own funerals. Which exes would show? Would they cry? Who would cry? Who would give the eulogy? What would they say about us? Would our parents ever move on?
“We’re so fucked up,” she said, giggling into her beloved pufferfish pillow.
“If I die first, will you give the eulogy?” I asked.
“You know I will,” she said. “And I’ll make it all about me.”
The end of my cigarette was pure ash. I flicked it into a nearby puddle.
I didn’t know what else to say to Molly. In a few days Julie would resurface and exonerate me and my lack of reaction.
“What do you think happened?” I asked.
“You really want to know?”
“Yeah.”
“Honestly, Lise, I think she’s gone. I feel like she’s dead. I looked up the park and it’s all woods and cliffs and ocean and she was there by herself. Alone! I don’t want to be negative, but I have to say it out loud or I’ll explode. Don’t tell anyone. Especially not Mae.”
“I won’t,” I said. “And Julie’s not dead. Don’t worry.”
I told her I had to get back to work, said I loved her and would call her later. After we hung up I walked around back to check the garbage bins. Raccoon-ravaged. Trash everywhere. Possessed by some dormant Girl Scout goodness, I went to turn the bins upright. I leaned over with my hands outstretched, and beyond the tips of my fingers I noticed movement. A wriggling. White spots. The spots swam in and out of the banana peels and half-eaten sandwiches, the fuzzy avocados and open containers of yogurt.
Maggots.
I thought I should scream, but I couldn’t muster one. Instead I backed away slowly, as if from a crime scene, until I was far enough to safely turn my back. Still, I felt like they were on me. That maybe one had burrowed in through the bottom of my shoe, crawled up my leg, my spine, and was now perched on my shoulder, waiting to climb into my ear and, eventually, eat my brain.
What I remember most about that day is I was more disturbed by the maggots than I was by the news about Julie. I didn’t think for a second that she could be gone.
I went back to my desk and let the day pass.
When the day bled into a week, I looked up Acadia National Park. I scrolled through images of sprawling nature, a lighthouse nestled atop a rocky bluff. A mountain called Cadillac, its back etched with trails. It seemed awfully mild. Blue sea, blue sky. Pine trees. Piles of stones worn smooth by the ocean. I refined my search.
Acadia National Park – death.
It was possible to die there. But people die everywhere. People die at Disneyland.
Acadia National Park – missing.
There it was.
Julie’s face.
I closed my laptop and stuffed it under my bed, kingdom of dust bunnies and lone socks, among the other things I didn’t want to deal with.
I woke up every morning forgetting. I would remember with my toothbrush molar-deep, or while beating an egg, or on my third attempt to start the damn car. If I hadn’t already, I would remember when I passed the roadkill on my way to work, what was maybe once a deer? A large fox? An unfortunate dog? It was now a pink mound of guts on the shoulder that refused decomposition.
One day the roadkill was gone, and when I got to work I shut myself in a bathroom stall and tried to make myself cry. I told myself Julie was gone. Dead. Died alone in nature.
“Ninety nine percent of the time it’s good,” she had told me during one of our last conversations, a few weeks before she went missing.
“Then what’s the problem?”
“The 1%.”
After years of practice I had finally figured out how to deal with Julie’s relationship drama. Instead of voicing my concern, huffing and puffing, disapproving, giving advice that went untaken, offering ultimatums, I was now relentlessly supportive. It disoriented her. She’d spin around in circles until the truth spilled out.
“I mean, you guys are so in love. And you’re starting this bed and breakfast. It’s really exciting! Not all couples can go into business together,” I said. “You’re super compatible.”
“We’re not, though. He’s simple.”
“That’s bad?”
“He doesn’t understand me,” she said. “He’s my husband and he doesn’t get it.”
“Did you end up making it legal?”
When she sent us the pictures from the wedding – her way of telling us she had one – they were captioned “don’t worry, not legal. For mom.” I figured it was a lie, an attempt to rationalize why we weren’t invited and diminish the gossip the three of us would inevitably engage in behind her back. She knew we would be talking about it, about her. She wanted to protect herself. But we knew the truth.
The wedding wasn’t for her mom. The wedding was because she really did love him. That’s how she loved. Hard and fast. Until whoever she loved loved her back, or until she got bored.
“He’s my husband,” she repeated, which could have been confirmation but maybe not.
“It’s not like with Dan. You’re not fighting all the time.”
“He doesn’t react to anything. Sometimes I want to push him into a wall just to see what he’ll do.”
“Healthy.”
“Lise.”
“Maybe you miss your mom. Maybe you need time to clear your head. To allow yourself to grieve.”
There was no funeral. Julie’s mom, Beth, was a character. Chain-smoker, silk nightgowns with feather slippers at the supermarket, fake eyelashes and red lipstick. She’d been married three times. The first when she was seventeen, after legally emancipating herself from abusive parents. The second to Julie’s father at twenty-two. She had Julie’s sister Jade, then Julie. Then, after something happened that Julie never talked about, Beth married her third husband, a guy who did something with boats and had a lot of money. She got half of it in the divorce.
Beth’s illness was long and drawn out. She got to say all her goodbyes. By the end she told Julie, “Burn me and scatter my ashes someplace pretty, would you?”
“I was there every day,” Julie said. “I grieved.”
“Okay,” I said. “I just think it’s a lot all at once. You went from being a caretaker to being a wife, and now you’re opening a business in a new state and doing a whole renovation. When did you have time to process any of this? Have you had any time for yourself?”
“No. I haven’t. You’re right.”
“Take a few days. Get back to yourself.”
“Right. I know you’re right.”
“I go crazy without my alone time,” I said. That had been true at some point in the past, but then I was alone all the time and that was bad, too.
“I miss you.”
“I miss you, too.”
“I want to get this place up and running so you guys can come. But I want you to come first, so we get some one-on-one QT. I miss you most. Don’t tell them, though.”
“Secret’s safe with me.”
“We’ve got the great big porch that wraps all the way around. I keep picturing us out there, drinking whiskey under blankets and star-gazing. I love Maine. The sky is so beautiful here, Lise. I don’t understand how some patches of sky are more beautiful than others. How does that work?”
“Nature! Science!”
She laughed, “That stuff.”
“All right, I should get going,” I said, surrendering to sleepiness.
“G’night, love you.”
“Love you. Talk soon.”
I pressed down on the memory like a bruise and felt nothing.
At six months, Mae suggested we write Julie letters and bury them someplace special to us.
“My therapist thinks it’s a good idea,” she said.
“Since when are you in therapy?”
“Does it matter?”
“No. I’m sorry.”
“What are we doing?” she asked me.
“What do you mean?”
“We’re not doing anything. We have no control over the situation. It’s not constructive. It’s not good for us. Mentally, emotionally.”
Yeah, duh. Of course our best friend going missing wasn’t good for us emotionally. But I couldn’t say that to Mae. Besides, she had a point.
“Did you write her something?” I asked.
“Not yet.”
I thought about what it would be like to give Julie the letters when she came back. How she would hold them in her hands, then up to the light like diamonds, then tight to her chest, as if they might absorb through her clothes and into her skin. The precious evidence of how much we missed her.
This vision was uniquely mine. By then, I was the only one who believed she was still alive. I was the only one who believed her disappearance was a sham. I was convinced Julie was somewhere reveling in solitude and not willing to give it up just yet. She’d come back for us, though.
I’d committed myself to this belief. It was the only way I could function.
“I bought paper,” Mae said. “This beautiful, expensive stationary from a shop in Soho. And a wax seal kit I’ll never use again.”
“I’m going to get a letter from you in a few weeks with a wax seal. Written in calligraphy pen.”
“I bought one of those, too.”
I laughed.
“It made perfect sense at the time.”
“I’m sure it did.”
“Elise,” she said. “You should probably see someone.”
“A therapist?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t do therapy,” I said. “Julie doesn’t, either.”
Mae made a clicking noise with her tongue, signaling to me her displeasure. It was a habit she picked up from her mother. I thought maybe it was a Southern thing. Mae had been raised in a suburb of Atlanta by two born-and-bred sweet tea come-to-Jesus Georgians. She had an accent she tried her best to subdue because it only provoked more of the “Where are you from?” and “What are you?” questions she was inundated with daily.
Product details
- ASIN : B07TRYJJQC
- Publisher : Berkley (March 24, 2020)
- Publication date : March 24, 2020
- Language : English
- File size : 1971 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 303 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #147,156 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #122 in Horror Fiction Classics
- #609 in Friendship Fiction (Kindle Store)
- #659 in Occult Horror
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Rachel Harrison is the national bestselling author of BLACK SHEEP, SUCH SHARP TEETH, CACKLE and THE RETURN, which was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel. Her short fiction has appeared in Guernica, Electric Literature's Recommended Reading, as an Audible Original, and in her debut story collection BAD DOLLS. She lives in western New York with her husband and their cat/overlord.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonReviews with images
-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
But "The Return" isn't "'Salem's Lot", and it isn't meant to be. Horror nowadays can be a state of mind, and it can encompass a slow build-up to an uncomfortable realization that something isn't quite RIGHT, and with "The Return", steep us in a terrific amount of dramatic irony, waiting for the hopeful (hapless?) heroines to look into the terrible abyss they skirt around on a minute by minute basis.
Julie, Elise, Mae, and Molly are best friends from college. Two years ago, Julie abruptly vanished during a walk in the woods, disappearing off the face of the earth. Just as abruptly, she reappears on her front porch, nearly two years to the day she left, with no memory of her two vanished years.
Elise, Julie's best friend, never gave up hope that Julie would return. Despite the odds, despite the hopeless searches, Elise just KNEW that Julie would come back someday. When she does, the four best friends decide to celebrate with a few days in a remote inn located in the mountains of New York State. The inn itself is odd, fantastic, and not just a bit macabre. But when they all see Julie, they are shocked. Something is wrong. She looks desperately ill. Her appearance is strange, despite her assurances. Elise notices an almost pathological revulsion that Molly and Mae have toward Julie. Neither one wants to be alone with Julie, despite having no reason to feel that way.
Julie is...odd. Clearly something happened. The reader may grasp the answer quickly, but the true meaning of Julie's change and the friends' feelings has more to do with the nature of friendship, the quality of hope, and kernel of longing that Elise kept alive inside her. The other two moved on...perhaps. What does the refusal to grow and change mean within a friendship? How do we place ourselves within a group of friends? How do we define ourselves and the nature of friendship? All of these questions have more to do with the innate questions in the novel than any horror elements, which sometimes seem secondary to the fundamental ember of the narrative. What is a friend, and what passes for friendship in a give-and-take?
This seems like heady stuff for what should be a fun thriller. But this is a well-structured narrative, with decent characters, and decently competent writing. What Julie is might not be as important as how the other three react. The women are thoughtfully written; the setting is unique. "The Return" isn't a difficult read. The dialogue is quick and smooth. Just don't expect jump scares and gore.
Generally speaking, I liked this book.
What did I like about it? I liked how original the plot was. I really like how the author didn't come out and really spell things out for you, she left a lot up to your imagination. I like the characters and the conflict between them. And I absolutely loved the hotel. The setting for this book was amazing.
A lot of my love for this novel is because of the hotel. It sounds so fancy and so tacky all at the same time. It sounds like what you might find in a Hilton if you did a ton of acid. It's terrible in the way that it's wonderful.
I think I also had a lot of love for the author's love of Stephen King. I don't want to give too much away, but it is very clear, that she was heavily inspired by at least one Stephen King novel. If you're a Constant Reader, you'll see it. She's kind of subtle about it too, you really have to know your Stephen King books to know exactly what's going on. Assuming I'm right, I could be wrong, but I knew exactly what was going on once I figure it out what her influence was. That's not a complaint, I almost felt like it was a secret the author and I shared. Like an "ah ha" moment.
But you don't have to read or even like King to like this book, it actually might work more for you if you didn't. For me personally, it added to the experience.
Now, why does it only have 4 stars? This is really hard for me because I love the author for what she's accomplished in this book. But, the book is flawed. Ironically, much like Stephen King, the ending is not good. That's my only real complaint. It goes on too long, and it becomes a little bit ridiculous.
I originally rated the book 3 stars, but I can't leave it like that, even with the ending. It's probably a 3.75 star book, but I rounded it up because of the setting and because how she doesn't spoon feed us an explanation.
I really hope this author is working on another book, because I will buy it on release day.
The storyline is that one of a group of BFFs suddenly vanishes while on a hike, is then missing without a trace for two years, then just as suddenly reappears, seemingly none the worse for wear, but with no recollection of what transpired during all that time. Her friends arrange a getaway weekend with her to try to reconnect, and it swiftly becomes evident that SOMETHING came back from those woods that's not her.
Dread mounts from the first pages and never lets up; the hotel they stay at is every bit as creepy as the Overlook, in highly creative ways, and the gruesome ending is by rapid turns horrifying, sad and deeply beautiful. It's really about all the mistakes, regrets and triumphs of the end of youth and beginning of real life with your dearest friends, and what it takes and means to come to terms with that.
There are a few loose ends, of course, but you'll lose them in the beauty of the writing. This is a tour de force, and the best of it is, it' s a debut novel! I think we can hope for many years of great material from MS Harrison, if she will so indulge us. A major player in the field, this one could be.
Top reviews from other countries
Zu diesem Zeitpunkt stand das Wort CREEPY ganz oben af der Liste, und zwar genau so, in Großbuchstaben. Und ich muss das englische Wort benutzen, weil Wörter wie "unheimlich", "schaurig", "beängstigend" usw. es irgendwie nicht treffen, klingt alles zu sehr nach Spukgeschichte mit Lichterketten und Decke über den Knien. Was dieses Buch definitv nicht ist. Für diejenigen, die von der gleichen Autorin "Cackle" gelesen haben, was wohl eher in die Richtung "cosy" geht (?) daher gleich eine Warnung: nichts an "The Return" ist auch nur annähernd "cosy." CREEPY bleibt eins der ersten Wörter, das mir in den Sinn kommt. Tatsächlich ist dieses Buch eins der creepiesten Bücher, das ich je gelesen habe. Aber eben nicht nur.
Es ist außerdem ein Buch, das mir für immer im Gedächtnis bleiben wird, was mit dem vorher gesagten nur bedingt etwas zu tun hat. Das erste, was ich nach der letzten Seite im Kopf hatte war, dass ich emotional völlig ausgepowert war und die letzten, in diesem Fall tatsächlich nur zwanzig, Seiten anstrengend und beglückend und tieftraurig und alles auf einmal waren. Als ich die Danksagung der Autorin am Schluss las (mach ich immer), tat ich das hier auch, um wenigstens ein bissschen runterzukommen und merkte, dass meine Emotionen sich Luft machten, indem ich einfach dasaß und geheult habe. Das passiert mir nicht oft mit Büchern, schon gar nicht mit solchen, die ich einfach nur für den spukigen Oktober lesen wollte.
Ich bin mir sicher, dass Rachel Harrison ein großer, großer Fan von Stephen King ist, und dass sie (wie wohl auch viele Leser), als sie ihr setting für "The Return", ein Hotel in the Middle of Nowhere, auswählte, natürlich an "The Shining" gedacht hat. Auf Kings Klassiker verweist auch der Werbetext ganz explizit, deshalb gehe ich da mal etwas näher drauf ein. Harrisons Buch hat nämlich, vom setting her, gar nicht so viel mit dem berühmten Kingschen Hotel zu tun. Ihr Hotel ist auf eine ganz andere Art einzigartig, als Gebäude selbst gar nicht unheimlich. Die Einrichtung der Räume ist, sagen wir mal, grenzwertig geschmacklos, aber themenbasiert (schon für die genussvolle Beschreibung dieses Dekor-Apltraums fünf Sterne!), und die vier Freundinnen sind hier auch nicht die einzigen Gäste (wenn es auch die meiste Zeit über so scheint), es gibt Aktivitäten wie Kochen und Weinprobe und einen Pool sowie ein gutes Restaurant. Warum der Hodder Verlag für seine billige Taschenbuchausgabe, auf die ich unten nochmal zu sprechen komme,für das Cover ausgerechnet einen weiblichen Körper in einer Badewanne aussuchen muste, kann ich mir nur damit erklären, dass hier eben versucht wurde, Shining-Vibes zu assoziieren. Ansonsten hat dieses Hotel aber durchaus etwas mit Kings Geschichte zu tun, und zwar mit der psychologischen Dimension. Auch in "The Return" werden die Personen Zeugen einer sich allmählich vollziehenden Verwandlung eines Menschen, die sie gut kennen. Und ebenso wenig wie "The Shining" ein reiner Horror-Roman ist, sondern ein Roman, in dem es unter vielen anderen Schichten auch das Horror-Element gibt, ist Rachel Harrisons Buch in erster Linie, so sehe ich das, ein Horror-Roman. Obwohl es Szenen gibt, die mich auch heute Nacht nicht gut werden schlafen lassen und mich nach dem Lichtschalter der Nachttischlampe fummeln lassen werden, wenn ich mal aufstehen muss. Nur war es naürlich nicht das, was mich dann hat in Tränen ausbrechen lassen.
Es ist auch und in überwiegenden Teilen ein Buch über Freundschaft, das ware Wesen von lebenslangen Freundschaften, auch wenn nicht alle Beteiligten ein langes Leben haben, über die Ehrlichkeit, den Mut, sich auch unbequeme Wahrheiten zu sagen, und schließlich über das Loslassen-Können und über die Trauer.
Eine der bewegensten Szenen in "The Shining" war für mich die, in der Jack Torrance, schon fast vollständig zum Monster geworden und kaum noch mit eigenem Willen, seinem kleinen Sohn befiehlt, wegzulaufen, bevor es zu spät ist. Und wie der Sohn seinem Vater dann im letzten vertrauten Moment über die Wange streicht. Ich verweise nochmals darauf, dass Rachel Harrison wahrscheinlich Kings Buch sehr genau kennt. Mehr wird nicht gesagt.
Leute, lest "The Return", aber nicht unbedingt als Halloween-Treat, da gibt es Leichtfüßigeres mit mehr Kürbis und mehr Fairy-Lights. Aber bitte lest es! Und bitte, wenn ihr es auf Englisch lest, gönnt euch die bessere Ausgabe von Berkley und nicht die von Hodder (die mit der Badwannen-Frau), denn die ist so klein gedruckt, dass man einen Scheinwerfer braucht (leider kein so seltenes Phänomen bei amerikanischen Taschenbüchern).
So. Ich kann auch emotional werden, wenn ich positive Rezensionen schreibe, stelle ich fest.
Danke, Rachel Harrison, für dieses Buch. Wir lesen uns wieder in "Such Sharp Teeth."
Host Neil McRoberts unabashed and genuine enthusiasm for this modern gothic which uses the setting of the fictional Red Honey Inn for a reunion amongst 4 college friends was what got me stumbling through my bookstacks to find it. It sounds dick-ish calling them that, but basically we navigate our way around the house very carefully as there are piles of books in every room. We have an ongoing shelf space to book issue which I am not at all sad about and a long suffering and tolerating husband and children.Once located, I could not put this book down. I am not saying there is a link between me reading it on my break on the night shift at work the other night and my constant sense of wariness towards lights, shadows and sounds that had me on pins...but I am not usually one for jumping at noises that no one else can hear either...
It came with me to the museum today, I read page after frantic page as the miles went by between Bridgend and Cardiff because I was nearing the end and my nerves were in pieces wanting to know just what happens next. How can you not when Rachel nails people again and again with lines like this-
''Molly signals the bartender,a guy with a beard that acts as his only defining characteristic''
Tell me you haven't met someone like this?
Or how about-
''You can't erase the past when there are pieces of it scattered inside other people.''
Tell me that doesn't hit you right in the soft parts?
You take 4 women-Mae,Molly,Julie and narrator Elise- who all have a shared history but have been trauma bonded by both Julie's disappearance and return, 2 years later, with no memory of how she went missing, or what happened to her. Drop them into a boutique hotel, with themed rooms, suggested by Molly from one of her fashion shoot locations, mix them up and let them loose with years of misunderstandings, fermenting worries and the kind of intense inner life that only comes from going through a shared trauma, then add in a menace from an uncertain source and you too will be peering more closely into the shadows.
The setting is so vividly described that as a reader I had a visceral, very physical reaction to the jarring colours and schemes which from the get-go are wrong-Elise, meant to have the Gothic room is erroneously placed in the prophetic Cassandra room. The food they are served, the jarring dissonance between opulence of the decorations and lack of style or taste are diametrically opposed to Elise's relative poverty -she is the only one of the 4 with limited finances-and the reason for this getaway. As a setting for a retreat, this is not a great one, showing the roles each woman takes in the group straight away-Molly is the one who controls the narrative, Mae is a loner whose life has been defnied by childhood tragedy, Julie, the one Elise wants most to be like and who she is closest to, and then Elise, our narrator herself.
The first person narration brings the reader in like you are one of the group, as she shares her anxiety, the inner secrets of their bonds, their nicknames, partners and shared stories. And this creates an intimacy that as soon as they are flung into danger then your fear for these women becomes a very palpable, breathing, lurking thing behind your ribs.
Elise tells you she has anxiety, She tells you she has issues with security both within and without the friendship group. Her perception of things is your guide but she is not a traditional unreliable narrator, she is the beating, wounded heart of the tale. And whether the setting has activated some kind of supernatural something, whether the women bought it with them, or accelerated the monstrous is irrelevant, what is happening is happening and once it does, you cannot imagine a more prescient setting than the Red Honey Inn.
Corridors don't quite seem the same the second time you go down them. There are very few other guests. The staff appear to be unravelling. People are missing. The thermostat has a mind of its own. The colours jar and disconnect from the theme of each woman's room. The keys , kitsch and unique, don't do what they are supposed to-they do not keep these women safe.
In the midst of this, these four women want to give a platform to Julie, their friend, who now belongs to the world who want to deep dive into the how's, the wherefore's and why's of her 2 year abscence.
Why was their friendship not enough to keep her happy? How can they reconcile the woman who has returned with the friend who left. Is she the same person, and if not, can they get her back or is she forever changed?
I am absolutely not here to give spoilers, just to massively recommended this incredible book which places these four very real women, in the spiritual hotel sibling of The Overlook, and does something quite extraordinary.
It takes a lot to scare me, but this book hit each and every nerve and set them to jangling over and over again.
Unexpectedly tender, brutally real about the way women are with each other and pulsing with horror, this is a book which belongs on the shelf of anyone who considers themselves a horror fan.
Her characters are dryly funny which is in stark contrast to the creeping dread of what's happening to them. Can't decide which is my favourite!
The story, an excellent idea and well written. I had a creepy feeling while reading it. An impending dread type of feeling that builds throughout.
I have a slight issue with the ending, it felt hurried and not as well thought out as the rest of the story.
Great descriptive imagery throughout though.