The Last Resort – Susi Holliday
Seven strangers. Seven secrets. One perfect crime.
When Amelia is invited to an all-expenses-paid retreat on a private island, the mysterious offer is too good to refuse. Along with six other strangers, she’s told they’re here to test a brand-new product for Timeo Technologies. But the guests’ excitement soon turns to terror when the real reason for their summons becomes clear.
Each guest has a guilty secret. And when they’re all forced to wear a memory-tracking device that reveals their dark and shameful deeds to their fellow guests, there’s no hiding from the past. This is no luxury retreat—it’s a trap they can’t get out of.
As the clock counts down to the lavish end-of-day party they’ve been promised, injuries and in-fighting split the group. But with no escape from the island—or the other guests’ most shocking secrets—Amelia begins to suspect that her only hope for survival is to be the last one standing. Can she confront her own dark past to uncover the truth—before it’s too late to get out?
My thanks to Susi Holliday for arranging an early review copy of The Last Resort
Tech thriller or survival horror tale? Murder story or fantasy nightmare? Well thanks to the twisted genius that is Susi Holliday you can enjoy all those concepts within The Last Resort. I originally pegged this story as Agatha Christie meets Westworld with some Enid Blyton and Michael Slade. Now I just want to class it as a Susi Holliday thriller – dark, deadly and uttery gripping.
Our focus in The Last Resort is Amelia – she has been invited to attend an all-inclusive trip to a private island. We pick up her story as she boards the plane to set off on her adventure and through Amelia’s eyes we see the other six passengers who are joining her on the trip. An unusual mix of characters who are not too keen on sharing information about themselves but everyone appears to have been selected for a skill or opportunity which they can offer to their mysterious hosts.
Their actual destination is to be kept a secret and a mid-flight incident means that the seven guests will not be able to keep track of their flight path or see where they actually land. On deplaning the seven are met by one of the staff members on the island who presents them all with a piece of tech which they will be required to wear for the duration of their stay. This tech has been developed by Timeo Technologies, who appear to be the firm behind their host’s invitation, and promises to push the boundaries of technological advances to make their stay remarkable. However Amelia’s device doesn’t work correctly and she has to take an older model – it alienates her slightly from the rest of the group and when the tech starts to reveal the full extent of its capabilities it causes futher divides as suspicion and fear amongst the guests escalates.
The reason behind this suspicion and fear is that the luxury retreat the guests were expecting is not quite the island they find themselves on. Their hosts can speak directly into their ears, their every move appears to be under surveillance and worse still; the device can apparently read the mind of the wearer and project images of their darkest secrets into the open. This group of strangers are being subjected to a breakdown of their defences and information, which could ruin them, is being publically shared. This mental attack is hard for Amelia and her fellow guests to contend with yet there are also phyiscal perils to be overcome too. The Last Resort is not a story about a luxury retreat, it is a story about seven strangers in a battle of wits to try to survive the experience and confront their mysterious host to understand the reason behind the vindictive and potentially deadly assults.
I am very fond of tense thrillers such as this. The chapters are timestamped to let the reader know there is a deadline to be met and that for some of the guests the minutes which tick by may not be sufficient to secure their safety. The confines of the island, and the way the author depicts the narrow pathways and passages the guests have to navigate adds a feeling of claustrophobia which accentuates the trap which they feel they have entered. The location almost feels like one of the characters as it is so integral to their plight.
The Last Resort is another gem from Susi Holliday. I loved the unpredictable nature of the peril the characters face. The tech is clever, deadly and alarmingly plausible. If you are seeking a new page-turner then you should look no further than The Last Resort – five star thrills all the way.
The Last Resort is available now for Amazon Prime members through the Amazon First Reads scheme. Publication date for non Prime members is 1 December 2020. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B085HCCP4W/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i2