What happens when a spa is built on the bones of an asylum?
Nothing good. That's what happens.
Halcyon Hall used to be Bainesworth Manor - a psychiatric institution with the kind of history that makes you want to shower after reading about it. Now it's a "wellness retreat" for celebrities and rich people who apparently never watched a horror movie in their lives. Rosemary Tulle's seventeen-year-old sister Genevieve is somewhere inside, and she left a voicemail that would make any big sister lose her mind: "I'm in trouble. Come get me."
I picked this up during one of those 3 AM charting sessions when the unit goes quiet and you need something to keep your brain from wandering to the codes you ran earlier. Lisa Childs knows how to build dread. The remote Maine island, the wrought iron gates, the staff who smile too much and answer nothing - it all felt uncomfortably familiar. Not the gothic mansion part. The institutional cover-up part. The "everything is fine, ma'am" while someone's sister is missing part.
That Converted Asylum Energy
The setting does most of the heavy lifting here, and I mean that as a compliment. Childs understands that buildings remember things. The spa treatments happen in rooms where other "treatments" used to happen - ice baths, restraints, procedures I won't describe because some of you are listening before bed. When staff insist Genevieve "ran away" from an island you can only reach by ferry? Please. I've seen enough patients disappear from units to know exactly what that kind of denial sounds like.
Rosemary and Genevieve share what the book calls an "unusual bond" - that psychic-adjacent sister connection that sounds hokey until it starts driving the plot forward. It works because Rosemary's desperation feels earned. She knows something is wrong. Everyone keeps telling her she's overreacting. Sound familiar to anyone who's ever advocated for a patient against a system that didn't want to listen?
When Your Ex Has a Gavel
Enter Judge Whit Lawrence, the man Rosemary "hoped never to see again." In romance terms, that's basically a wedding announcement. Their history unfolds in pieces - past trauma, broken trust, the kind of emotional baggage that made me yell "JUST TALK TO EACH OTHER" at my dashboard. Carlos asked if I was okay. I blamed the I-10 construction.
What surprised me is how the romance stays in its lane. Rosemary never loses focus on finding her sister. Whit becomes useful because of his legal connections, not just because he's convenient eye candy with authority. The tension simmers without boiling over into distraction. For a romantic suspense, that balance is harder than it looks.
Eliza Foss at the Wheel
Foss handles the emotional escalation well. When Rosemary's desperation ratchets up - and it does, repeatedly - you feel the walls closing in. The pacing stays taut across ten hours, which is no small thing for a mystery that could easily drag in the middle. It doesn't drag.
The character voices blend together more than I'd like. The creepy spa director and the vulnerable teenager don't sound distinct enough for my taste, and in a book with this many suspicious characters, that matters. But Foss captures the gothic atmosphere, the mounting dread, the moments where Rosemary realizes she's in deeper than she thought. The emotional delivery lands where it needs to.
No weird pronunciation issues, no pacing problems. Solid work. Not the kind of performance that makes you immediately hunt down everything else the narrator has done, but professional and engaging.
I did check what else Eliza Foss has narrated - she also reads Intention Experiment, which is about as far from a Gothic asylum thriller as you can get, but the steadiness that works here probably works there too.The Bainesworth Secrets
This is where Childs really digs in. Psychiatric institutions in that era were nightmares wearing medical coats. The book hints that Bainesworth was worse than most, and those secrets are bleeding into present-day Halcyon Hall in ways that made me genuinely uncomfortable. The connection between past and present isn't subtle, but it's effective.
And then there's Rosemary's own history - because of course she's carrying secrets that tie her to this place. The reveals come at the right moments, each one reframing what you thought you knew.
Who Should Book This Stay (And Who Should Check Out Early)
Grab it if you love gothic atmosphere with your romantic suspense. If isolated settings with dark histories are your thing, if you want a mystery where the building feels alive and hostile - this delivers. Skip it if you need romance front and center. This is mystery-first, romance-second. Also skip if institutional abuse themes or psychiatric history content hits too close to home. Childs doesn't pull punches on the asylum backstory.
Charting Complete, Going Home
I finished the last hour in my driveway, engine off, needing to know if Genevieve was okay. She's seventeen. Someone had to worry about her when the adults in charge clearly weren't.
Perfect for that post-shift decompression when you need your brain occupied but not challenged. The gothic vibes are excellent, the mystery has enough turns to stay interesting, and the institutional horror - the way power structures protect themselves, the way "wellness" can be a mask for something rotten - that part Childs gets right.
Burning Bright scratches a similar itch - that same slow-burn dread where the setting itself becomes the antagonist.Trust me.
