{"id":4502,"date":"2025-07-17T13:54:23","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T13:54:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/?p=4502"},"modified":"2025-07-18T13:54:49","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T13:54:49","slug":"breathe-in-bleed-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/?p=4502","title":{"rendered":"Breathe In, Bleed Out"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Maybe Hannah&#8217;s best friend Tess is right\u2014a restorative yoga retreat in Joshua Tree might be what Hannah needs to let go of the images of her fiance\u0301&#8217;s horrific death, right after he proposed to her in a stunning wilderness setting. On the women\u2019s arrival in the desert, all seems idyllic\u2014the sound bowls, Guru Pax in his flowing robes, the yurts and tech-free environment. But soon Hannah&#8217;s nightmares about Ben&#8217;s death are supplemented with visions of Waylon Barlow, an ancient miner with a flesh mask and a pick axe. The other retreat attendees, including Hannah&#8217;s high school ex-boyfriend Miles; tech-bro Jared and his ethereal partner, Luna; and Dennings, an ex-Marine, start to sense that something is off. Pax&#8217;s assistant, Kimi, assures them all is well\u2014but then Dennings disappears. In superb <em>Final Girl<\/em> form, the retreat attendees get picked off one at a time, in entertainingly gruesome ways. As Hannah struggles to survive and save Tess, she has to confront her own secrets. Author McAuley, winner of <em>Esquire&#8217;s<\/em> <strong>Best Horror Book of 2022<\/strong>, <em>Curse of the Reaper<\/em>, demonstrates once again his flair for cinematic suspense with humor and splatter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Maybe Hannah&#8217;s best friend Tess is right\u2014a restorative yoga retreat in Joshua Tree might be what Hannah needs to let go of the images of her fiance\u0301&#8217;s horrific death, right&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":4501,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[220,117,75,135,52,242,50,51],"class_list":["post-4502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review","tag-dark-humor","tag-ghost","tag-horror","tag-occult-supernatural","tag-psychological","tag-slasher","tag-suspense","tag-thrillers"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/formidable\/4\/Bleed-400x400.jpeg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/formidable\/4\/Bleed.jpeg","author_info":{"display_name":"Dodie Ownes","author_link":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/?author=15"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}