The shocking new thriller for 2023 from internationally bestselling author Lisa Stone A friendly reunion... After ten years, Sarah and her husband Roshan are looking forward to catching up with their closest school friends. So when one of them invites the group to spend a week in a beautiful converted church, they eagerly accept.
A vision of fear... Very quickly though, Sarah becomes unsettled. She is frightened by the church's creepy surroundings, and she thinks she might be seeing ghosts. Even more disturbing, a masked woman is committing armed robberies in the area--and the police can't catch her.
A terrifying secret... As Sarah and her friends begin to have more frightening visions, the armed woman strikes again. Sarah and her friends begin to wonder just what they've got themselves into...
As a writer of suspense thrillers I often ask myself what if? What if this happened instead of that? Or why a particular person reacted as they did. So often fact is stranger than fiction and these books start with a fact which I develop. You may be surprised to know, for example, just how many patients experience changes in their likes and dislikes after a transplant operation ~ The Darkness Within. Or how easy it is to look into someone’s home through their CCTV ~ Stalker.
Just a little bit about me. I live in England and have three children. I have always been a writer - from when I was at school, with poems and articles in the school magazine. In my teens I began writing short stories, a few radio plays and novels. I finally made it into the bestseller charts with Damaged in 2007 which I wrote under the pseudonym Cathy Glass. Since then I have had 28 books published, many of which have become international bestsellers.
Thank you for your time, I hope you enjoy the Lisa Stone thrillers.
Lisa Stone is no newcomer to writing, with a significant number of books having been published either under that name, or under the pseudonym of Cathy Glass. I have only read one of Lisa Stone's novels previously, that being "The Cottage" which I enjoyed. As I result I had no hesitation in coming back to read this next offering too ... but, oh dear! Are you sure that "The Gathering" has really been written by the same author? It really is very poor - to the point of being puerile.
The premise is okay - not particularly original, but a tried and trusted one that has formed the basis of several perfectly enjoyable novels I have read over the years.. There are two strands to the story: one centres around a reunion of former school friends in a somewhat eerie location and a second thread relates to a series of robberies being carried out by a female perpetrator, who has been dubbed "Chanel Woman". As is always the case with these dual thread scenarios, the reader knows that they are going to be connected at some point - because that is the convention and is just how these things work. In this instance it is very obvious, very quickly how the two strands are going to be linked. Unless you have spent your entire life living under a rock, you will have soon identified the connection. If only that were the biggest shortcoming of "The Gathering" ... but it isn't - not by a long chalk!
The narrative style is painfully stilted and simplistic. If it weren't for the fact that certain references are only suitable for an adult audience, this book reads as though it could have been aimed at a significantly younger audience - perhaps more the age range that you might expect to find reading the adventures of Enid Blyton's "Famous Five". The dialogue is excruciatingly unnatural and the characters so wooden that I almost felt the need to check my hands for splinters. The storyline and the various plot developments as events unfold is ludicrously contrived and lacks any sense of credibility. If you were penning a screenplay for a Scooby-Doo mystery to be solved by "those meddling kids" then it would be perfectly acceptable - but in a novel that is supposed to be a genuine mystery thriller for an adult audience, it falls woefully short of the required standard.
Read this if you absolutely must, I would suggest that your time and money would be far better spent choosing something else.
As ever, I would still like to convey my thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for supplying an ARC in return for an honest review. It is a pity I was not in a position to pass more favourable comment on this occasion.
So rare I give 5 stars but I loved this book. Although I worked out some of what the plot before it unfurled, I didn’t work out it all. A new favourite author.
This is a good read but a bit predictable. A group of friends get together for a reunion organised by a school friend, Austin. The place he’s chosen seems a bit odd but they all enjoy catching up on the first night. Sarah then starts to see the ghost of her dead mother and Megan swears her room is over run with spiders. Other strange things start to happen and starts to scare the group of friends. Austin is a psychiatrist and tries to help but the group decide to leave early. Alongside this story is that of a woman carrying out armed robberies and it soon becomes clear why. A bit of strange book but quite enjoyable. Thanks to Harper Collins and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.
I struggled to put this book down and it kept me needing to know more of the story. I did however guess part of the backstory which I felt made it slightly predictable. It was frightening at moments. I felt like parts of it were slow moving and then the ending felt a little rushed.
I've read some. Of Lisa's other books and this was just as enjoyable as the others.this had me hooked from the start to finish leaving me with chills and goosebumps in places.i can't wait to see what Lisa brings out next.the only character even from the beginning of the book I was suspicious about was Austin I loved all the other characters.
I was a bit disappointed to be fair. It was exciting and thrilling. It had those unexpected twists. But I wanted it to end so much better than it did. I feel like the final few chapters didn’t do it the justice it deserved 😩
A good easy read. Storyline was ok but I thought quite predictable from the start. Although I didn’t guess everything that was going to happen I did the majority.
Sarah and her husband Roshan are meeting up with some old school friends 10 years after they left school. It was something they had all agreed to do when they went their separate ways and everyone apart from Austin had forgotten.
With Austin having organised this break in a converted church everyone seems excited to reunite and see each other again. However soon Sarah’s excitement turns to fear she is terrified of staying in the middle of a graveyard and as someone who believes in ghosts she soon becomes very frightened.
On the first night of their stay Sarah finds her nightmares have returned and she wakes to find herself in the graveyard in the middle of the night with Roshan and some of the others looking for her in a state of panic.
Soon other strange things start happening. Megan’s fear of spiders goes from bad to worse and like Sarah she starts waking up with nightmares. Brandon is the same allergic to wasp stings he starts to fear he is being followed by a nest of wasps.
Austin tries to help his friends control their phobias but the become convinced the church is haunted and the week away in the current surroundings is making things seem much worse, all the group are on edge, their friendship hasn’t hit off the same way it did 10 years ago and something strange seems to be going on and no one seems able to trust each other.
To make matters even worse in a near by local village masked armed robberies are taking place, the police are having little luck catching their victim who they have given the name Chanel woman due to her distinctive perfume.
I thought it was very clever the way the weekly holiday and the armed robbery case last were linked. I did guess some of the plot and some of the connections but for me this didn’t spoil a thing. I like being proved right as much as I do wrong and there were plenty of other twists and turns that I didn’t see coming, especially the one at the end. That was very clever indeed. I also loved that this thriller has an element of spooky in it which I haven’t found in any others and I quite liked it.
Having read one of Lisa Stones previous thrillers and now I’ve read the gathering I think I’ll be going back and reading a few more as I loved her style of writing. The gathering was fast paced, addictive, easy to read and kept you guessing right to the very end. Everything I love in a book.
Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for an advance copy of this book in exchange for this review. If I could give more than five stars I think I would.
The Gathering by Lisa Stone is a creepy and scary psychological thriller that revolves around fears, phobias and manipulations. This is my second book by Lisa Stone, and I absolutely loved it. I loved the creepy atmosphere and how things were twisted together. This is a good Halloween book! The story is told in the present with dual scenarios: one centres around a reunion of former school friends and the second centres around a series of robberies committed by "Chanel Woman". We know that stories will overlap, but we don't know how!
"Chanel Woman" has robbed places for the last 2 years, and the only thing that the detective has is "She wears perfume Chanel No. 5" Sarah and her husband Roshan attend a 10-year reunion with their old school friends Megan, Brandon and Austin. Austin arranged this event at a converted church, which is challenging for Sarah as she has phobias around ghosts. What starts smooth and happy day by day turns into a nightmare, and they must run. But can they escape?
I loved how the ending tied together all events, and the way the book ended was just delicious!
Sadly, my GR account randomly disappeared, so I'm trying my best to recapture my 2025 read list and reviews.
I definitely did not expect the story to be what l've just read. Mainly it is about the strange happenings that Sarah and a few friends encounter during their 10-year reunion. It doesn't help that they are almost in the middle of no where while living in the middle of a graveyard. They seemed confused, scared, but yet they still decided to stay on despite the reunion not turning out to be a fun or relaxing one. They are also strangely invested in the latest news about a masked woman commiting robberies. This then is the side story, a detective who is trying to catch the masked woman.
The first 80% felt a little too slow-paced for me and I did skim through some parts that didn't feel like it was essential to the main story. A few parts were predictable and, sadly, I couldn't care much for the characters either. The only thing I enjoyed about this book was the little twist toward the end.
That said, it wasn't a great ending, but at least it wasn't a terrible one. This is my second book from Lisa Stone, and unfortunately, I did not enjoy this as much as I did for 'The Cottage'!
I actually quite enjoyed this! It is written by Cathy Glass under a different name, and you honestly would never know it was written by the same person. I didn’t love it as much as Cathy’s fostering memoirs but I still found it quite good.
I couldn’t read as often as I would like to because I had SCL week, so I think that prevented me of getting into a flow with it as much as I would have liked.
The book was about five friends who meet in a remote converted church for their ten year reunion. Strange events start occurring, and at the same time a string on robberies are committed in the area. I thought all the characters felt quite real and I warmed to each one (two of them were teachers!!)
It wasn’t the most fast-paced, but again I think that was due to how busy I was whilst reading it.
I would definitely like to read some other Lisa Stone books to see how they compare. 3/5💗
P.S I got this from the library and I’m definitely going to go to the library more often because I was literally so close to ordering it!!
Thank you to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book.
Sarah and Roshan are meeting up with old friends, Brandon, Megan and Austin, for a 10 year reunion week away together. They were all friends in school and uni. Austin has organised them to stay in a church for the week, complete with spooky graveyard. The first night goes well, but then things start to get weird. There’s also a serial armed robber committing crimes who has been dubbed Chanel Woman. Are these group of friends and these crimes linked?
This was a great read. The style of writing created a sense of unease and creepiness throughout. I was happy to see the police officer DC Beth Mayes back again, she brings some wit and slight humour to the story. I really disliked some of the characters, which fitted the storyline perfectly, as some of them were made to be awful. I look forward to the next instalment.
When this author brings out another book I look forward to reading it. A friendly reunion… After ten years, Sarah and her husband Roshan are looking forward to catching up with their closest school friends. So when one of them invites the group to spend a week in a beautiful converted church, they eagerly accept. A vision of fear… Very quickly though, Sarah becomes unsettled. She is frightened by the church’s creepy surroundings, and she thinks she might be seeing ghosts. Even more disturbing, a masked woman is committing armed robberies in the area – and the police can’t catch her. The plot is set fairly quickly and you are soon engrossed in the book. However , on this occasion I could not find myself enamoured to the characters and for me I didn't feel they were very well created. Still a good story mind with a few good twists and turns.
I had the whole thing figured out in the first few chapters, which is always super disappointing. This was such a simplistic plot with the most cringe, inauthentic dialogue I’ve read in a while. These were grown adults sparring like teens, having meltdowns about bugs in their room, and being petulant - it wasn’t at all compelling to me.
It’s a shame because the renovated church and graveyard has huge potential but the awful characters and cat burglar story totally distracted from it. Any semblance of spookiness was lost in how ridiculous the whole thing was. I wasn’t remotely scared; instead, I came away from this with a strong case of second hand embarrassment.
The ending was disappointing as well - it went on for a few chapters longer than it needed to and ended on a whimper.
A group of school friends decide to have a ten-year reunion. One of the friends, Austin has organized the reunion in an old renovated church near a graveyard. The school friends agreed to stay at this church for a week. Soon after arriving, one of the guests, Sarah begins to experience fear around the graveyard. She swears that ghosts are after her, especially the ghost of her dead mother. The other friends, too are haunted by phobias. More disturbing, too, is a local spree of robberies that a mysterious masked lady known as the Chanel Women, known for her lingering perfume of Chanel No. 5 has committed. As the week progresses, the friends begin to regret their get-together and decide to come home early leaving their host.
I enjoyed this book. I found it a bit creepy in places. I read and loved her book, The Cottage. Can't wait to read her other books.
Started very well with the gathering of old friends in a creepy ex church and a seemingly haunted graveyard - all very gothic - and the atmosphere was certainly nicely constructed. I did, however, feel that the subplot about the masked woman committing robberies in the area, though later disclosed as very relevant to the main plot, a little far-fetched and that it detracted from the essential thrust of the book. Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable read. Only one caveat: as an ex policeman I found the constant reference by one of the detective constables to her sergeant as 'Sir' quite irritating; a sergeant is a sergeant and the first rank for 'Sir' is inspector and above (Sarge, Skip or in today's police service perhaps a fist name, would have been more appropriate) Still, worth looking at.
A great story following 5 friends who meet up after 10 years and stay in a converted church. Sarah becomes very frightened and scared by the church’s creepy surroundings and thinks she’s seeing ghosts. Meanwhile, in the local village a masked woman dubbed the Chanel Woman is carrying out armed robberies.
As Sarah and her friends start to have more scary visions, the armed woman strikes again. The group of friends begin to wonder just what they’ve got themselves into .
Giving spooky, creepy vibes it was a grey story. I did work it out part way through (it was very detailed) but then the plot thickened towards the end with and I couldn’t have imagined
Lisa writes great stories both thrillers and also writes true/trauma books under a pen name Cathy Glass. All excellent reads