I just finished reading this book, and while it had some great elements, I’m left with mixed feelings. The setting was one of the highlights for me, with its magical and supernatural elements that really drew me in. However, the plot started off very slow, and it wasn’t until about 30% into the story that things started to pick up. Once it did, the pace became more consistent, which kept me engaged.

That said, there are a few things that I found hard to overlook. The ending felt abrupt, leaving several characters, like Reid and Kim, incomplete. I understand that the author might have intended to keep with the mysterious theme of the plot, but it felt more like the story was cut off rather than adding to the mystery.

Another thing that bothered me was the lack of explanation behind Emily’s actions. Her motives were never fully explained, and I felt like every character was underdeveloped. Take Ingrid, for example. She was a crucial part of the plot, helping to start and end Sarah’s journey, yet I finished the book feeling like I knew nothing about her. She felt like an empty shell, and I wanted so much more from her character.

Despite these flaws, I would still recommend this book to fans of ghost stories and mysteries. Just be prepared to overlook some of the incomplete aspects of the storyline. There’s a lot to enjoy here, but don’t expect all your questions to be answered by the end.


I would like to express my deep gratitude to Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine and NetGalley for their generosity in allowing me to read this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was the third book I’ve read by Delilah S. Dawson and it was my least favorite out of the three, but it was one of those books that made me feel like I had physically gone somewhere. Dawson is great at atmosphere and world building, and even if this book didn’t quite hit as strongly as the other two in the end it was still an experience.

I loved the vivid way she described the artists’ retreat. I really understood the layout of the place and felt like I had been there before. Dawson appeals to all of the senses with her writing. This story took place in the Fall and the retreat was located in the woods, so that added an extra layer to everything, also. I think that Dawson is very skilled at visualizing her stories and where they occur, then translating that for the reader.

While the GR blurb for this book absolutely drew me in and made me want to read it, I do think it gives away too much about the plot. There are little details in there that don’t occur until pretty far into the story and would’ve been more fun to be surprised with as I was reading.

A mutual Friend/Reviewer on here recently mentioned that she is tired of seeing the “Goth girl is a bitch” stereotype in books, and honestly it hadn’t really occurred to me until I saw her talk about it but now I’m noticing it more. It totally happens in this novel. I kind of got the feeling that Ingrid was supposed to be a mean version of Lydia Deetz. (The book even references “Beetlejuice” at one point.) She did end up growing on me a bit by the end. But the timing was humorous and that Reviewer was absolutely right.

The plot takes a bit of a turn in a surprising direction that I was not expecting. It gets very dark, and then even darker. Part of me was hoping that the story would stay focused on the art aspect because I love art horror, but I didn’t really mind the other stuff that was going on, (though heed the trigger warnings.) The book straddled the line of feeling like two different stories stitched together, but the author made them harmonize for the most part. Just as main character Sarah was determined to explore her creepy and moldy surroundings, I was intrigued to find out just how deep this horrific plot would go. By the end, though, it did feel like one of the plot lines was left hanging and with a few gaping holes. As I read other reviews, I realized more and more threads that were left dangling. Based on “Guillotine,” another Dawson book that I just read an ARC for recently, I feel like she typically gives a lot of thought to her plots so honestly this surprised me.

The action also got a bit repetitive after a while, with Sarah doing the same things over and over but for different reasons. There was a lot of “Once she made it back outside into the sunlight, she could breathe again” or variations of that sentence.

Parts of this story were admittedly tough for me to read. There isn’t much that gets to me when I read horror, but the specific things that I don’t care for were there in this book and they were handled in a graphic way.

I was mostly having a good time with this read overall until I got to the last ten percent. The ending was just a big jumble of disappointment. I felt like Riley Sager suddenly took over. (Sorry for the shade!) I took a whole star off because of it. Sarah seemed to be doing things that were very out of character, after everything I had come to learn about her and after this little journey we had taken together, and it felt like a betrayal. A big reveal occurred that wasn’t surprising at all. There were those big questions left unanswered and two things happened out of nowhere, partially for the sake of plot convenience. But I found them difficult to believe or accept. All of this also made the ending overall feel a bit abrupt and unfinished. *I thought the book deserved a better conclusion. There was so much buildup to what amounted to a mixture of over the top villainy and a long passage of telling rather than showing in the aftermath. (“Let me catch you up on what happened in this dialogue.”)

I liked “Bloom” and “Guillotine” quite a bit, and this one had a lot of potential but didn’t quite hit the mark for me. I think a different ending would really elevate the story. But I’ll definitely continue to read more from this author!

2.5 rounded up because I really did like it until the ending.

Thank you to Netgalley and to the Publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review! All opinions are my own.

TW: Substance Abuse, Animal Death, Sexual Assault, Domestic Abuse, Misogyny, Self-harm (graphic), References to Abortion

This was such a fun read as a Georgia native. At the beginning of the novel we find the main character, Sarah Carpenter, returning to her home state of Georgia to reconnect to her artistic roots at an artist's collective program in the remote Georgia mountains. This novel initially reads as a mystery and quickly turns to thriller as paranormal elements begin to entwine themself into the story.
I have an aunt who is an established southern potter, giving me extensive knowledge of the process of making pottery, and I must say Dawson successfully spoke to so many elements of this artistic form with such clarity and depth that I could envision the pieces being formed in my mind.
The ending was unexpected but felt a bit rushed to combine all the loose threads from the story. Overall, this book is a fantastic read and perfect for spooky fall evenings.

So, first off... please put a trigger warning or content warning in this book. It was a very darkly overwhelming read with absolutely 0 warning.

The setting and atmosphere are gorgeous, but....the plot was a major let down. Especially the ending. For someone so set on moving on, Kyle was the major point of Sarah's entire personality. We only got glimpses of her in terms of how Kyle made her, but rarely a glimpse of who she actually was. I feel like the story would have been more impactful if only Sarah had been impacted, which really takes out the creepier elements of the story.

Please, someone take away the sheer number of metaphors used. AND why did Kyle just randomly pop up? If he had been manipulating things that may have made the ending more plausible, but it was just nonsensical and traumatic. Not knowing what happened to Reid was also strange. Gail would have had no reason to get rid of him, so it felt like cheap suspense to leave his ending unknown. Very reluctant 3 star read.

Sarah has left her abusive husband, heading to a secluded artists’ retreat with no cell service or internet, safe from her husband and free to resume her love for pottery. Soon after her arrival, while digging a pit for a kiln, she discovers the body of a young woman, apparently from the 1800’s. From that point forward, strange things begin happening at the art colony, and Sarah is in the center of it all. It Will Only Hurt For A Moment is a dark, eerie ghost story with a disturbing theme central to the plot, as Sarah discovers the more she delves into the sordid past of Tranquil Falls, the former location of a “healing spa” in the 1800’s that catered to the rich. The flawed characters, all artists like Sarah, add to the strange aura that surrounds the colony, and Sarah’s vivid, strange dreams help tell the story, and provides plenty of chills for the reader. I was pleasantly surprised by the direction this book takes, and except for a few plot holes at the end which need to be overlooked, I definitely enjoyed this one! I received an ARC of this book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I did actually enjoy this book quite a bit! It had a great pace and the atmosphere Dawson created through her narrative was spooky and intriguing. Ghosts, a haunted hotel/resort, dual timelines done well? Count me in. However, there are some loose ends that I feel didn’t get tied up and ya girl wants answers!!

Sarah is on a new adventure. Having recently left her abusive, narcissistic ex-boyfriend, she goes to a 6-week artists retreat in the mountains of northern Georgia. This retreat is hosted at Tranquil Falls, what was once a posh health spa/resort for well-to-do men and women in the late 1800s. Tranquil Falls is withholding a dark past and traumatic secrets that start to affect the artists staying in cabins built on the land south of the old hotel. It throws their work off center and Sarah starts having a lot of dreams associated with past guests at the resort where the secrets of the past start coming to light. Sarah then has to decide if she’s going to pursue justice for the ghosts of Tranquil Falls past or keep herself safe.

There are SEVERAL things that Dawson brings up throughout this book that aren’t resolved in the end. I’m going to wait to add in all those things in more detail when I have my computer and can format this so spoilers will be hidden 🙃🤪😂 some people in these reviews are complaining about stereotyping the artists, but that didn’t really bother me. What was getting on my last nerve was Dawson’s use of short hand in the prose! If it were part to the dialogue it wouldn’t bother me since that’s how people talk, but in the narrative itself saying things like “pic” instead of “picture” or “veg” instead of “vegetable” might be my new biggest pet peeve in writing. It was something I’ve never noticed in books before but DANG it happened a lot here and every single time I would get so annoyed lol.

Thanks to NetGalley and Del Rey for the advance copy of this book!!

I loved the title and the book cover, but I really didn't like the book. The plot was really repetitive, and even good writing couldn't change the predictability this story or the one-dimensional characters.

3/5

Sarah Carpenter is starting over - away from her narcissistic ex-boyfriend who never had the best intentions for her. Headed to a secluded artists' retreat at Tranquil Falls with no cell signal or internet to distract her, she plans to fall back in love with her passion for pottery. However, while digging a hole for a pit kiln, Sarah discovers the body of a young woman who died in a disturbing way. This starts a series of events that makes Sarah wonder if someone is out to get her or if she’s losing her grip on reality. As she investigates the beautiful valley and crumbling resort that seems to be the center of it all, Sarah will unearth a chilling past of Tranquil Falls that can no longer remain buried.

This book was so frustrating. I actually enjoyed it quite a bit as I was reading it, and loved the atmosphere that Delilah S. Dawson created, but the ending annoyed me so much. There were multiple things that happened in the book that were left unexplained, and the ending wrapped up way too quickly. I feel like there should’ve been another few chapters to finish wrapping up the loose ends. This is mainly a vibes and character-driven book, which I normally love in fiction and horror, but the plot that was there felt repetitive and rushed - which led to that unsatisfying ending. The central theme of this book was emotional abuse and the power it holds, but this book could’ve done so much more. I felt like it was too safe and went in a direction that multiple thrillers and horror have gone before already, which was disappointing. I didn’t hate reading this, but because of the ending I would be wary of recommending this.

“He is completely unaware, this man, her husband, that women always wake when danger is near. That they are always listening, always watching, that they can sense how the air changes when they are targeted. Like wild creatures their eyes pierce the darkness, taking in every detail of the approaching enemy. If only, like wild creatures they had ready claws. He does not understand women. He does not need to. You don’t need to understand a porcelain cup to shatter it completely.”

Thank you to Random House Publishing, NetGalley, and the author for the opportunity to read an advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

It Will Only Hurt For A Moment is a gripping thriller about Sarah, the MC, who attends a secluded summer artist residency on the site of an old, abandoned hotel, in part to escape an abusive relationship. The director informs Sarah that the hotel was once a prominent and luxurious spot for the wealthy to visit for restoration and rejuvenation. Strange and unsettling things start happening from Sarah's first day at the residency, and we follow her through the mystery of the location and what is happening to the artists.

I was immediately immersed in this story, and while the overall theme of a thriller amongst artists isn't new to me, the details and characters were unique and captivating. I continued to guess at what would happen next and felt the ending was not fully predictable, which I really appreciated. I especially liked the growth of the characters and their relationships during the story. I think this book will be very memorable for me and I would highly recommend it to others.

Just a note that this book contains heavy content of sexual assault, abuse, and more related to those topics, so please be cautious picking up this book if needed. These topics are covered during the entire book and not just parts of it.

Overall I'd give this book a 4.5 as I really enjoyed it and it was a quick and engaging read.

I’m not going to lie, that cover is what initially drew my eye and made me want to read this. I haven’t read anything else by this author yet but I’ve heard amazing things about Bloom.

I’m not sure what I expected when I went into this one. I was initially intrigued from the beginning but it lost me a little in the middle.

I tried so hard to get into this book, but it was so hard to stay focused on it. It wasn't my least favorite book I've ever read, but it definitely wasn't my favorite. This was my first time reading a book from this author, and I was pretty disappointed. I'll still give their other books a try, though. Just because I didn't thoroughly enjoy this book doesn't mean others won't, so I'll still recommend giving it a try.

I heard absolutely nothing but rave reviews about Dawson's other novel Bloom and so I was pretty thrilled to try her new one out. All in all, what a let down. The descriptive SA and rape scenes and the overplayed narcissistic abuse was too much to handle. I mean, I get it, but it was almost sickly repetitive. My stomach couldn't handle much of it, there honestly should've been some heads up trigger warning there. I felt like this was a clumsy burn to the end and I was able to see it a mile away. Hopefully, this title will find it's audience, bit it just wasn't me.

2.5 stars.
I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley. This was my first ARC ever approved on there. I was super invested in the first half, then there was so many boring moments. I think I was just not the right reader for this book.

What I did like about this book was that I could relate to the FMC a lot, the messed up mother problems, the abusive relationships which I am no longer a part of but I've been there. The book is fast paced, very easy to read. The author has done well with the imagery descriptors. Getting lost in the book is no doubt very easy to do. There were just boring moments through out the book and so many conversations that annoyed me.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an e-copy of this novel!

I thought this book was alright, but it took a while to really get going. I feel like nothing was really happening in the first half of the book and it was mainly just Sarah wandering around overthinking everything. I didn't mind this at first, but nothing was happening and I was beginning to wonder if there was even going to be anything supernatural in this book at all. It did start to pick up at about the 60% mark. I thought the ending was fine, but it left a lot of questions unanswered. Like, a lot a lot. Felt like there should have been another chapter or two to finish wrapping up loose ends.

Positive: It's moody and spooky and leans into the "most men are trash" vibes that are still very much in the zeitgeist. The side characters, especially Ingrid, are vibrant, and the author weaponizes the haunting landscape to add tension to every square inch of the story. All of the pieces are here to build something resembling a "lock-in" murder mystery, or a more ghost-oriented slasher fic, but unfortunately that's not the direction this headed in.

Negative: Coming after almost a decade of post me-too literature, I worry that the audience for this type of book has moved on. There's an over-reliance on therapy-speak and emotional trauma that, maybe before authors like Gillian Flynn, Tana French, and Amanda Montell, felt insightful. Here it does too much of the heavy lifting, and because we're so inundated with instagram slideshows breaking down the difference between love-bombing and gas=lighting, it felt more like reading through a listicle of red-flags to watch out for in your relationship that an actual mystery.

When I'd heard that this novel was to be a feminist horror/ thriller, I was really excited for the opportunity to receive and read this ARC. While the contents are technically of a feminist nature, the execution of the concept fell flat for me.
We are following 26-year-old Sarah as she flees from her abusive ex and senile alcoholic mother to seek solace at an "off-grid" artists' retreat. It quickly becomes obvious that escaping her troublesome past won't be as easy as Sarah had anticipated.
I feel that the beginning of the book should include certain content and trigger warnings as there is animal abuse and death as well as explicit rape scenes which I wasn't entirely prepared for and which threw me off guard. While we are on the topic, I found the barbarism to be unnecessary and simply for shock value, as it did not add anything to the plot. The use of animal cruelty didn't reveal any new information, didn't accelerate the pacing and was only included for "gore factor" which feels tactless and lazy, in my opinion.
For a book which dubs itself a "feminist horror", I feel that it fell short on feminism. The whole book, Sarah was degrading and projecting her own insecurities and standards onto the other woman at the retreat. For instance, Gertrude Rose is too dramatic, Antionette is too regal, Kim only cares about male validation and Ingrid is some weird goth. Sarah is so judge-y, I honestly was rooting for her downfall the whole book.
For a lack of better ways to describe what I mean to say; it felt as if the author was just using Sarah as a way to project her own thoughts and beliefs into the narrative. For instance, goths are weird, gory, and angry. 19-year-old boys should be angsty, eating all day and listening to Nirvana. The chef was just an angry, controlling snob. I could go on!
Sarah is over all just a very negative and unlikable character. The entirety of the novel she is looking down her nose at all the other artists for being "weird" and "unorthodox" with their mediums; music, fashion, calligraphy, sculpting, glass cutting, but may I remind you that Sarah makes vases and plates... VASES AND PLATES. I could cut her some slack if she chose to be original with her medium but it's so anticlimactic and run-of-the-mill. I don't see where she gets off on being an absolute prick.
As for the writing itself, I felt that the author tried using 3rd person perspective but it fell flat. Instead of telling us her feelings and what she's thinking, it was used as a way to "question prompt" the audience. If the writing was executed well, I would be asking myself those questions and it wouldn't need to be prompted for me. In addition, I felt it to be redundant and often many chapters were extraneous and offered no real value to the rest of the text other than to show us how millennial the author is. For instance, referencing Taylor Swift and Nirvana and using the word "pic" unironically (repetitively). I know not everyone minds pop-culture references in their books but when it's used on every other page, it begins to feel like a brand deal and product placement. I think that if I had to read any more mentions of Apple and their products. TikTok, and Instagram than I did, I was going to DNF this ARC. AirPods could be generic earbuds and it wouldn't have affected the story at all (except for making it better). I am 22-years-old and I know that if I was planning to go on a 6 week retreat sin internet or cell reception, I would think to bring a few books with me. But naturally 26-year-old Sarah is still relying on her phone to use the reading app... because that makes sense.
I felt that there were so so so so so many plot holes:
1. The animal deaths added nothing to the plot and we never learn the reason they were maimed and killed.
2. A character died and Sarah thought they looked like they died of fear and they were found holding a certain recurring object in their hand, but we never learn the significance of the object nor how the character really died.
3. There are glass shards found in some clay but we never learn why or how it was put there- it's implied that a ghost would have done it but there was never any ghost! And the "ghost" only manipulated the glass shards...
4. THE ENTIRE CONCLUSION!
There are many many more but I don't want to be a spoiler.
Sarah has vision-like dreams about the retreat in its earlier years of operation but if this is a feminist novel, and we can all agree the 97% statistic is valid, then why is Sarah the only woman at the retreat with this connection? Shouldn't all the women be affected? And, with the 97% in mind, why does Sarah walk around the place thinking she is the only person who has gone through some life-altering traumatic event? Sarah's attitude is justified but all the other characters are just dramatic cry babies dealing with their first ever inconveniences?
I think this book would be better categorized as a thriller than a horror because WHERE WAS THE HORROR? Unless the scariest thing was meant to be Sarah's superiority complex, nothing was scary! I could predict the ending less than 30% through the book and I'm the kind of reader who believes in suspension of disbelief to enjoy a book... there was no suspending my disbelief with this novel. It was as easy as 1+1. I expected page-turning. heart pounding, mind racing horror and instead I got a glowing blue orb 10 pages from the end of the novel...
I feel that if this was to be a well-done feminist horror novel, the rape scenes would have to be less tacky or just not exist. We know rape is bad! We know marital rape was once normalized. We know the feeling of having our "no," go unappreciated. Was there meant to be a moral or theme or was it just an explicit example of what rape can look like? If the point of the scenes were meant to show how women feel about getting raped then I feel the same effect could have been reached without the play-by-play and, instead, the 3rd person narrator could have dome what a 3rd person POV is meant to so and just show us her thought process and how he feels without telling us what is being done to her. It felt like a 6th grade execution of a women's rights poster board project. "Raping women is bad!" "Consent is key!" "Men used to use women as incubators which is not fair!" Like yes, these are all very obvious points only left to be doubted by incels and ingrates. The only reason this book was given two stars by me, instead of one star, is because of Ingrid. She was the only likable character in all 328 pages!! Over-all I absolutely hated this book and would probably not recommend it to a friend. Maybe I'd recommend it to someone I hate- not for them to learn anything but just because I want them to suffer as much as I did.

It Will Only Hurt For A Moment is creepy and enjoyable thriller.

When Sarah decided to leave her controlling boyfriend and resume her passion for pottery, she did not expect to find the remote art colony to be haunted. The ghosts of the past and villains of the present collide in a story of reclaiming identity.

This book, unfortunately, was not for me. There are many graphic sexual assault scenes that were upsetting. I also found the plot to develop rather slowly and it lost my interest.

Thank you for the opportunity to read in advance!

I enjoyed this book. It's so unsettling and atmospheric, and perfect. After reading it, I feel even more wary of mountain retreats. One unexpected aspect that I loved was the feminist rage portrayed in the novel. The depiction of how women were treated at the "Spas" made my blood boil. I appreciated Dawson's open ending, but I wish I could have seen what happened after she and Ingrid left the hotel. The ending was effective because it satisfied me and kept me thinking about the afterward. The author's writing was vivid; as I read, I could almost feel the mist from the waterfalls and hear the birds and silence around the retreat. Overall, I'm impressed, and I eagerly await her next book!

The premise to this novel sounded fascinating, but the constant sexual assaults and repetitive language was tiring for this reader.