Thank you NetGalley and Bookouture for this eCopy to review

I found the Marriage Retreat very long and drawn out. The settings were well described and Serenity Falls sounds lovely. I just could not emphasise with Lorraine and did warm to her throughout the story. It seems very implausible that Naomi/Megan would be allowed to recover with her.

We follow Lorraine after the death of her husband Victor (the face of their Marriage Retreat) as she tries to find out why her husband came back from his conference early, who the young woman in the car with him was, why was he changing his will?

Lorraine's desperation to stop Victor's secrets from becoming public knowledge so that she keeps her family home grows increasingly frantic as the story goes on. Just how far will she go?

“A lie will always corrode the soul.”

When news of Victor Gordon’s death reaches his wife, Lorraine, she’s shocked. Rightly so. But when she discovers that her ‘love guru’ husband was travelling with a younger female, now in a coma, she’s devastated. Her hurt quickly turns to anger and fuels her quest to keep the lid on any further secrets that may emerge. What will this unidentified female reveal if she comes out of her coma?

There’s a lot at stake. Not just a crushed ego.

Victor and Lorraine have been married for 26 years and have a good business reputation. They live in a small village and operate a ‘Rekindle Connections’ program at Serenity Falls, an enterprise they began to allow couples the space and opportunity to take time out to salvage a marriage headed for divorce.

Now you see how bad this looks? That he was found in a car with a younger woman. Especially when he wasn’t where he was supposed to be that day!

Author Laura Elliot seeks to find out if deceit and betrayal of a loved one can turn us into someone we aren’t. In doing so, she’s crafted a charismatic man with incredible power to draw people to him and crafted a wife/business partner who is much younger and an heiress.

You’re jumping the gun. Aren’t you? You’re already guessing what direction this is going in, right?!

You’ll have to find out who this car passenger is, what lengths Lorraine will go to keep a secret, and if Serenity Falls is really a safe space where secrets can brood or if it’s a breeding ground for them.

Know this: nothing is as it seems. Nothing.

You’ll be engaged and anxious to know what this ‘perfect’ couple is hiding. Elliot has paced this domestic suspense perfectly, keeping readers in the dark until the last possible moment.

Quotes that gave pause:
“Small untruths become outright lies as you battle them into submission”
“Pain is easier to see in others when we deny our own reflections.”

I was gifted this copy by Bookouture and NetGalley and was under no obligation to provide a review.

Some stories start with a bang dragging you in from the first sentence. Others tease you and they ask the reader to be patient and wait a bit longer for the action to begin. Do I have a preference? No, not really. As long as the story is interesting, I don't mind strolling through the book in stead of running through it.

This book belongs to the second category, so it is rather slow moving in the beginning, but the pace picks up the further you get through the story.

Sometimes you have to wait to find out who the killer is. This is fun, because you can put your thinkg cap on and try to be more clever than the police. Sometimes you already know who it is, but the fun then is to discover what kind of schemes the killer will use in order to get what they want or to hide what they want to remain a secret.

Again the book can be found in the second category. Do I have a preference? As long as the story triggers me, I don't care.

This story is about the things people do to achieve their goals. What if they hurt others in the process? They consider this collateral damage and not really caring at all.

Maybe a bit too slow paced in the beginning for me, but an interesting story nonetheless. 4 stars

Thank you

Lies and secrets, Lorraine is on a mission to avoid them getting out into the world, ruining everything that has been built.

'The past did not die. It simply reinvented itself in the telling'.

Synopsis
When Lorraine's 'love guru' husband dies in a car accident, she discovers that he was not alone - a young woman was with him. Did this man who preached about honesty and trust lie to Lorraine? Was he having an affair? What was his secret?

As Lorraine works to keep this press at bay, she works to re-open the marriage retreat. At the same time, she is keeping a close eye on this mystery girl, she had lost her memories from the car crash - but what if she remembers and destroys everything Lorraine has built. Lorraine finds out her husband's secrets, and this mystery woman is a part of it, one that could shatter everything.

Thoughts
A little bit different to my usual thrillers, as it's more of a 'domestic' type one, but I enjoyed the secrets and the POV of the mystery girl when she was in a coma/unable to remember her lost memories.

It did take me a little bit of time to get into the plot as it was quite slow moving at the start - but found myself wanting to know more about the lies and secrets, and where it all would lead.

'More than ever, she was convinced that the real story behind Serenity Falls was shrouded with mystery, and she had barely scratched the surface'.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for this copy. This review is voluntary.

I didn’t really enjoy this one. I didn’t really get the thriller vibes I wanted. I felt like I didn’t really care for the story.

I had a hard time wanting to get into this book with the way it started but stuck with it. I liked parts of the storyline but found TV parts of it confusing. I found parts of the story fairly disturbing but was fascinated with the look into how a person can justify any decisions if they try hard enough. I found the main character, Lorraine, hard to relate to but loved the other main character and she was truly the part that got me through the book.

“The Marriage Retreat” is by Laura Elliot. I had a very difficult time getting into this book and then, honestly, caring about the characters. The main female character, Lorraine, put up a good front, but wasn’t a trustworthy person. Her husband, Victor, also had a secret that could destroy Lorraine’s life. I thought this was a good idea, but it was so slow moving and some of the backstories seemed to just “appear” in the middle of the chapter (later I did notice “decorations” to denote back-in-time things and that helped). I just found myself being bored and uninterested for a good chunk of the book, though toward the end when the puzzle pieces started fitting together, it did become more interesting. This book just didn’t work for me - and I believe some of it was due to the writing style. This was an "okay" read for me, thus the two star review.

I liked this book. I liked it from the very beginning. I was a little lost on some of the Irish phrases but it didn't keep me from enjoying the book. I would definitely read more books from this aurhor.

Characters are very well written, and I raced through this book. Gripping from the start and everything that a psychological thriller should be. Dont take my word for it.......read it ! You wont be disappointed
Many thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this awesome book!

Lorraine's husband Victor dies with a woman Lorraine does not know also dead next to him in the car.
Lorraine neds to know who this woman was and what she was doing with her husband.
This was such a good story with lots of revealing secrets and a great paced plot.
I don't want to spoil this for anybody so that's as much as I want to say - pick it up and give it a read, if you like a great thriller this is for you.

This book was just not for me. It was really well written, I just couldn’t get into the plot line and didn’t feel for any of the characters. It was too domestic thriller for me and I enjoy murder mysteries more. I did enjoy the alternating POVs from main character to the character in a coma (her thoughts). Overall, 2/5 ⭐️

Thank you to NetGalley, Bookouture, and Laura Elliot for my eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Good book! This book had a bit of everything! It had suspense, Action, intrigue, murder, mystery, a sort of who done it and some crazy twists and turns! The storyline was very interesting and kept me glued to my Kindle! I definitely recommend reading this book as it was well worth reading! Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for sharing this book with me!

This book was sent to me by Netgalley for review. Thanks to the publisher and the author. This book moves quickly. The characters are realistic. This book is intriguing.

Lately, with the amount of books I read, I am beginning to think a lot of covers and titles are too similar. I liked this title and book cover though and I'm happy to have read the story. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC. It's a good thriller with a lot of twisty turns that we get to experience! Laura is a really good writer of characters as well. Four stars.

Victor, a self-help love guru, dies in a traffic accident with a mysterious woman next to him. His wife, Lorraine, is left to pick up the pieces and put together who the other woman was and why Victor had been lying to her.
She goes on quite a wood ride from there when she finds out the truth and then has to work to keep the same lie (no spoilers, this is all in the synopsis)

This was quite a wild ride and one that kept me on my toes with reveal after reveal coming at a steady pace.
Lorraine was quite an interesting character with a very interesting past and her own secrets she wanted to keep buried and her uncovering the truth and then doing everything to keep the truth hidden was quite something.
I’m so reluctant to say more because there is definitely spoiler territory from even just a quarter of the way through the book. What I will say is that I was gripped throughout and, while I thought it could have been shorter, I also feel like some of the reveals happened too quickly. That’s a very minor gripe on both counts. A good read and one I encourage you to pick up if you enjoy psychological mysteries full of twists.

Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to review.