The Return

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What to expect

PERFECT FOR FANS OF THE CHILLING ADVENTURES OF SABRINA, RIVERDALE AND STEPHEN KING'S THE SHINING

Her best friend disappeared. A stranger came back.

Julie is missing, and the missing don't often return. But Elise knows Julie better than anyone, and she feels in her bones that her best friend is out there.

She's right. Two years to the day that Julie vanished, she reappears with no memory of what happened to her. But she is different. She's emaciated, with sallow skin, chipped teeth and odd appetites. In so many ways, Julie seems to be the friend they all loved and lost. But in others, she seems to be a stranger.

Along with Molly and Mae, their two close friends from college, they decide to reunite at the eccentric, remote Red Honey Inn. But when bad weather traps them inside the hotel, tensions flare. Elise begins to hear scratching within the walls, to see the slither of shadows cast by nothing. And as the weekend unfurls, it becomes impossible to deny that the Julie who vanished two years ago is not the same Julie who came back.

An eerie storm of a debut that fuses thriller and horror into a brilliant depiction of women's friendships - the rivalries, jealousies, anxieties and love. The Return is like nothing else you'll read this year.

(P)2020 Penguin Random House Audio

Critics Review

The Return expertly treads the fine line between thriller and horror. It's as deliciously creepy as opening up a box of candy-coated spiders-and eating them all in one sitting
Vox
The Return is supernatural horror at its very best! Sharp dialogue, complex relationships and mind-bending action will have readers locking their doors and checking under their beds. Rachel Harrison has reinvented this genre and will surely be hailed as a pioneer among her peers
The Night Before
The Return is a sharp, refreshing book about the mortifying ordeal of being known. This is a book that understands how terrifying a lasting friendship can truly be; Harrison brilliantly highlights the way friendships can tether a person to their worst memories, their worst selves, and their worst nightmares
Magic for Liars
The Return is moving and terrifying in equal measure. A brilliant rumination on friendship, pain, and the myriad of unsuccessful ways we all try to run from our past and fill the holes in our hearts. Harrison's keen prose won't let you go. Be warned, you'll double check the locks on your doors before you try to sleep
The Lady from the Black Lagoon
By turns scary and funny, horrifying and real, The Return is impossible to put down. It takes an honest, scathing look at female friendship while at the same time pulling the reader into a perfect nightmare of a story
The Sun Down Motel
Combining suspense and horror with razor-sharp insights into the nature of female friendships, Rachel Harrison's The Return is a creepy, nerve-wracking, page-turning addition to the emerging field of horror thrillers
The Deep and The Hunger
Hair-raising horror and pure entertainment in Harrison's compulsively readable debut . . . The tension and nuance of Harrison's complicated female friendships add depth to an already delicious, chilling debut
Publishers Weekly
So creepy I didn't want to read it at night. She's so good at building suspense and dread it is borderline upsetting to find this is her first novel. Seriously - you need to prepare yourself
The Warehouse
A blisteringly scary debut novel from a wildly talented author. A can't-miss book
Marvellous. The storytelling is quick, well plotted and engrossing. Harrison's dialogue catches the characters' quirks, insecurities and entitlement so well it sometimes feels like eavesdropping
New York Times

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