The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse (2021)
Laura’s Rating: 2/5 Stars
I was so excited to read this book when it was released but the mixed reviews kept me from getting to it until now. Unfortunately, the reviews were right and the book was rather disappointing in my opinion.
The Analysis:
Detective Elin Warner is on a long term break from police work when she travels with her boyfriend to Le Sommet, an old sanatorium turned luxury hotel in the mountains. Elin is at the hotel to celebrate the engagement of her estranged brother and his future bride. When his fiancée goes missing, and a huge storm leaves them stranded at the hotel, it’s clear that something sinister is brewing and it may be up to Elin to step in before it’s too late…
The main character frustrated me, as she kept making the same mistakes and assumptions over and over again. I would have liked to see some more gradual personal growth for her. There were almost too many characters that seemed guilty at one point or another, which made the book feel anticlimactic in my opinion. While I admittedly didn’t figure out the whole thing, there were a few twists that I saw coming a mile away.
I did like the setting of a sanatorium turned ultra-modern hotel in the snowy Swiss alps. The atmosphere and setting created by the author was one of the highlights for me. The character relationships really take center stage in the plot, pushing the building’s past as a sanatorium to the background. This would be fine, except references to the sanatorium feel like a forced afterthought despite being the literal title of the book.
I think there was just too much going on in this book and it could have been more streamlined. This is the first book in a series and I think you can tell that the author tried to set up the personality and backstory of the main character while also trying to write a compelling stand alone story. If you want a book about the seedy past of sanatoriums and mental institutions that has some nuggets of historical truth in it, I’d recommend Woman 99 instead.
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