REVIEW: Hide by Nell Pattison

I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Seven friends. One killer. You can run, but you can’t hide...
It’s Boxing Day and your friendship group has planned a hike.
You know tensions are running high. You’ve heard the rumours flying around.
But this trip is a chance for you to reconnect.
As you head into the reserve, everyone is quiet. It almost feels like you’ve imagined the rift.
But as the sun sets, you hear a gun shot.
One of your group is dead.
And someone you know killed them...
A fast-paced, edge-of-your-seat thriller with a killer twist you just won’t see coming. Fans of Ruth Ware, Lucy Foley and T.M. Logan will be totally gripped from the very first page.
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Readers are completely gripped by HIDE!
‘I am *freaking* out!! ... Has me on the edge of my seat...I've had to turn the light on because I genuinely feel like I'm stumbling through pitch-black woods in blinding snow and trying to outrun a murderer! ... Incredible!’ Reader Review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
‘Tense, twisty and full of toxic secrets – a chilly fight for survival guaranteed to give you shivers’ T.M. LOGAN, author of Trust Me and The Holiday
‘There’s a touch of Agatha Christie to Hide...her humour is crisp and even and the plotting as keen as an axe in the skull’ THE TIMES
‘Claustrophobic and intense’ Fabulous magazine
‘Holy. Hell. I haven’t finished a thriller this fast since Gone Girl’ NetGalley Review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
‘Wow! I'm so glad that I had a whole day off work to read it as I honestly couldn't put it down’ Goodreads Review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
‘An outstanding thriller – impossible for me to put down!’ NetGalley review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
‘I am still thinking about it – the last sentence was a jaw-dropper!’ NetGalley review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
‘You’ll definitely be left with your jaw on the floor and your head spinning’ NetGalley review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
‘Wow, what a story! The ending just blew me away’ NetGalley review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Hide was a difficult book for me to rate. It didn’t work all that well for me. The cover is extremely enticing, and the plot sounded like one of my favourite thriller tropes – whiteout conditions. A lot of people think that the snow is this beautiful phenomenon that reminds them of Christmas time and sitting around an open fire. I, however, have always found it just a bit too scary. Imagine being caught in whiteout conditions, you can’t see anything, and someone or something could easily sneak up on you without your knowledge. Scary stuff! However, the plot was a bit flat for me.

Imagine spending Christmas with those that you love and then heading to a beautiful nature reserve to watch a starling murmuration on boxing day. Sound great, right? Seven friends decide to do just that. Laura, Emily, Dan, Ben, Morna, Alec, and Kai. You soon begin to see alliances form, but some characters can’t contain their jealousy. Laura is a character I took an instant dislike to. She has a horrible attitude to Morna and a complete god complex with the others. She must be in control and feels that only she can make decisions when things turn deadly.

Hide is a story ultimately of survival. Alec has revealed that he knows the group’s secrets, he is frustrated that the others don’t take him seriously. He plans to expose them and let the truth be known. However, before Alec can spill all that he knows he ends up murdered in one of the wildlife watching hides. Is there a madman running about the nature reserve or was it one of their own group members prepared to keep their secrets hidden? It’s from this point on that I really struggled to get through the book

The situation is dire, I think we can all agree on that point. One member of their group has been murdered in what seems like cold blood. Now if the shoe was on the other foot and I was put in that place, I wouldn’t want to split up from the group. So why on earth do they split up into two groups? Why can they not agree on getting to the visitor centre asap, instead of trying to get to the fence line of the reserve? It was a no-brainer for me, it just seemed like common sense. So much running around and dangerous behaviour could have been avoided with that simple decision-making.