The Last Resort

It starts off well, like a reality show on television. Middle chapters are thrilling and author is appreciated for setting a dark theme to the story. The end could have been better, although a very good read and different from other such novels.

The Last Resort by Susi Holliday centers around six strangers who are invited to an all expense paid, too good to be true, luxury trip on an island they haven't heard anything about before. Little do they know that something very opposite to luxury awaits them there. Something maybe like death?  If ever the series Black Mirror is adapted into a book, I'd say it would resemble this one. I liked the dystopian touch given to the book and how technology is portrayed as a massive weapon in the hands of the wrong people.  The book is a fast to medium paced page turner and I absolutely did not see the big revelation coming at the end.  However, the ending kind of felt flat for me as compared to the rest of the book because it was so full of thrill! I believe that if the ending were executed better this book would be absolutely phenomenonal.  Nonetheless, if you like a good mystery or thrill, I'd say definitely go for this one!

No. No. No. No. No. No. No.Oh dear book, how could you do this to me?You carried me on the wave of suspense before dashing me on the rocks of silliness.You showed me the mystery of the locked room mystery before blowing it all apart.You showed me a tight plotline before shoving holes into it.You showed how brilliant a writing could be before leading me to nothingness.You brought scifi to suspense before making it sound like a rueful comedy.Oh dear book, I fell in love with your cover and you showed me the fool I am to judge your beauty.I was intrigued by your blurb and you showed me how it was possible to make it go nowhere.I had so many wonderful theories and you showed me how my theories were better than yours.Oh dear book, I wanted to love you so, but you made me regret the hours spent.Sighhh…

It's a good idea not to leave it too long between sittings with this book. With seven main characters, I found that I was initially confused and struggled to identify who was who. This means, if you are someone who likes to dip in and out of books, with long breaks in between, you will probably find it difficult to engage with the narrative.I was really excited by the premise of the story. It felt Agatha Christie-esque and I like narratives where we have a cast of characters with secrets to reveal. However, Holliday takes this to another level as the group of people are left on a remote, yet boiling hot island, with the promise of a luxury retreat. I did struggle to believe that this was set in the UK, especially how much the characters complained about the heat. The entire island felt exotic and more like somewhere near the equator, rather than off the southern coast of England.The luxury retreat is being organised by Timeo, who present themselves as a technology company. This is seen quite early on as the majority of the strangers are attached to a tracking device. A watch, as we know it, is suddenly "old school"; these tracking devices embed into the skull, unearth buried memories in the wearer and project them in front of your eyes. Very futuristic! I loved this developed take on the trackers and I found them more believable with references to other technological developments that have actually happened. As such, I found this element of Holliday's narrative very convincing and exciting.However, whilst the book started off exciting and with my nose buried in the pages, this did start to wane. I feel like the story lost momentum and, by the final quarter, was starting to lose interest. It did not feel like Holliday continued with the exceptional intrigue and it began to read similar to other mystery books. As the characters began to dwindle, I would have like to have seen more references to the year of 2000: this is where the novel opens and is shown to be significant. A bit more in the past would have developed the narrative further and I think made the ending have more of an impact.I can't say I was bored by the book at the end, but I was disappointed. After the build up with exciting technologies, it felt like an anti-climax. I wanted there is be more tension, more excitement, more adrenaline. Instead, it felt rushed and a convenient, tidy ending with large chunks missing. I would have preferred something far more prolonged, particularly as this is such a quick read.If you are after something different, this could appeal. It is a fast-paced read, but you do need to commit to it so you can properly appreciate the different characters. The ending was a bit flat, but I really enjoyed the theme of technology and the secrets the characters try to hide.

Hmmm ... this is a really difficult book to review for me because I am in two minds as to whether I really enjoyed it or not!The premise is excellent and it started off really well and, I thought, this is going to be good but alas it soon became a tad boring and I gradually lost interest the further on I went. I was hoping for that "wow" ending that might redeem the book a little but, for me, it didn't really happen.The characters aren't particularly likeable but that doesn't really matter in this book and I ended up looking forward to seeing what inventive ways were going to be employed if/when they were to die but it was all rather "meh" and anti-climatic.What I did like was the setting of the remote island, the mystery surrounding why they were all there and how the advanced technology was used but I wanted more tension and excitement ... there are times throughout the book where it ramped up a little but they didn't last long enough and there were too many down-times and periods of inactivity for me.I think there will be many, many people out there who will love this book particularly those who prefer a more slower paced mystery so please don't take my word for it and give it a go if you like the sound of the blurb.Many thanks to SJI Holliday and NetGalley for my copy in return for an honest, unbiased and unedited review.

I read ‘Violet’ by this author ( under SJI Holliday and loved itThe premise for this book is superb, 7 strangers are invited to ‘test out’ a new luxury island and all it has to offer and the book opens with them meeting on a small plane as the adventure startsThey are, of course, all nauseating and include an Insta influencer, a game developer and an older lady Brenda who had made her money in the finance markets, nestled amongst these is Amelia who works for NGO’sI loved the first chapters as they ‘weighed each other up’ and then as they ‘survived’ the plane crashing found themselves on an island, aloneThey then find out they are the guests of a mysterious company and it all goes very ‘Black Mirror’ as they are fitted with devices that give the ability for all to see everyone’s darkest fears and as time goes on the worst thing they have ever doneIt is still at this point intriguing and in parts exciting and also scary ( the chapter with the snake gruesome but wont go into that ) BUT then as it becomes apparent why they are really there ( this done via chapters from the past as well as the present ) it got silly and more than a bit unreal, the ending didnt really sell itself either and after such a good start left a bit of a ‘oh, ok then’ kind of feelingSuperb idea, brilliant opening gambits and wonderfully abhorrent characters that could have been interwoven into something much more coherent and I guess just better and less obtuse6/103 Stars ( for the good parts mentioned )

I read the whole of this book, to see if it would get any better. It didn't. The premise of people accepting a too good to be true offer to go to a mystery resort is weak to start with, but it gets worse from there. The characters are all shallow and unlikeable, and they all follow like sheep through the most ridiculous series of events imaginable. I won't describe the events as they're spoilers, but trust me - if you were in this situation, you would not go along with it, and knowing that makes it impossible to engage with the story. I simply kept reading to get to the end.The ending is even worse still - our insipid heroine comes up with a plan to make it all OK, which apparently works. If it had, it would clearly have depended on the police and coroners forgetting to investigate at all.Really, save your time and read a decent thriller.

The Last Resort is a thriller that has an Agatha Christie meets Black Mirror feel to it. A group of strangers is invited to what they believe will be a party on a luxury island. When they get there they find that the island is a barren place and they are involved in some sort of strange game. They are fitted with trackers that tap into their brain and allow the rest of the group to see their deepest, darkest secrets and each member of the group has a very dark secret. I did enjoy the majority of the novel. It was a decent page-turner and I was interested in finding out about this strange game. The characters are all quite unpleasant people but I still wanted to find out what happened to them. The problem was that the ending was a big disappointment. It felt very rushed and did not really make much sense. The evil person behind the game seemed completely one-dimensional. I don't think we really found out enough about their back story and their personality to understand why they have constructed this ridiculously over-the-top scenario. The description of their back story we are given just seemed very sparse and unsatisfying. It almost felt as though the author had come up with this great idea about a group of strangers being caught up in this strange game but then had to tack on some sort of back story to justify it. If the ending had been a bit more fleshed out I think this would have been a far more enjoyable thriller.