A slow start but quite good in the end, and I imagine it would put any reader off visiting such a retreat for the foreseeable future! It was quite cleverly done, and there were sufficient twists and turns to keep my interest going. Worth reading, and I liked the research that must have been done about the area.

Fast paced mystery, lots of sub plots and a storyline which keeps you guessing right until the end. Great mix of characters and an easy holiday read. Recommend.

What a great and easy read. It kept me in suspense and wanting to get to the end. In some places perhaps a little unbelievable. Another great book from Emma and I look forward to the next release.

A bit of a slow start for me, understanding the characters and their issues, but the story line picked up the pace and it got to be a really good read. Would recommend to others.

Author Emma Houghton has 20 books to her name The Sanctuary a 'thriller' due for release in hardback in Nov 22; thanks to NetGalley.com and Hodder & Stoughton for the privilege of reviewing this pre-release eBook version. It's billed as an edge of your seat 'locked room' populated with a bunch of mixed-up part celebs and ordinary citizens who have paid for some unorthodox treatment to change their lives around. I was looking forward to reading this but a little disappointed, after the waking up of Zoey I thought oh here goes yummy who has brought me here, why am I here, can I escape! But it wasn't quite like that finding the character interaction drawn out and laboured lacking tension; the last 1/3 picked up but for me a little bland.

I quite enjoyed this book but found some of the descriptions and sections covering the hang-ups of the various Sanctuary guests a bit overlong. However, I persevered and was glad I did. The story deals with the lives of various people who end up as guests at the exclusive Sanctuary facing up and dealing with their inner demons. Along the way, each of them is profoundly changed. But.... Just who amongst them is a blackmailer and murderer? It kept me guessing for a while but I finally worked it out near the end. An enjoyable read.

Wow! This didn't half start with a bang and got me completely engaged which I loved. It did slow up a bit and became more character driven for a while but once things start happening again, I was dying to find out what was going on. It is fiction so we can overlook things which seem a wee bit too neat and I don't think they took anything away from how much I loved the plot. The characters could have bn a bit more well written and distinctive since I did the find the men a bit forgettable but hey, I do that in real life aswell so maybe it was just me

This book had me gripped right from the start and held me in its clutches right until the end. The setting was perfect and gave the book a real isolated feel which added to the creepiness, mystery and suspense. The book was full of twists and I couldn't put it down.

Zoey has the worst hangover ever. Worse is the excessive heat, the unknown room, the empty building. She’d been in NY, now she was in a desert. How has she been translated here, and what has she done that merits it? That is the first mystery. The building is palatial, like a high spec hotel with a clinical overlay. Looking for the source of a high-pitched scream, she finds a large tent containing a bunch of people sitting in a sort of AA circle, and a hysterical girl demanding to know why Ed had disappeared. The answer to that question forms the second mystery. It becomes clear that this is “The Sanctuary”, a hugely expensive rehab centre in the Sonoran desert of Mexico, twenty miles from anywhere and accessible only by helicopter.
All the other residents are from very rich families, so who has paid for Zoey, a thirty-two-year-old, drunken, casual worker, with nose and lip piercings, to be here? She is estranged from her father and brother, and her mother lives in rural England. None has the $125,000 this ten-week stay will cost. That is the third mystery. The fourth mystery is a compound of the place and the people. For such a swish establishment, there are very few staff: Mike (the boss), Rory (counsellor and ayahuasca shaman), Sonoya (physician and psychotherapist), Tamara (therapist), Alejandro (odd job man), Elana (cook, housekeeper, etc), most of whom behave oddly most of the time. Not to mention the assorted ‘patients’, who all have their own personal hang-ups. And then there is another disappearance, or is it a death?
It takes quite a long time to establish the scenario and the cast of characters, so the pace is slow to begin with. It does build up and there are some good scenes, particularly in the desert and the psychedelic ayahuasca. Zoey has flashbacks which provide, or at least lay the foundations of, her background and the reason she is a drop-out rather than the lawyer she started training to be. The writing style is good so it is an easy read, although it could have been more dynamic. The characters are not very relatable, and some of the action seems contrived rather than the sort of thing the character might do. There are also some problems with the mechanics although a fast reader wouldn’t really notice. The ending does solve all the mysteries and involves what might be called a twist, but it is a bit “Deus ex Machina”.
I would like to thank NetGalley, the publishers and the author for providing me with a draft proof copy for the purpose of this review.

Absolutely loved the first chapter! Really hooked you in with the book title, the setting, the intrigue etc.
However, I didn't feel that it kept up to that initial promising first taste and I really struggled to continue after the first third of the book. The main problem for me was that it was turning into a plot we have seen many times before: a group of characters in a great setting and a plot taken from Agatha Christie trying to find out the murderer. Additionally, although the female characters were very well defined, the men were very similar and therefore I didn't really keep track of them. Some readers love these murder mysteries but just not for me.
Thank you to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the e-advance review copy.

I really enjoyed this book. I have read other reviewers' comments that it was slow-paced, or didn't engage them, but I found quite the opposite. From the very beginning, I liked Emma Haughton's style of writing and I was hooked from the start.

Imagine the scene ... waking up in an unknown place, in the middle of the Mexican desert, no idea how you got there, you can't find anyone to ask, and you have a monster hangover. And then you find that you are in the Sanctuary - a rehab clinic that's hugely expensive, you're not having to pay, but you don't know who has paid for you, and why ... I wanted to know more. I raced through the book.

Ok, there are criticism that could be made - if I was in Zoey's position, stuck in a desert forced to undergo therapy, mistrusting of most of those around me, and pressurised into taking psychedelics I'd be running for the first plane as soon as the offer was made to me - but at the same time Haughton was clearly alive to those potential criticisms, justifying why Zoey (a 30+ drifter with no long term relationships or jobs behind her and conflicts with both brother and father) would take a different view. I didn't really like Zoey - or many of the other characters either, but actually I don't think that mattered. I had to suspend disbelief a bit at the very American, sugar-sweet ending, but actually after all the horrors of the book, thinking about it - and whilst some might disagree - I didn't mind the ending that much - it was quite a refreshing change to have something positive to end with.

I received an advance copy from Netgalley and I very much appreciated the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review

Zoey wakes up with the mother of all hangovers. Worse, she isn't in her own bed. Even worse, she appears to be alone. An excellent beginning. It transpires that she is in a rehabilitation centre, a very upmarket one which she can't afford. But it's been paid for. The only problem? If she leaves she'll have to pay the bill herself. The centre is in the middle of the desert so leaving isn't easy anyway. And then, things happen which make her think she should have left, despite the cost.

What I liked: the beginning was good and showed a lot of promise.

What I didn't like: after such a promising beginning, the book went downhill. There was an awful lot of ruminating by Zoey about the event which sent her on a downward spiral. The repetition of this became a little tedious. Then too many things happened (I don't want to add spoilers) so that you find it hard to believe. I also found it hard to differentiate between characters, the male ones especially.

This was an OK read but not one of my favourites. Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC.

This was a fair enough read. The writing and characterisation is fine. I just feel a little ambivalent about it. It felt like not much happened. The tension and twists, for me, were lacking.

I enjoyed this book. It was easy to read and got me hooked from the start.

Zoey comes across as a teenager, though she is 32. I did not find this a problem as we can all feel like a teenager, hopefully, sometimes.

She is in the Sanctuary, in the middle of a desert with no escape, against her will with no idea how she has got there. She does not need rehab, does she?

A small cast of characters could have fleshed out more. I kept forgetting who was who of the males. The females were better and it is easy to feel empathy for Zoey as her story gradually unfolds of why she is messed up.

Then ‘accidents’ begin……

I was provided with a copy by NetGalley and the publishers but my views are my own. Recommended.

Great idea and strong opening to the story - waking up in a remote clinic with no memory of getting there - but there was just too many instances where I had to completely suspend reality and stop thinking “really?”. This is a fast and enjoyable read and has some good twists, just not my cup of tea.

Emma wakes in in a treatment centre and has no memory of how she got there. The staff are able to give her some answers and slowly she starts to remember snippets from some of the previous night.
She is not happy at The Sanctuary but begins to follow the treatment regime and settles down and interacts with the staff and the other clients.
When strange things start to happen she feels that not everyone is telling the truth about what’s really going on.
I found this story slow at the beginning but once things started to happen I enjoyed it.
Thank you to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for my e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 2.3/5

Although there is a lot to like about this latest offering from Emma Haughton, it ultimately left me feeling frustrated and with a sense that it didn't fulfil its potential.

After an intriguing set-up "The Sanctuary" takes a long time to really pick up the pace. There are some pleasing moments and the writing is intelligent. The characterisation and dialogue is perfectly sound and the author does a fine job of communicating the atmosphere of the setting. However, I was longing for something to happen that would really hook me and keep me gripped. Incredibly, it isn't until the midway point has passed that there is such a significant event - and even then it takes until the final quarter of the book before the pace and the excitement levels move through the gears. Somewhat perversely, having taken such an extraordinarily long time to stretch its legs and get into its stride, the story then comes to a very quick and unbelievably neat and convenient end, which further detracts from the impact of the novel as a whole.

My experience of reading "The Sanctuary" wouldn't necessarily put me off reading more by Emma Haughton in the future, but I would suggest that she sits down with her editing team to find a way of making the end product more punchy.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for supplying an ARC in return for an honest review.

Waking up in a white walled room with no knowledge of how she got there is the dilemma facing Zoey. As it transpires, she has a mystery benefactor who wishes her to sort her life out and face her demons. At the Sanctuary are many wealthy people all with their own problems, but behind the scenes there are more sinister events occuring.
I found this an OK read, I felt a lot of it was repetitive with many references about how Zoey didn't want to be there, before she settled down. Sadly I didn't really find it to be much of a thriller. However this is only my opinion on this book and wouldn't stop me reading another book by Emma

I really enjoyed this author's prior novel, The Dark, and there are similarities here. Instead of a freezing, isolated research center, this time the main character is confined in a desert rehab facility. There is the same sense of claustrophobia and slow build up of tension. Here, the main character awakens from a drunken bender to find herself confined in a desert rehab, with no idea who paid her way or what is going on there. There is a definite sense that all is not right and slowly the tension ratchets up. I really enjoy this author's ability to make the setting almost a character in its own right.

My favorite sort of locked room thriller - a glamorous setting, and eclectic cast, jaw dropping twists. I haven't read this author before, but can't wait to pick up her other titles!