Londoners Jess, a GP on sick leave, husband Rob a budding screenwriter and their 2 young children Ruby and Sam hire a tiny cottage in Dorset for a month.
Jess meets Helen who initially seemingly has her family and life all well ordered, unlike Jess. It transpires that both women have issues with their respective sisters and we learn by Jess's frequent glimpses back to her time as a doctor of an event which bought about her leave of absence and her reticence to return to her practice.

This is a slow starter which gives us an insight into mental health issues, family dynamics and trauma. Jess is clearly troubled by her early family life which affects her role as a doctor clearly taking on too much leading to her sick leave.

This book does build up about about half way through and is very thought provoking as it deals with issues around family life, mental wellness and socio economic issues.

I liked this book in the end but struggled initially but I would still recommend it on balance.

Thanks to Netgalley UK and Faber and Faber for a free arc copy of this book in exchange for a fair and unbiased opinion

A really excellent read, both gripping and incredibly sympathetic and thought provoking. Not a word wasted in this tense, emotional story

This is a story of family relationships and in particular the continuing existence of male control. Rob takes his wife Jess, a GP on extended leave, away for the summer to a rented cottage. Thus the book’s title. They quickly become friendly with friends in neighbouring cottages, perhaps surprisingly closely so quickly. Soon, the women are sharing secrets. It takes a considerable time to find out what the purpose of the book is beyond conveying information about domestic problems. Then, towards the end, the pace does pick up and Jess becomes involved in the troubles of a neighbouring family which, again, she has only just met. The book does make its point about domestic abuse and the problems around resisting it. Otherwise it is a fairly low key read.

This was quite a slow book to read nd nit what I expected. I did enjoy it most of the time but, at times it was like wading through treacle. So, on that I’m only giving this three stars. My thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book in return for an honest review.

Well crafted characters, an underlying sense of menace and an immersive narrative combine for a suspenseful, one sit read.

A solid 3 stars out of 5.

I enjoyed this bittersweet family drama. It sees two women, Jess and Helen, drawn together. At first it seems they have little in common except for their children who are similar ages, but as the story goes on, it becomes clear they have more in common than they realised and both are experiencing different turmoils in their personal lives.
I found this an interesting read and was keen to see how the story developed and ended. I would read more from this author.
Thank you to the publisher and Net Galley for providing an advance copy in return for my honest opinion. I have also published this review on Goodreads.

The elements of a good story are here but it didn't quite click for me. Jess is a GP on leave from work for an as-yet-unspecified reason. She and her husband Rob and two kids go to Dorset for a month-long retreat from London. She becomes friendly with a neighbor, Helen, who also has young children and is also seemingly hiding something. The first half of the novel moves slowly, with lots of foreshadowing and hinting around about what led Jess to be on leave and what is going on. Then the pace picks up and tons of issues and problems are thrown into the story, ranging from abuse, mental health issues, eating disorders, etc. A little too much, it scattered my attention from the main storyline.

The Family Retreat sees Jess, a  family GP being asked to take leave after an issue arises at work. Her husband suggests that they take their young family away from the city to a small cottage in Dorset for a month, while he works on a film script.

Whilst away Jess becomes friends with her neighbours, Joyce and Helen, enjoying days out together with their kids, the simpler life proving a distraction from her worries. However, all is not as it seems and when Helen opens up to Jess about her sister Polly's problems she feels under to pressure to become more involved. Before we know it things take a sinister turn and danger lurks...

This book is a thriller and the author keeps us guessing to the end who the perpetrator is. Jess's issues at work are revealed to us slowly, the details quite vague to begin with. The story also reveals how her sister's anorexia and her father's manic depression affected her growing up and, perhaps, her tendency to become too involved with patients' cases.

A good Broadchurch-esque read! (perhaps a little too disturbing to pack for the family holiday though!)

When Jess, a London GP taking a career break, and her screenwriter husband Rob, decide to spend the summer in a cottage in Dorset with their two young children they are unprepared for what will happen. They become friends with their neighbours, Helen and James Dunstable, and their children but when Rob is suddenly called away to America for work Jess finds herself relying more on Helen and as a result starts to envy her friend's perfect family. But of course, all is not as it seems and as time goes by secrets are revealed. A number of subplots focused on contemporary social issues including domestic abuse, eating disorders, and mental ill health.

The descriptions of Dorset were excellent and the main characters are well drawn, but there was a little too much foreshadowing which should have been edited out. An enjoyable psychological drama however. Many thanks to NetGalley and Faber and Faber for the opportunity to read and review The Family Retreat.

A Family Holiday…?
A family holiday? That sounds, on the fact of it, a most perfect idea. But is it? Things are not always as the seem in this familial drama with a solid underlying mystery. With a well drawn and credible cast of characters and a compelling, immersive storyline where some distressing issues are dealt with a careful and steady hand, this has important messages to impart.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this but it was surprisingly complex and twisty. The character development was clever and well-planned and the plot keeps the reader engaged until the end. It follows the story of a GP who is on extended leave from work after a situation (what, we don’t know for a while) and the family heads off for a holiday by the sea for the summer. As the summer progresses and the plot develops, we learn more about the protagonist and her history, and how that loops into the lives of the people she meets on holiday by the sea.

My only criticism of this book is that some of the descriptions of the protagonist’s sister’s eating disorder were rather triggering but I appreciate that it’s difficult to avoid that without putting trigger warnings on every book!

Well this had lots of very different but relevant sub plots. Initially I thought it might be a tad too much but it worked in the end.

It was a very enjoyable read. I wasn't sure if that would happen like it did but as always work on fiction and artistic license.

This is not the sort of book I normally read but quite glad I did.

I was given an advance copy by netgalley and the publishers but the review is entirely my own

I enjoyed this book, first one I’ve read from this author. The story follows Jess, a GP on leave from her job, rents a cottage with her family and befriends the neighbours. I liked the setting, the Dorset coast was beautifully described. It is slow paced to start but picks up as more things happen and start to make sense as you read along. All the different plots and twists kept me engaged to the end.
Thanks to #Netgallery #FaberBooks #BevThomas for an arc of #TheFamilyRetreat in exchange for an honest review.

The synopsis here says what you need to know about this book: family goes to Dorset for a month as writer husband has to complete the final edits on his script. Wife, a GP, ostensibly on sick leave befriends a woman there, and there's a catastrophe. There are secrets, too. These are all the ingredients for a corker of a novel that straddles the 'family drama' 'mystery' genres': a good, solid holiday read. And it basically is, except that the writer has really latched onto that technique of hinting and withholding of information rather too much. It's prolonged narrative foreplay and you can almost work out the process of writing it, with the frequency of phrases like '...but worse was yet to come' and 'looking back'. Don't get me wrong, I love a bit that, but I say a BIT of it, not THAT much, thanks, because it rather than increasing the tension, after a while, it has the opposite effect. Foreplay gone wrong, effectively, which is a shame, because there is great promise here. I loved that it was set in Dorset. and there were elements of characterisation that were compelling. The pace, slow at first, building quite rapidly towards the end, was understandable, I thought, and worthy. it really just was that tic of forced narrative tension that made me want to shout out, 'ALRIGHT, this is a page turner, I get it.' I'm pretty sure a lot of readers will love that. My grateful thanks to the publishers and to Netgalley for the ARC.

(As a note to the editors, and a comment not included in the review on Goodreads because of spoilers, an important detail not correctly written is that when people have carbon monoxide poisoning, they don't look 'pale' as written in this novel, actually, they look remarkably well because their skin become pink because of the chemical reactions - oxygen leaps to the surface of the skin. As a doctor, the protagonist would and should know this.)

We meet GP Jess as she, her husband, and children leave London to stay in a tiny cottage in Dorset, following an unexplained “event” at Jess’ work. When they arrive, they meet various new neighbours, including Helen and her husband, James. A friendship develops between Jess and Helen, which results in Helen asking Jess for advice on how to help her sister, which sets in motion a chain of events that neither one of them could have predicted.

I liked the setting of this story, and the author describes scenes on the Dorset coast beautifully well. The characters are strong, if not all particularly likeable, and all are given space to tell their stories. However, I did find the pacing a little off, starting very slowly and then feeling a bit rushed at the end. The “twists”, though fairly easily spotted, were intriguing and the author raised some important issues, but perhaps the book would have been more impactful had it focused on one or two such issues, rather than trying to fit in so many subplots with Jess’ sister, her dad, her career, her neighbours, etc. Either way, I would read more by this author.

My thanks to the author, NetGalley, and the publisher for the arc to review.

The Family Retreat
The clever title of this domestic drama could be viewed two ways. It’s a complex multi-issue led narrative, with a tapestry of threads to untangle - which doesn’t make for an easy read, but it’s worth persevering. This debut novel shows great promise for an author new to me and I look forward to reading more.

A great story which could be so tragically true to life. There is lots to keep you hooked in to this right to the end.

Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for providing an ARC of this book.

I struggled with this a little. Jess irritated me. the start was too slow and the end felt rushed.

Dr Jess Gibson is taking an involuntary break from her stressful job as GP in a lower income area in London. She feels guilty of failing a patient and reluctantly agrees to a family retreat in a small cottage in Dorsett. Here she mets several, very different women and she slowly learns that not everything is as it seems. The novel is slow at the beginning only to pick up pace. However, I found that the author tried to pack too many modern day social problems combined with the burden of women into one plot.

Overall I did enjoy this book. But felt it got dragged out a bit to much in the beginning. The plot had the potential to be a big hit. Perfect idyllic setting. Plot to get to grips with. But felt it got lost slightly.