A group of friends reunite after one of them has returned from a mysterious two-year disappearance in this edgy and haunting debut.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, … 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?
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The Return by Rachel Harrison reminded me a lot of an Amy Lukavics novel, which I always like but they run pretty middle-of-the-road for me. Since I was expecting horror I thought this would be terrifying but really it is just more chilling and a little gross!
A lot of the book is conversations between Elise, Molly, and Mae trying to figure out what is going on with their friend Julie who went missing for two years and can’t remember what happened. I loved the female friendships and relationships in the book, but I think they also distracted from the horror aspect of the novel and it did take a while for the truly creepy things to happen. The setting was pretty fantastic though and I promise you, The Return does get a little nasty towards the end and it’s definitely got a creepy vibe going for it.
The Return wasn’t really what I was expecting, and I would recommend it to readers that want to get into the horror genre but want to start with something creepy rather than full blow scary. I was much more scared by The Winter People (a Jennifer McMahon novel) and I read this at night with no problem. It’s gross yes, but definitely on the milder side for horror and it had a young adult feel to me. The writing was solid though and it was a very quick, readable book. A good debut overall and I will for sure be reading Harrison’s next book!
Thank you to the publisher for providing me with an advance review copy of this book, all opinions and thoughts are my own.