Hardcover, 400 pages
Published Feb. 2, 2021 by Pamela Dorman Books.
This is not a horror novel or supernatural, don’t let the Shining comparison deceive you :/
I have mixed feelings about this book, it has it’s good moments but there is a lot of weak writing and I can’t decide whether I liked it or not. The setting in the Swiss Alps was a fantastic idea, you can tell the author knows this landscape well, the descriptions are stunning and you could almost be there yourself. The plot itself is interesting enough to have kept me reading to the end, the idea behind the Sanatorium’s history was quite chilling.
The characters though are rubbish, nobody is developed enough to get you interested in them, Elin has a lot of baggage from an event in her past and it is dragged out for two thirds of the book, maybe if it was dealt with quicker she would have become the strong character that this book needed. The rest of the characters left you thinking they could be …
I have mixed feelings about this book, it has it’s good moments but there is a lot of weak writing and I can’t decide whether I liked it or not. The setting in the Swiss Alps was a fantastic idea, you can tell the author knows this landscape well, the descriptions are stunning and you could almost be there yourself. The plot itself is interesting enough to have kept me reading to the end, the idea behind the Sanatorium’s history was quite chilling.
The characters though are rubbish, nobody is developed enough to get you interested in them, Elin has a lot of baggage from an event in her past and it is dragged out for two thirds of the book, maybe if it was dealt with quicker she would have become the strong character that this book needed. The rest of the characters left you thinking they could be the killer and also not the killer at the same time, they were tough to get a read on, rather wishy-washy. A lot of the issues could be down to the very short chapters, the tension will start to build and then the chapter ends and you are left to start again, so many of the chapter breaks seemed unnecessary to me.
So it all came down to the ending would it be strong enough to make me want to recommend it to others…it wasn’t half bad, the reasoning behind the murders was very good, the final scene was very intense….and I have to admit I can’t remember if it was spread across loads of chapters or not, the flow was kept up well and I got caught up in the moment.
I think the book was ok in the end, it is a debut after all. There is a sequel, I’m hoping that Elin’s past has now been dealt with and that the readers can now get to see her in her element and start to solve some interesting cases. I think if you are a big reader of crime novels then you’ll like this one, I’m just a fussy old git.
Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2022/01/04/the-sanatorium-by-sarah-pearse/
Everything about this story could have been better. The characters are basic and annoying, and the story is... Yawn. I don't write bad reviews lightly, but this one deserves it. I gave it 2* simply because the actual writing was good.
