3.5 rounded upward. The Last Resort is a novel about a marriage retreat where nothing is as it seems.

Thanks go to Net Galley and Simon and Schuster for the review copy. This book is for sale now.

Readers should know that this novel holds triggers for just about everything, left, right, and center.

Miles and Grace Markell run an intensive marriage therapy camp in Mexico. The affluent couples that come here are desperate to save their crumbling marriages. Everyone is supposed to give up their cell phones and internet privileges, and once they do that, they are more or less helpless, which is part of the proprietor’s plan.

Between the punny title and the teaser that suggests that the couple that runs the retreat has the worst marriage of anybody, I was anticipating that this would be hilarious, and that’s not so. There are a couple of moments of dark humor, but mostly this is a straight-up suspense story. That said, it’s a good book, but nothing special. It took me a good long time to distinguish the couples from each other. The climax is fast approaching, and I’m still trying to remember which person Shell is, and who her husband is, and what problem has brought them here. I would probably have had greater success if I hadn’t read this book at the same time as a handful of others, but if I had been forced to read just one book, I would have chosen most of the others I was reading over this one.

This doesn’t mean you won’t enjoy this book. I had recently read another story about a retreat where everyone’s phones were seized and internet forbidden, and so in some ways my lack of interest here was a fluke. Read the synopsis; if you are interested, I recommend you get this one free or at a deep discount.