#WinterChills ‘The Return’ by Rachel Harrison

About the book…

An edgy and haunting debut novel about a group of friends who reunite after one of them has returned from a mysterious two-year disappearance.

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, and that one day she’ll come back. She’s right. Two years to the day that Julie went missing, she reappears with no memory of where she’s been or what happened to her

This is a book which has lingered for far too long on my TBR, until a relatively recent discovery, the Talk Scared Podcast became a lifeline out of  a huge reading slump, rocketed ‘The Return’ to the top of the pile with talk of comparisons between it and The Shining.

Host Neil McRoberts unabashed and genuine enthusiasm for this modern gothic which uses the setting of the fictional Red Honey Inn for a reunion amongst 4 college friends was what got me stumbling through my bookstacks to find it. It sounds dick-ish calling them that, but basically we navigate our way around the house very carefully as there are piles of books in every room. We have an ongoing shelf space to book issue which I am not at all sad about and a long suffering and tolerating husband and children.Once located, I could not put this book down. I am not saying there is a link between me reading it on my break on the night shift at work the other night and my constant sense of wariness towards lights, shadows and sounds that had me on pins…but I am not usually one for jumping at noises that no one else can hear either…

It came with me to the museum today, I read page after frantic page as the miles went by between Bridgend and Cardiff because I was nearing the end and my nerves were in pieces wanting to know just what happens next. How can you not when Rachel nails people again and again with lines like this-

”Molly signals the bartender,a guy with a beard that acts as his only defining characteristic”

Tell me you haven’t met someone like this?

Or how about-

”You can’t erase the past when there are pieces of it scattered inside other people.”

Tell me that doesn’t hit you right in the soft parts?

You take 4 women-Mae,Molly,Julie and narrator Elise- who all have a shared history but have been trauma bonded by both Julie’s disappearance and return, 2 years later, with no memory of how she went missing, or what happened to her. Drop them into a boutique hotel, with themed rooms, suggested by Molly from one of her fashion shoot locations, mix them up and let them loose with years of misunderstandings, fermenting worries and the kind of intense inner life that only comes from going through a shared trauma, then add in a menace from an uncertain source and you too will be peering more closely into the shadows.

The setting is so vividly described that as a reader I had a visceral, very physical reaction to the jarring colours and schemes which from the get-go are wrong-Elise, meant to have the Gothic room is erroneously placed in the prophetic Cassandra room. The food they are served, the jarring dissonance between opulence of the decorations and lack of style or taste are diametrically opposed to Elise’s relative poverty -she is the only one of the 4 with limited finances-and the reason for this getaway. As a setting for a retreat, this is not a great one, showing the roles each woman takes in the group straight away-Molly is the one who controls the narrative, Mae is a loner whose life has been defnied by childhood tragedy, Julie, the one Elise wants most to be like and who she is closest to, and then Elise, our narrator herself.

The first person narration brings the reader in like you are one of the group, as she shares her anxiety, the inner secrets of their bonds, their nicknames, partners and shared stories. And this creates an intimacy that as soon as they are flung into danger then your fear for these women becomes a very palpable, breathing, lurking thing behind your ribs.

Elise tells you she has anxiety, She tells you she has issues with security both within and without the friendship group. Her perception of things is your guide but she is not a traditional unreliable narrator, she is the beating, wounded heart of the tale. And whether the setting has activated some kind of supernatural something, whether the women bought it with them, or accelerated the monstrous is irrelevant, what is happening is happening and once it does, you cannot imagine a more prescient setting than the Red Honey Inn.

Corridors don’t quite seem the same the second time you go down them. There are very few other guests. The staff appear to be unravelling. People are missing. The thermostat has a mind of its own. The colours jar and disconnect from the theme of each woman’s room. The keys , kitsch and unique, don’t do what they are supposed to-they do not keep these women safe.

In the midst of this, these four women want to give a platform to Julie, their friend, who now belongs to the world who want to deep dive into the how’s, the wherefore’s and why’s of her 2 year absence.

Why was their friendship not enough to keep her happy? How can they reconcile the woman who has returned with the friend who left. Is she the same person, and if not, can they get her back or is she forever changed?

I am absolutely not here to give spoilers, just to massively recommended this incredible book which places these four very real women, in the spiritual hotel sibling of The Overlook, and does something quite extraordinary.

It takes a lot to scare me, but this book hit each and every nerve and set them to jangling over and over again.

Unexpectedly tender, brutally real about the way women are with each other and pulsing with horror, this is a book which belongs on the shelf of anyone who considers themselves a horror fan.

About the author…

Rachel Harrison is the author of ‘The Return’, nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel. Her short fiction has appeared in Guernica and Electric Lit.

She lives in New York with her husband and their cat/overlord.

Links-https://www.rachel-harrison.com/

Talk Scared Episodes Feat Rachel-

Episode 17-Rachel Harrison And Knowing Who Your Friends Are

Episode 113-Rachel Harrison & Teeth,Needles and Gnomes

Episode 123-Rachel Harrison, Josh Malerman and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Self-Indulgence

Twitter @rachfacelogic @TalkScaredPod @HodderBooks