Author: Sandie Jones
Genre: Suspense Thriller
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Release Date: August 17, 2021
Order Link: Amazon
My Rating: 4 Guilty Hearts
Special thanks to Minotaur Books for an arc of this book.
This review is published in Mystery & Suspense Magazine
In the vein of The Other Woman, Sandie Jones’s explosive new novel The Guilt Trip will have readers gripped to the very last page.
Review:
Six friends, three couples, board a plane for the elite coast of Portugal - a dream destination wedding for two of them - Will and Ali. Jack and Rachel and Noah and Paige accompany them to help celebrate Jack's brother Will's wedding to the sparkly, flirty, maybe unreliable Ali. Yes, it's complicated. These couples have history and a whole trunk full of secrets. Rachel believes Jack is cheating on her with Ali who used to work for Jack. Her best friend Paige helps feed that theory every chance she gets in a being helpful kind of way . . . or does she have ulterior motives too. Rachel and Noah are best friends from forever and deny ever having been anything more than friends, but Jack and Paige don't buy it. They've seen how they look at each other when they think no one's looking. Ali wants Rachel, her soon-t0-be sister-in-law, to like and accept her into the family so she shares a few things she's noticed happening in an effort to help, but Rachel doesn't trust her. After all, everyone but Will knows she's a liar and a cheat. Right? Will doesn't seem to know what's going on. He's just there to marry the love of his life. So...who's cheating who, who's being true, and who won't live to return home?
The Guilt Trip is one wild, convoluted guilt trip similar to a crazy, mixed up soap opera. Narrators change with chapters and thus the story unfolds from all six player's points of view which kept my head spinning and mind guessing. It's obvious not long after they arrive at the resort that things are going downhill fast - a train wreck waiting to happen. The action is driven by a lot of gossiping, back stabbing, outrage, and always the dirty little secrets. Readers are charged with decoding all the secrets and figuring out who can be trusted and, by the end, who's a murderer. I'll admit to changing my mind several times.
While this is not a group of people I would ever want to travel with or have as friends, they make for a highly entertaining read especially once their masks start slipping and the true people emerge. Jones does a brilliant job with characterization - so much so that I may have wanted to slap a character or two. Having said that, the ominous undertone is always there growing louder like a ticking bomb until the twisted, climatic end that Jones leaves just a wee bit open-ended. All plot lines are tied off, but as a reader I was left wondering if . . . well, wondering. Sandie Jones's writing lends itself beautifully to thrillers like The Guilt Trip with alternating points of view and slightly choppy chapters. She's proven once again why she's one of my most anticipated authors. Highly recommended to fans of mystery, suspense, thrillers and highly entertaining reads.
Synopsis:
Six friends.
Rachel and Noah have been friends since they met at university. While they once thought that they might be something more, now, twenty years later, they are each happily married to other people, Jack and Paige respectively. Jack’s brother Will is getting married, to the dazzling, impulsive Ali, and the group of six travel to Portugal for their destination weekend.
Three couples.
As they arrive at a gorgeous villa perched on a cliff-edge, overlooking towering waves that crash on the famous surfing beaches below at Nazaré, they try to settle into a weekend of fun. While Rachel is looking forward to getting to know her future sister-in-law Ali better, Ali can’t help but rub many of the group up the wrong way: Rachel’s best friend Paige thinks Ali is attention-seeking and childish, and while Jack is trying to support his brother Will’s choice of wife, he is also finding plenty to disagree with Noah about.
One fatal misunderstanding . . .
But when Rachel discovers something about Ali that she can hardly believe, everything changes. As the wedding weekend unfolds, the secrets each of them hold begin to spill, and friendships and marriages threaten to unravel. Soon, jumping to conclusions becomes the difference between life and death.
Rachel and Noah have been friends since they met at university. While they once thought that they might be something more, now, twenty years later, they are each happily married to other people, Jack and Paige respectively. Jack’s brother Will is getting married, to the dazzling, impulsive Ali, and the group of six travel to Portugal for their destination weekend.
Three couples.
As they arrive at a gorgeous villa perched on a cliff-edge, overlooking towering waves that crash on the famous surfing beaches below at Nazaré, they try to settle into a weekend of fun. While Rachel is looking forward to getting to know her future sister-in-law Ali better, Ali can’t help but rub many of the group up the wrong way: Rachel’s best friend Paige thinks Ali is attention-seeking and childish, and while Jack is trying to support his brother Will’s choice of wife, he is also finding plenty to disagree with Noah about.
One fatal misunderstanding . . .
But when Rachel discovers something about Ali that she can hardly believe, everything changes. As the wedding weekend unfolds, the secrets each of them hold begin to spill, and friendships and marriages threaten to unravel. Soon, jumping to conclusions becomes the difference between life and death.
Website: http://www.sandiejones.co.uk/
Twitter: realsandiejones
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