Amelia is no stranger to travel, but she’s not used to luxury. She generally travels to poor or war-torn countries for her humanitarian work. But now she’s on a small plane with several strangers, heading to what was described as a luxury vacation. Each person on the small plane was asked to sign an NDA, a non-disclosure agreement, about the remuneration they were offered and about the trip itself.
The trip seems to start innocuously enough, with the small plane heading to an undisclosed location, where this group of strangers will enjoy a vacation they will never forget. There is the Instagram influencer and her game designer boyfriend. A photographer. A gossip columnist. A venture capitalist. And a man who sells nutraceuticals, fancy vitamins to help improve health and performance.
And then the plane hits turbulence, shaking the plane so badly that the oxygen masks come down. Amelia is able to get hers on, but then everything goes dark. When she wakes up, the plane has landed. They are parked inside of a building, and most everyone is still asleep. As they slowly come back to life and find their bearings, they figure out that they are on an island, but they’re not sure where. And when the doors of the hangar close behind them, locking their belongings on the plane, they wonder if this really is a luxury vacation that they’ve stumbled into.
Their host shows up and tells them a little about the island, outfits them all with trackers, and explains that there will be a party at the end of their journey. And then he leaves them to their adventure.
They theorize that they’re in an elaborate game, and when they solve the puzzles along the way, the party at the big house will be their prize, a celebration filled with champagne, caviar, and anything else they desire.
But then they discover that the trackers are more than just trackers. They can be used by the masterminds behind this odyssey to share the wearer’s secrets, vulnerabilities, and even to broadcast videos of their most shameful moments for everyone to see.
The group starts to break apart and then to break down, as these individuals are faced with these memories of their worst moments. And as they find themselves coming apart at the seams, each individual wonders what they’ve gotten themselves into. Is this really a game developed for playful tourists? Is there a luxury vacation waiting at the end? Or is there just some psychopathic tech wizard who brought them all together just to make them pay for their deepest secrets?
The Last Resort is a twisty thriller about secrets and survival, about the things that draw us together as humans and the things that split us apart. Author Susi Holliday has created this creepy adventure filled with questions and she takes her sweet time leading us to the answers.
I enjoyed The Last Resort. I thought it was a fun, if really dark, trip through the jungle of human emotions. I’m a big fan of stories where a group of disparate people are thrown together and have to figure out the puzzle together. These stories generally don’t end well for everyone in the story, and The Last Resort is no exception. But the ending is mostly satisfying, and I would recommend it to others who are drawn to this type of story too.
Egalleys for The Last Resort were provided by Amazon Publishing UK through NetGalley, with many thanks.
