The Ice Retreat by Ruth Kelly

 

The Ice Retreat by Ruth Kelly.

Published 21st November 2024 by Pan Macmillan.

From the cover of the book:

HEALER?

Meet Hollie Jenson, presenter of the smash-hit docu-series Bad Medicine, which exposes the perils of extreme therapies. Her next target: a new retreat run by wellness guru Ariel Rose, who claims to have discovered the secret to healing pain through her three-day ice rebirth treatment.

LIAR?

Acting on a mother's plea to find her son, who vanished soon after his stay, Hollie ventures into the Swiss mountains where the retreat occupies a former observatory. There she will search for the boy, and hopes to expose Ariel as the charlatan she believes her to be.

KILLER?

As the isolation of the valley sets in, Hollie finds herself in an increasingly dangerous situation. There is much more to the retreat than meets the eye, and she must confront explosive secrets from her own past if she is to ever make it out alive . . .

***********

Hollie Jenson, presenter of the hard hitting documentary series, Bad Medicine, has made it her mission to track down and expose those who offer extreme therapies to the vulnerable. Next in her sights is Ariel Rose, a wellness guru offering a radical ice rebirth treatment that promises to cure people of their painful conditions in only three days.

When Hollie is contacted by a mother who claims her son went missing after being treated at the remote ice retreat in the Swiss Alps, she is sure this will be the key to proving Ariel is not just a charlatan, but something much worse. An invitation to tour the clinic and finally meet Ariel face to face is just the chance she needs, but the isolation of the mountain top retreat brings the ghosts of Hollie's own past to the surface. With the weather closing in, Hollie does not know what to believe, who to trust, or whether she will make it out of here alive.

Much to my delight, the season of icy thrillers is upon us once more, and I am kicking off the fun with the appropriately named The Ice Retreat by Ruth Kelly, which ticks all my boxes when it comes to location, atmosphere, and tonnes of snow!

The action begins with troubled former-scientist-turned-journalist Hollie on a mission to bring down Ariel Rose, whose outlandish claims make her ideal subject matter for Bad Medicine. With slow-burn tension, the story then unfurls through the narratives of Hollie as she tries to uncover the truth about Ariel, and those of two patients who have undergone the ice treatment - one the missing young man Hollie is here to find, and the other the badly burned, mysterious young woman he befriends. 

The creep factor settles icily into your veins from almost the very first page, when it becomes clear that there are people who are not keen for Hollie to succeed, and the thrill factor jumps in leaps and bounds once Hollie, and her camera man Rez, enter the remote enclave of Ariel's lair, high in the mountains - via a perilous journey that heightens the aura of isolation to perfection.

Gradually, you discover that Hollie has more axes to grind with Ariel that just outing her as a fake and finding a missing lad; that there is something very odd going on when it comes to the history of and therapeutic treatments offered in this eerie place; and that knowing who to trust is easier said than done. Suddenly, the slow-burn tempo takes a turn into nightmare country, before careering headlong into a twist and twist again affair that uses past horrors to up the unsettling ante. All bets are off from this point onwards, with barely a moment for you to catch your breath, as the pace is fast and frenzied all the way to the end.

Kelly does a stellar job building atmosphere with a backdrop that is, quite literally, to die for, and I really enjoyed the injection of Nordic noir vibes through the clever use of Norse myth. There are some interesting reflections on memory and living with chronic pain, and a really thought-provoking speculative edge to this story that I was not expecting too. Just the ticket to ease me into snowy thriller season. Buckle up and enjoy the vertiginous ride...

The Ice Retreat is available to buy now in paperback, ebook and audio formats.

Thank you to Pan Macmillan for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

About the author:

Ruth Kelly is an award-winning journalist who has ghosted a string of Sunday Times top ten bestsellers – most recently THE PRISON DOCTOR, which sold over 250,000 copies, and THE GOVERNOR, which went straight in at number one on the Amazon charts and number five in the Sunday Times bestseller list.