Books Read: The Search Party by Hannah Richell

Five old friends.
One glamping weekend.
A storm that will change everything.

Max and Annie Kingsley have left the London rat race to set up a glamping site in the wilds of Cornwall. They invite old university friends – TV star Dominic, doctor and new mum Kira, and free-spirited Jim and Suze – and their children for a trial weekend but the reunion quickly veers off-course.

First, there’s The Incident around the campfire on the first night. The following afternoon, a storm quickly develops off the rugged North Coast. When one of their group goes missing, all hell breaks loose. And as the winds batter the bell-tents, emotions run high and tension mounts for all the characters.

Who is lying in hospital, who has gone missing and who is the body on the beach below the cliffs . . .? 

Book Links: Kindle or Hardcover

I'd like to thank Anne Cater from Random Things Tours for inviting me to be a part of this blog tour and Simon & Schuster for my copy of The Search Party to review via NetGalley.

It's been a long time since I read Hannah Richell's debut novel Secrets of the Tides but as soon as I saw The Search Party on NetGalley it intrigued me so I didn't hesitate to request a copy to read. 

From the outset you could sense the tension and wondered what could have gone so drastically wrong on what was supposed to be a fabulous weekend spent with old friends to help celebrate the launch of their new glamping business Wildernest. The timeline is set over the weekend and following days as they recount events of the weekend that led up to them now being interviewed individually by police. So many questions were running through my mind especially after reading the prologue. What exactly had happened but more importantly whose body did they find? 

Max and Annie had left the stresses of London behind them and headed to Cornwall for a fresh start with their young son Kip and were looking forward to welcoming their old university friends Jim and Suze, Dominic, Kira and their families as a trial run. I really felt for Fred, Kira's partner, as this was his first introduction to the group and he really struggled to fit in especially when a secret is revealed. As for Tanya, Dominic's wife, it was clear she wanted to be anywhere but here. I mean who turns up at a campsite wearing a designer dress! 

As well as the old friends we also meet a couple of locals, eccentric farmer Kellow who owns the neighbouring farm and isn't exactly happy about Max and Annie's plans as well as Josh, a local lad who helps out around the campsite and appears to take a liking to Dominic's teenage daughter Scarlet. 

Bit by bit we are drip fed snippets of information that provides us with a background to the dynamics of the group, and it's clear that behind the facade that quite a few of them are showing there are some deeply hidden secrets that they don't want revealed, as well as the events over the weekend that brought us to this point. Although you do have to keep your wits about you as the timeline jumps back and forth between the events over the weekend to the days after the incidents. 

I thought I had it all perfectly figured out but definitely fell for a red herring or two as I was only partially right identifying who was in the hospital bed but was totally off track with my theories behind whose body was on the beach and what was the reasoning behind everything that had happened. 

The Search Party was a tense read from start to finish and I'm hoping it's not too long a wait for the next book from Hannah Richell.