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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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.
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.
I had been looking forward to reading The Return by Rachel Harrison for awhile, so when I got the opportunity to review it, I jumped at the chance. Unfortunately, I was left feeling very disappointed.
The plot for The Return sounds promising. Elise’s best friend Julie disappeared 2 years ago. No one had heard or seen her. Then one day, Julie showed up again claiming to have no memory of what happened. No one ever pressed her for answers. However, Julie isn’t like she was before. She’s acting much different, and the smell she gives off is terrible! What really happened to Julie during those two years she was missing?
The Return started out extremely slow. I kept reading thinking the pacing would pick up. However, it never did except for a tiny bit during the end where all the action happens, but even then, the pacing is still slow. This book really lacks any kind of action, in my opinion, and is instead more like watching three snobby and boring women on a vacation where they just stay in their hotel. I skimmed through a lot of this book waiting for something interesting to happen.
I couldn’t connect to any of the characters. There is some backstory for each of the characters, but it feels forced and jagged and like it doesn’t fit in very well with the book. The only semi-decent character is Elise. She’s a tad bit relatable, but even she doesn’t feel that realistic. She’s too dependent on others especially when it comes to Julie. Putting her life in danger after finding out what really happened to Julie was just insane and didn’t feel like something a real person would do. Maebs and Molly were snobby rich women how seemed to not want to do much. Maebs liked complaining all the time, and I don’t really know what the point of Molly was.
Trigger warnings include profanity, drinking, violence, death, and murder.
Overall, The Return felt short of my expectations. The pacing was too slow, and the characters just felt too wooden. Unfortunately, I would not recommend The Return.
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(A special thank you to the publisher for providing me with an eBook of The Return by Rachel Harrison in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.)
THE RETURN is the first novel I have read by Rachel Harrison. To say that I was impressed is an understatement–this novel grabbed me from the start, and I didn’t want to put it down until I had ALL the answers. Of course, that meant I was completely invested until the very end.
“. . . being in this city of millions of people was worse than being alone in my apartment . . .”
We have a close group of friends–Elise, Julie, Mae, and Molly–each now in their respective careers/locations, but still connected to each other. When the only married woman, Julie, disappears suddenly, her loss is immediately felt by the others. The only ones who refuse to believe she’s dead are her “best friend”, Elise, and Julie’s husband, Tristan.
Then, two years later, she returns with no memory of her lost time.
“Two years to the day she went missing, Tristan found her sitting on the porch swing . . . ”
There were so many aspects I really enjoyed about this story. The primary one being the dynamics between the four friends. Despite their differences, their past has bound them closer than any family ties ever could. They know more about each other–and accept themselves, faults and all–better than anyone else in their lives.
“. . . You can’t erase your past when there are pieces of it scattered inside other people.”
When they reunite at a remote, “quirky themed” inn after Julie’s reappearance, the relationships, personalities, and comedic banter really shine through. Through it all, the fact that Julie is . . . “off” . . . in so many ways continues to gnaw away at the other characters and readers, alike.
“We’re all getting used to each other again . . . Not to mention we had a funeral for Julie, and now she’s here . . .”
While it becomes more and more apparent that something is seriously “wrong” with Julie, other events are happening in the inn that intensify the feeling of apprehension and dread for whatever the inevitable outcome will bring to light.
All the while the atmosphere is changing, bringing with it more sinister undercurrents, the emotions and bonds between the friends is becoming more clear to the reader. This, the psychological aspect, is what captivated my attention the most. It was like being given a private window into the thoughts and feelings of others. I can’t express enough how well accomplished this was, and how it drew me so much closer to these characters.
. . . The more you love someone . . . it’s easier for them to hurt you . . . their love will inevitably fall short of your love.”
Overall, this first novel for me from Rachel Harrison instantly made me a fan. The only slight critique I had is that things seemed to slow down significantly around the half-way point when it focused exclusively on one character’s past for a bit too long. Other than this, the writing style was very well paced, and the characters felt “alive” in a way that the readers can easily become attached to.
I haven’t even touched on the ending and the differences in Julie–this is purposeful. I feel that to allude to anything more would potentially spoil the experience for others. This is a novel you simply need to experience first-hand.
“. . . hurt turns to hate. To love someone is to hate them, a little bit. We hate everyone we really love . . . ”
Highly recommended.
A woman returns after a two-year absence, the same and yet different in ways that cannot be explained. Her three closest friends are determined to find out why, and—ensconced in a weird boutique hotel that only contributes to the escalating strangeness—they discover the unimaginable truth. 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.
The blurb was intriguing, yet I never thought it was a “horror” book. Alien abduction? Hiding out to escape life? I didn’t know what the “big reveal” was going to be. This took a long time for me to read, and I had no motivation until the last little bit to cram reading time in to see what was going to happen. The author spent a long time telling you about events in the past that really had no bearing (that I could see) on the current storyline. The chapters were incredibly long. The pacing was slow. The big reveal wasn’t a sudden thing – you had a good idea long before that. At the same time, explaining what happened to Julie was still not clear.
*****SPOILER ALERT****** Clearly this is meant to be a suggestion that the “boogey man” in the closet is a real thing…meant to creep you out like a Stephen King novel. This falls incredibly short of that goal. ****END SPOILER ****
If I want a creepy story, I’ll stick with Stephen King. Definitely cannot recommend.
Looooooonnnnnnggggg chapters. Loved the dialogue and the haunting moments during the build up of the novel. Definitely kept me turning the pages to find out wtf is going on. I read in short burst so this made It hard to motivate myself to read chapters that were 30-50 pages long. The twist at the end is a weird one. If you like novels with a quick pace this one is not for you.
Wow, this was deliciously spooky! From the very beginning the atmosphere draws you in and grows darker and more menacing with every page turned. The setting of each scene, the slow unraveling of the plot was simply masterful – I couldn’t get enough of this book even though I knew something really bad was about to happen. “The Return” is a horror movie waiting to happen and I bet it’ll become an instant blockbuster. Huge five, dark stars from me!
Rachel Harrison’s ‘The Return’ is a vivid, psychological candy twist about a group of four friends getting together for a weekend and learning things about one another that they could never have guessed. This book delights in spooking the reader with its slow burning story. Loved every moment of it.
Umm, I am like what the heck did I just read? It was a good book. I would definitely recommend this book. It was a crazy book!
The ending was quite a surprise but a little unbelievable. Still it was a very enjoyable read.
this is the worst book I’ve ever read! The writing was terrible, the story was ridiculous, the characters were like cardboard!
Nothing to really like about this book. I would not recommend it.
This was a book unlike any other I had read. A woman goes missing for two years and returns with no memory of where she was. Her friends get together at a small resort after she returns and they can`t help but notice how different she is. They only begin to suspect how far those differences go.
Such a well written novel that scared the hell out of me. What we won’t do for our best friends.
I don’t know, the jacket summary interested me enough that I bought the book but it was just too juvenile…. The storyline, characters, the “twist”.. All of it. It reminded me of when I was in middle school and used to love reading R. L. Stine books. This book would be more fitting as a horror /thriller for middle school aged children
This was the biggest waste of time and a ridiculous method of dealing with grief. I endured the torture of reading because there’s always that vague chance that the ending will save the story. It didn’t.
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.
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.
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.