THE RETURN by Rachel Harrison, read by Sarah Scott - Audiobook extract
Her best friend disappeared. A stranger came back. Julie is missing, and the missing don't often return. But Elise knows Julie better than anyone, and she feels in her bones that her best friend is out there. She's right. Two years to the day that Julie vanished, she reappears with no memory of what happened to her. But she is different. She's emaciated, with sallow skin, chipped teeth and odd appetites. In so many ways, Julie seems to be the friend they all loved and lost. But in others, she seems to be a stranger. Along with Molly and Mae, their two close friends from college, they decide to reunite at the eccentric, remote Red Honey Inn. But when bad weather traps them inside the hotel, tensions flare. Elise begins to hear scratching within the walls, to see the slither of shadows cast by nothing. And as the weekend unfurls, it becomes impossible to deny that the Julie who vanished two years ago is not the same Julie who came back. An eerie storm of a debut that fuses thriller and horror into a brilliant depiction of women's friendships - the rivalries, jealousies, anxieties and love. The Return is like nothing else you'll read this year.