Book Review for Please Enjoy Your Stay by Tara Goedjen

 

Please Enjoy Your Stay by Tara Goedjen

Published:   October 13, 2026 by Atria/Emily Bestler Books

Genre:  Mystery Thriller, Horror, Supsense

 

Taken from Goodreads:  After a true crime podcast reopens her cousin’s murder case, a woman must confront her past at a glamorous European castle-turned-hotel where she follows a trail of toxic family secrets and deadly lies.

When they were teenagers, Mia’s beloved cousin was murdered during their stay at an infamous castle in the Austrian Alps. As the only witness, Mia’s testimony put the killer behind bars, but it tore her life apart: the media accused her aunt, a controversial true crime author, of being involved. Now, a decade later, the murderer is appealing his conviction, and a popular true crime podcast starts covering the case, determined to exonerate him, and resurfacing lies about Mia’s family in the process.

Desperate to protect her aunt—and what she knows to be the truth—Mia returns to Austria. The castle is being revamped as a luxury hotel, and Mia gets a job as a nanny for the new owner, hiding in plain sight as she investigates, needing to set the story straight once and for all. But after someone mysteriously disappears on the property and sinister new evidence emerges regarding her cousin’s death, she realizes she might have accused the wrong man...and put her own life in danger.

 

My Thoughts:  A castle in the Austrian Alps has a history of murders.  The creepy, gothic, murder ridden castle is a perfect setting for a book.   Tara Goedjen did a wonderful job taking the reader right into the setting.  I could picture the rooms, the views, the creepiness of the castle.  I also knew that there was no way I would want to stay there.

The multiple POV’s kept me intrigued as to what I would learn next.   I liked the fact that the podcast kept up with the events and was a big part of the story.  The past was interesting; it showed that there was definitely more to the story back then.   The present was full of drama and secrets.  It seemed that everyone has a secret, a tie to the past, and a reason to be worried that they would be next to die.

I really enjoyed the book.  I was entertained and invested.   There was not a huge pull for me to sneak time to read more but when I read the book I did not want to stop.  

Thank you Atria Books for a copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.

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Meet thatAuthor (taken from her website):  Tara Goedjen writes atmospheric thrillers. Her forthcoming novel, PLEASE ENJOY YOUR STAY, set at a glamorous yet eerie hotel, is coming out with Atria this October. 

 Before writing books, Tara worked as a tennis coach (in Europe), as a college lecturer (in Australia), and as a fiction editor for a global publishing house.

 She has a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Alabama, and is also the author of two young adult mystery novels: No Beauties or Monsters and The Breathless. Her short fiction has appeared in Agni, BOMB MAGAZINE, New England Review, and Fairy Tale Review, among others.

 Tara loves traveling the world and talking about books. She currently lives with her family in the misty Pacific Northwest, where she can usually be found hiking through a mysterious wood while dreaming up her next novel.