A novel of family set in PROVENCE
Thriller set on the Osa Peninsula, COSTA RICA
24th April 2025
The Hideaway by Nikki Allen, thriller set on the Osa Peninsula, COSTA RICA
#destinationthriller
‘The perfect destination thriller to lose yourself in this summer’ – Natasha Boydell, author of The Fortune Teller
Hannah is a wellness influencer who has built a new holistic retreat in the middle of the rainforest on the Osa Peninsula, no expense spared, total luxury offering well-being for mind and body. She specialises in alternative therapies, generally eschewing Western medicine. She has invited a group of five random, unconnected people, who follow her on Social Media to benefit from her largesse, and they all arrive anticipating a wonderfully relaxed and invigorating few days.
It is billed as a guided retreat but Hannah is strangely not there. It is assumed that an errand has kept her and then she perhaps got caught up in a relentless storm. She is communicating by text message, simultaneously to the individuals but not to the members of her staff, who appear rattled and confused by her actions. Not a great start to the stay.
The group sets off on a scheduled, hour long walk through the rainforest to a waterfall, with the aim of bathing and admiring the beautiful scenery. A simple path, but unfortunately no professional guide is on hand to escort them. One of the party has done a bit of jungle/rainforest trekking, so that is helpful, and another thinks to bring a knife from the kitchen should they be accosted by predators; another has brought some paint so they can daub trees to mark their route – all precautions, “just in case”. One is in charge of the satellite phone, but it transpires it is not fully charged when (spoiler alert!) they come to use it.
There is a landslide, one of the party slithers down the precipice. Can she survive the fall? The path back is blocked and another participant is assertive about how to return. Another character “..had the awful sense that something larger could be at play here…” (too right, mate!). And just like that, they discover a rank body “..crawling with insects, blood seeping..” They are lost, with the terrible image of the corpse seared into their brains. Darkness descends and they reluctantly resign themselves to spending the night in the open, under the rainforest canopy, intending to resume their trek back to the accommodation in the morning.
Goodness, the characters are a weird bunch. They all have backstories and we get very brief glimpses into their individual preoccupations and concerns, with rotating chapters devoted to each character. One has advanced cancer and probably shouldn’t have come (travel insurance premiums would be prohibitive, I would have thought). One seems to be a pill popper. Another is a therapist, who has already made her mind up about her fellow guests, ‘making the usual quick assumptions’ about each of her fellow guests – the snap judgement that her training had taught her, apparently (I don’t know what training she has been on, but that is not how therapy works). Another member of the party – just after the discovery of the body and when they are all stranded for the night – decides to sidle off and do a pregnancy test, that she just happens to have about her person. Of course, that is totally what someone would do in such a stressful situation. It was at this point I nearly gave up.
There is much confusion and angst as the group faces further trials in the rainforest. Suspicion starts to fester as individuals fall by the wayside in their search for a reprieve from their ordeal.
In the novel’s favour, it is well written, and the growing sense of entrapment and distrust in the group is well handled. The story essentially revolves around 5 people as they tackle hazards in the rainforest, encountering all kinds of dangers as they stumble hither and thither, round and round, encountering external predators and growing dangers from within their group. The characters are, though, underdeveloped which is a shame, because there could have been a really interesting psychological depth given the author is a therapist herself. It is a pretty implausible plot that never really drew me in and at times seemed daft. Not one for me.
Tina for the TripFiction Team
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