Thank you RB Media and NetGalley for ALC of the book.

Koh Sang Resort seems like a Paradise on Earth but everyone who lives there has escaped their past and is keeping a secret.

This was an amazing book. The plot was refreshing and well paced.

The narration was great, full of emotion and animated the characters for me.

What a thrilling ride!

The Resort takes us to a beautiful island where not everything is as it should be. Trust nothing and no one.

The resort on Koh Sang has a mix of characters from different backgrounds that all have something to hide... and a hidden agenda. A secret comes out and so many things start to snowball from there.

It's really best to go into this not knowing a lot, I promise, you won't be disappointed!

Thank you @Netgalley and @sourcebooks for gifting me the opportunity to read and listen to The Resort.

“Welcome to paradise. We hope you survive your stay…”

Cass wanted to start a new life and leave bad memories behind so she moved to Thailand. She took a job as a scuba instructor, made new friends and met the love of her life. Everything seemed to be perfect- until it wasn’t.

It took me a second to catch the rhythm as the characters’ POV changed as each chapter did. Once I was able to sort out the characters and the plot began to move along, I was very interested in how events were tied together. There are a few twists that were surprising and the ending was SO unexpected!

I loved this so much!! From the very beginning I was hooked, and just when you think you might have it figured out, there’s another twist! And the epilogue had me screaming! Cass is such a complicated character, I just felt so much for her with what she went through. Finding out the truth about what happened with Cass was so well done, and came at the perfect time in the story. I wish there was more or another book coming to continue to follow some of these characters! Every single character at some point had me thinking they might be the villain! Total nail biter, had me on the edge of my seat the entire time! I highly recommend this fast paced thriller!

Thank you to NetGalley, RB Media, and Recorded Books for the audio arc of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I picked this book up on Netgalley at the coolest time--just went I was about to head off on a trip to a Thai island! Unfortunately the Netgalley Shelf app doesn't work in Thailand, so I couldn't listen to it while I was there, but it was fun to reminisce as soon as I got back. The island we stayed on didn't have nearly as much murder as Koh Sang (well, that I knew about).

I always love a book that's set somewhere I know well or have been recently, so the location of the book was perfect. The Resort starts off with a lot of suspense, and I was eager to find out what was really happening with these dead girls.

The author lost me a bit in the middle. I like when characters have a strong backstory, but in this case the backstory detracted from the main plot. She took way too long to get to Cassie's history, and when she did it made no sense. Same for explaining Brooke's vendetta against Cassie.

At the end, I was lukewarm on the reveal--until the epilogue. I loved the premise of the epilogue!! It was somewhat out of place though--to my knowledge, there were no hints at the truth throughout the book.

Overall, this thriller was just okay, and I was mostly in it for the location. I won't count this author out, though. This is her debut, so I feel with a little honing she has a lot of potential.

I love a full-cast narration, but I feel like there was a huge missed opportunity to really make this book shine with all the different accents of this melting-pot island. Not even an attempt at Lucy or Alani's New Zealand accent, which is an easy one? I was disappointed that no accents were attempted, and thought it made the narration feel somewhat flat.

Lots of twists and turns. Brooke following Cass all the way to Thailand to out her then coming across something much worse.

Who is a friend and who is a foe is completely masked and you never know until it is too late.

Brooke stumbling upon mysterious breaths and trying to crack the case of who did it. But her judgment is so clouded that she is bent on all the people dying because of Cass. Brooke thinks it’s Cass because of how she killed her own sister then fled the country to hide.

The end of the book was wow. Was not expecting the friend of Brooke’s to be the biggest foe of it all.

The Resort is an excellent book that just fell short of me loving it. The first thing I want to talk about is the ending, without spoilers of course. I want to thank author Sara Ochs because she did something I want more authors to do. This probably makes no sense to anyone but me but thank you Sara Ochs, thank you.

This story is a dual POV between Cass and Brooke. Cass is a young woman who is running from her past and finds a new life on a tourist island off the coast of Thailand where she teaches scuba diving. A week after a young woman was found dead, during her scuba class Cass finds the body of one of her students underwater. This is the second death that’s ruled accidental in a short time.

Brooke is a travel influencer who may have other motives for being at the resort. She and Cass became friends and teamed up to try to find out what happened with both deaths on the island. I loved the mystery and the conclusion to this book was perfect, but it took way too long to get going; that was my only problem with the book.

The Resort was a fun audiobook thriller. It was a great debut from author Sara Ochs. The plot was definitely a nail-biting thriller that kept me guessing. I love a good locked room mystery and this one made that device even more special because the locked room was a tropical island.

Each character has a mysterious background and everyone who works at the island resort seems to be running from their past. But instead of being reclusive or stuffy, these islanders keep their secrets from each other while partying non-stop. When a dive student of the resort's turns up dead in the ocean, there are a limited number of people who can be the suspects. The ride from finding the body to finding the suspects was a wild one, but one that kept me glued to the audiobook late into the night.

The Resort is would make a great vacation novel, especially if said vacation was on a beach. The characters are pretty youthful, most all being in their twenties, so maybe not every reader's peer group, but still fun to read about.

“I set out to find a life of my own instead I found Logan.”

A thriller based at a resort feat. these three “rules”:

1. Leave the past behind
2. Always be careful who you trust
3. If someone discovers who you really are, run.

Say less!! Sign me up 🙌🏻

This book had me questioning what I would do to run away from my past and how easily I trust people. I loved the found family trope in a thriller setting and this story had me questioning things til the very end!


⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you to NetGalley and RB media for an arc copy in exchange for an honest review 💕

4.5 stars

QUICK POINTS
• Multiple murders
• Two women with mysterious pasts
• Isolated Thai island
• Multiple POVs
• A resort staff of expats
• An epilogue you don’t want to skip!


MY THOUGHTS
I’ll definitely be recommending this thriller! A great setting is always an immediate yes for me and this book had it in spades. I've never been to Thailand, but the descriptions were vivid and transported me. There were enough twists and turns that I didn’t get bored- but not enough that I lost track or got confused. I normally am along for the ride, but I couldn’t help trying to guess whodunnit. We switch between two female characters, Cass and Brooke, and both were compelling to follow.
I really enjoyed the audiobook. Miranda Raison, Dakota Blue Richards, Joe Jameson, Pema Monaghan were wonderful at bringing the characters to life. It made it easy to tell the difference in characters and really enhanced the experience. I'm normally and epilogue lover. This one hit it out of the part and you definitely cannot skip!

Thank you to @recordedbooks for the alc.

I liked this story; very twisty and the setting was beautifully written. The tense moments had me on the edge of my seat!

Would recommend if you love:
-multi-POV
-remote island setting
-characters with secrets in their past
-travel influencer

I thought this story was super descriptive and I liked the character POV we get (dive instructor Cass and travel influencer Brooke). The descriptions of the island were wonderful. I tended to like Brooke's character a bit more throughout the story but thought the two narrators were a good balance.

I'm so torn on how to feel about the epilogue, lol. It was goooood but also frustrating... like WHY.

I have to say the narration wasn't my favorite. The narrators were fine but there was some accent coming through in some words and it was distracting; not enough to take me out of the story but enough that I noticed and had a conscious thought about it each time it happened.

3.5 stars. I usually hate epilogues but this one is pure gold. The extra half star just for that.

Set on an island in Thailand, this book is narrated by two women: Cass, a dive instructor who is part of the "Permanents" group of expats from different countries. She just got engaged to another one of the Permanents. The second woman is Brooke, a travel influencer who has recently arrived on the island and become friends with Cass. When someone dies, various secrets begin to come to light and it becomes clear quickly that everyone is hiding something and they don't know who to trust.

I listened to the audiobook and the two narrators, Dakota Blue Richards and Miranda Raison, do a passable job and helped me keep the two main characters straight. Strangely, both Richards and Raison are British and both Cass and Brooke are American, so there were times that the American accents used by the narrators wavered and the pronunciations were not what an American would use. And oddly also, the characters were all various nationalities (Scottish was one for example) and the narrators read their dialogue straight with no accent.

I did like learning about the motivations behind the various characters' actions. Some of the twists I saw coming, but others were more surprising, especially the one in the epilogue. As a debut novel this is a solidly written tale that kept my interest. I listened to the audiobook over the course of one day, so it was exciting enough to keep pulling me back to listen.

This book does skew towards a YA feel, and the armchair detecting was silly, regardless of how inept the Thai police were. I got really tired of hearing how Cass was so zonked out on Xanax and alcohol that she couldn't remember anything that happened. I also thought there were too many characters and none of them got thoroughly developed enough to make them relatable to me.

Overall though, I was entertained and I liked the epilogue reveal. I feel like people will either love it or hate it, but I thought it was great.

The Resort is a slow burn. Alternating between Cass and Brooke’s points of view, we see what’s really going on at the famous Koh Sang dive resort in Thailand.

Cass like most of the other “permanents” on the island is an ex-pat looking to hide from her past. After initially coming to the island to escape, she realizes she likes it there and works to certify herself to become a diving instructor. Everything is finally looking up as her longtime boyfriend finally proposes, until she discovers a body while taking a group out for a dive. Rapidly her world collapses as the truth unfolds.

Brooke carries her trauma around like a long-standing grudge. Her upbringing was far from ideal, and one incident in particular has set her on her current trajectory as a travel influencer. This is a far cry from the professional journalism job she dreamed of as a kid. People tend to judge her based on her profession, not realizing how hard she works to maintain her Instagram account, website, and advertising. Some places she has to work a lot harder to get comped rooms, the Koh Sang dive resort being one of those. Brooke finally gets a chance at real journalism when resort members start turning up dead, but is she safe?

Filled with a ton of red herrings and an ending that will shock most, Sara Ochs does a great job with this debut once you get past the first several chapters. The narrator was not great with the varying accents. I recommend actually reading, rather than listening to this one.

Thank you to NetGalley, RB Media/Recorded Books, and of course the author Sara Ochs for the advanced copy of the audiobook. The Resort is out in audio format next Tuesday. All opinions are my own.

Rating: 4.5/5 Stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨
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Swipe for synopsis.
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Wow, what a debut!! The Resort will have you begging for a vacation but will also have you completely content to stay home safe being a couch potato. Told in a dual point of view between Cass and Brooke in a remote island in Thailand, I was so intrigued to figure out what was going on. I had my doubts as to who could and couldn’t be trusted throughout the entire book.
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I think you could consider this one a bit of a slow burn in the beginning, but once things start rolling this was wild and super fast paced. Some of these revelations and twists were jaw dropping! I had some ideas as to who was behind everything but I was so wrong and loved where this one went. The ending was just *chefs kiss* perfect and I cannot sing enough praises for this one!
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I listened to this one via audiobook and it was stellar! With a full cast narrated by Miranda Raison, Dakota Blue Richards, Joe Jameson and Pema Monaghan I was hooked. I couldn’t stop listening, I wanted to know more! Such a great performance and I am highly recommending the audio.
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The Resort releases today 2/6 and the audiobook will release next week on 2/13! Be sure to check out this stunning debut! Huge thank you to NetGalley, Sarah Ochs and Recorded Books for the ALC in exchange for my honest review.
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Where is one place you want to go on vacation?
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This one just didn't quite do it for me. I can see how and why others liked it, and perhaps I would have enjoyed it more if I read it physically, but the narrators were not my favourite (flat, boring to listen to, and many weird pronunciations that annoyed me). I considered DNFing multiple times, mostly because the story never fully gripped me. I knew from the first quarter that I wouldn't rate this more than 3 stars. I didnt like any of the characters, or have any care as to what happened to them and therefore didn't care about the ending. I felt the atmosphere was lacking depth, and I'm really just over the whole drunk/drugged up unreliable narrator trope.

I LOVE this cover so much and that is what drew my attention to pick this up.
By pick up I actually mean listen to - since this was an audiobook for me.

In my case I listened to this over a boiling hot weekend in Australia which was actually perfect for this book.

I loved the slow unravelling of backstory for the 2 protagonists.
Great twist in my opinion. Especially the last one, that was a nice surprise.
I also feel this had quite a cinematic quality to it.

In terms of the audiobook; great voice actors. No complaints.

I'm impressed this is Sara Ochs debut novel, I enjoyed it so much and am interested to see what she does in the future.

Thanks to RB Media, NetGalley, author Sara Ochs, and narrators Miranda Raison, Dakota Blue Richards, Joe Jameson, and Pema Monaghan for the pleasure of listening to an advance copy of this book for an honest review. I am definitely an armchair traveler these days and Sara Ochs does a lovely job of making the reader feel like they are in the midst of island life in this book. Our main character Cass is a scuba instructor that we quickly learn has a terrible secret. She’s found a little home away from home in this group of employees who work for the Resort. She is just starting to feel like a part of the family and then things go horribly wrong, someone knows about her past. Even worse, before she can confront that person somehow that person ends up dead in the very area where she is taking her class of new divers for their first dive. Who is responsible and who can she really trust? Just when I thought I had it figured out I was surprised by a cool ending. Well worth reading and definitely a good book to take on vacation or staycation 🥰

I enjoyed this book, but it archived before I could finish the audio, which was a little disappointing. However, I was able to obtain the eBook and finish the story that way.

This book had a lot of characters to keep track of, and I thought the narrators did a fantastic job. I had no trouble telling the different women apart.

The story itself is definitely a slow burn, as it takes a little while to get going and to get a feel for what is going on. However, once it does, it gets wild.

I will say that the epilogue was my least favorite part. I don't want to give anything away, but I was happy and satisfied with the ending before that chapter was thrown in. It kind of took away from the story by adding in a cheap, "this lesser known character is just a psychopath," which actually created some plot holes that weren't there without that chapter.

Overall, it was a solid thriller, and I would recommend the audio due to how great the narration was.

I tried to get into it but it is overly slow and the narration I am not enjoying the accent it's not for me. Unfortunately I had to DNF, but it's mostly a me problem.

Sara Ochs knows how to keep us guessing. With multiple points of view, it's easy to start thinking we know what's going on, but there's dramatic irony all around when so many characters have secrets to hide. i enjoyed fitting together the puzzle pieces as the author dolled them out..