Isolation

The novel explores the way in which isolation can cause both mental and physical distress and danger. Le Sommet is a hotel that used to be a sanatorium. It had been built far up in the Swiss Alps because the tuberculosis patients who were sent needed to be isolated. Lucas Caron decides to reopen the sanatorium as a luxury hotel that can only be reached by travelling over an hour and a half up into the mountains from the valley town Crans-Montana: “With each minute ticking by, the winding roads drawing them farther up the mountain, Elin couldn’t shake her growing sense of unease. The journey was protracted because of the snow, but she still can’t escape the fact that they’re a long way from civilization. Apart from the hotel, all she can see is a mass of trees, snow, the shadowy bulk...