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Louise MumfordRezensionen

Autor von Sleepless

3 Werke 39 Mitglieder 7 Rezensionen

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Ten years ago, four teenage students (Bex, Leo, Richard, and Oscar) decide to make a film (like the Blair Witch Project) at the rundown, abandoned Ravencliffe Hotel on the Welsh coast. But when they leave the hotel, there is only three of them. Leo has disappeared without a trace. Ten years later, Bex, Richard, and Oscar return again for an anniversary/reunion show. Each of them has their own personal reasons for going back, especially Bex who was very close to the missing Leo and is looking for answers to what ever happened to him. But things start to go wrong when they arrive at the hotel. Accidents, mistrust between friends, and ghostly sightings… Will they ever find out what happened to Leo?

This was an okay read. It started out slow, but picked up once they got back to the hotel. My main problem with this book is I really didn’t like Bex at all, she was a very annoying and irritating character. She thought she was more important than she really was. Hiding and moping in her house for ten years from her "fans", from the world, etc. And unfortunately, most of the story is told from her viewpoint. I also found it hard to believe this "movie" they made became that popular, to get such a huge cult following and fan base. I did like the dark and creepy atmosphere of the old hotel, and slowly discovering what happened all those years ago as the story went back and forth between the present day and the past. There were also some surprises towards the end.

A so-so read.
 
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SandraLynne | 2 weitere Rezensionen | Sep 30, 2023 |
A solid four stars for a mystery steeped in intrigue, tension and creepiness.
As someone who lost a friend very young, I really felt for the remaining three friends and sympathised with how grief affected the next ten years of their lives. I couldn't imagine going back to the scene to make a movie and I agreed with Bex on that score. However, the possibility of finding out what really happened to Leo was a pull too difficult to ignore.
I loved the descriptions of the hotel. It had quite a dark history. The grounds and the building itself were creepy and had a haunted feeling made more so as the tragic story of past inhabitants was revealed. It was a complete mystery as to what had really happened to Leo and I didn't have a clue until the big reveal.
The story is told in dual timelines where the narration jumps between the group exploring the house in the present day mirroring the group's activities ten years previously. This added to the haunted feel of the story.
The conclusion to the mystery was riveting, emotional, tense and fraught with danger. There were a few surprises and twists but with the mystery solved I was happy that the future seemed that little bit brighter for my favourite characters.
 
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Inishowen_Cailin | 2 weitere Rezensionen | Jun 28, 2023 |
The Hotel by Louise Mumford is a highly recommended thriller.

Ten years ago four eighteen-year-old students travel to Ravencliffe, an abandoned hotel rumored to be haunted on the Welsh coast, but only three returned. Bex, Leo, Richard, and Oscar go to the hotel and film themselves exploring the spooky setting. Something happens and Leo disappears, never to be seen again. The footage they filmed goes on to become a cult horror movie with a large fan following and an annual convention for fans, RavenCon.

Since her life-long friend Leo disappeared, Bix has hidden herself away and wants nothing openly to do with fans. However, she does attend the RavenCons just to see what is going on with the fans. It is there, on the tenth anniversary, she learns that Oscar, Richard, and, apparently, herself are going back to Ravencliffe and filming again. She doesn't want to, but a package she receives in the mail guilts her into participating and returning to the setting of her nightmares.

The narrative covers what happened ten years previously during the filming of the original Ravencliffe film that went viral and the current time period during the re-visiting of the movie sight. Mumford does an excellent job capturing the chilling terror in the original cult movie and the behavior of rabid fans, which creates the tension in the anticipation of what may happen in the re-boot. The creepy, apprehensive atmosphere will pull you into the story.

Bix is a sympathetic character and readers will like her. The pace is slow, especially at the start. It eventually picks up, but it does slow down the appreciation of the plot. Keep at it and the mystery is solved, but the writing could have been tightened up a bit the keep a faster pace. I did like the alternating between decades in the narrative to tell the story of the films in both time periods.
Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of HarperCollins via NetGalley.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2023/06/the-hotel.html
 
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SheTreadsSoftly | 2 weitere Rezensionen | Jun 14, 2023 |
3.5 stars
Ok so the first third or so pages of this book was good and I was engrossed in it, this poor woman had insomnia and it was so bad that she had no more than three hours of sleep a night. I did think, welcome to my world of being a parent of having much the same for the past 5 years though.
She then sees an ad for a sleep trial and signs up heading to a secluded island with no phone signal then things start getting shady.
Unfortunately, it turned into something I didn’t expect and I found the story not keeping my attention as it should.
The author had a good imagination and it was well written, but it didn’t grab me.
 
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StressedRach | 2 weitere Rezensionen | Jun 14, 2023 |
Esther has lived in a bunker away from the outside world with her mother for sixteen years. She’s always believed everything her mother has told her but one day a man visits the House and he seems to know who she is. Has her mother been lying to her all her life?

This is a gripping psychological thriller. It’s well written, has an compelling plot line and a fascinating array of intriguing characters. In other words, it’s a real page turner! It kept my attention from beginning to end. It reminded me a little of Room by Emma Donoghue. I can’t comment much more without revealing spoilers, so suffice it to say I found it a thought provoking and very enjoyable read.
 
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VanessaCW | May 20, 2022 |
I should start to judge books by their covers, because the cover of ‘Sleepless’ is the cover of a book I wouldn’t like. I did, indeed, not like it, but I had to find that out by reading it which I now regret. Lesson: be more judgey, Olly. Everything about this book speaks to things that annoy me about modern publishing. It has an intriguing concept that’s poorly used, it lazily compares itself to other things, it has lots of short chapters that end with cliffhangers or revelations but no real plot. In other words, it’s another mediocre thriller that the publishers are hyping way beyond what it deserves. Indeed, the full title of the book on Amazon is ‘Sleepless: An unputdownable psychological thriller for fans of The One and Black Mirror‘. It is not unputdownable and it is nothing like ‘Black Mirror’. It is not a psychological thriller, more like a half-baked medical thriller that wants to be sci fi. I haven’t read ‘The One’, so I can’t comment on similarities to ‘The One’. Although, I did read another book by the same author which I found to be a mediocre, over-hyped thriller, so maybe it is a valid comparison.
I think the story goes something like this, but it was hard to take in or retain. There’s a woman called Thea who has trouble sleeping. She gets involved with an obviously shady organisation (they’re called Morpheus, FFS) who are doing sleep studies on some remote island. It all gets scary and there’s some weird science I didn’t really understand. Her mum is in it too and provides “comic relief” by being overbearing and having a scarf with pictures of vaginas on it.
So in summary: I found the plot boring and confusing. The characters all blended into one. Cliches are liberally used (storms, faces at windows, etc). The concepts are poorly developed. I was glad to finish it.
On the plus side, it might be the perfect antidote for insomnia.


 
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whatmeworry | 2 weitere Rezensionen | Apr 9, 2022 |
The story was good, but dragged on at times, and I flatted out skipped her dreams. I was ready to be done at that point. The ending was okay, but would have been more satisfactory knowing what happened to Thea, and if she ever got any sleep.
 
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relorenz1064 | 2 weitere Rezensionen | Nov 21, 2021 |
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