When famous feminist horror writer Roza Vallo announces that she’ll be hosting a month-long writing retreat at her historic estate, a select group of women are chosen to be her special guests. What starts as a long, intense month of writing, soon takes a sinister turn when Roza starts playing mind games and strange happenings begin to occur.

THE WRITING RETREAT By Julia Bartz was an intensely atmospheric book that had me flipping pages. The story slowly builds to some amazing wtf moments, and I had such a fun time reading it!

I also really enjoyed that the author added in glimpses of the book our lead character, Alex, was writing while at the retreat - it added more history behind the estate, and also helped with drawing some eerie parallels!

Definitely recommend picking this one up this winter, and I look forward to Julia Bartz’s future books because, HELLO, I FORGOT TO MENTION THIS IS A DEBUT!?! 

Huge thanks to NetGalley, Atria Books, and Emily Bestler Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Publication Date: February 21, 2023