I finally pulled this one from my shelf. I was not disappointed and actually a bit surprised at how much I enjoyed this one. This tale is told in multiple voices, which made it all the more interesting to me.
Masha – the owner of Tranquillum House. She developed a new
… ummm … treatment shall we say to help people transform themselves.
Yao – paramedic turned Masha’s right-hand man so to speak.
Delilah – another of Masha’s employees.
Jan and Gus – a couple minor characters, Jan being the
massage therapist and Gus being her significant other.
Frances – she’s the author character and I believe the main
one telling the story. She’s an author after all.
Lars – the overweight fellow.
Ben and Jessica – a young married couple who won the
lottery, which caused all sorts of problems for them.
Heather (mom/wife), Napoleon (dad/husband), Zoe (daughter) –
A family struggling with grief.
Tony – the good-looking fellow.
Carmel – a mom of four girls who just wanted a break.
Tranquillum House is marketed as a health resort where folks can go to transform themselves, little did these nine strangers know what they were in for. As you can imagine, having nine different personalities in one place proved to be quite unnerving for some of the guests, but Masha … she enjoyed it. She enjoyed playing on their so-called weaknesses. She came up with some activities that were quite unheard of, but I think that’s part of the beauty of writing. The author can delve into their imagination and come up with things that are so farfetched they make the reader shake their head. Like the ‘noble silence’ for five days, being locked in a room with total strangers and trying to find a way out, to name a couple of things. And don’t forget the smoothies! I also like how the author tied everything up in the end so there was closure for all of these perfectly flawed characters.
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