The Book:
The Long Weekend by Gilly MacMillan
Published March 29th 2022 by William Morrow
Date read: February 2, 2022
The Characters:
John and Maggie, property owners
Jayne, Emily, and Ruth, the vacationers
Edie
Buy it on Bookshop.org | Amazon
The Plot (from Goodreads):
Three couples. Two bodies. One secret.
Dark Fell Barn is a “perfectly isolated” retreat, or so says its website when Jayne books a reservation for her friends. A quiet place, far removed from the rest of the world, is exactly what they need.
The women arrive for a girls’ night ahead of their husbands. There’s ex-Army Jayne, hardened and serious, but also damaged. Ruth, the driven doctor and new mother who is battling demons of her own. Young Emily, just wed and insecure, the newest addition of this tight-knit band. Missing this year is Edie, who was the glue holding them together until her husband died suddenly.
But what they hoped would be a relaxing break soon turns to horror. Upon arrival at Dark Fell Barn, the women find a devastating note claiming one of their husbands will be murdered. There are no phones, no cell service to check on their men. Friendships fracture as the situation spins wildly out of control. Betrayal can come in many forms.
This group has kept each other’s secrets for far too long.
The Twist:
The “I” that the reader thinks is Edie is actually one of the men. He had killed Edie and thought he was Imogen’s real father. He was the one who sent the gift to the house. He arranged for the other men not to go on the first night.
After a stressful night, Toby shows up in Paul’s car.
John died by suicide the same night.
The Ending:
The killer was Mark. He planned to make it look like Edie and Paul ran away together, but he had killed Paul too.
Toby and Ruth drove their cars into each other, but they recovered.
Mark was arrested for all the deaths. He was not Imogen’s father.
The Review:
Thank you to Harper Audio for this ALC in exchange for an honest review.
“By the time you read this, I’ll have killed one of your husbands.”
The Long Weekend started off strong with a great opening chapter. We meet these three women who only know each other because their husbands are friends, off on a weekend retreat. Oddly, all of their husbands decided at the last minute that they’d have to show up a little late, but that the women should go on ahead. I would really hate to spend even one night on a vacation with people I don’t really know without my boyfriend there as a social buffer, so this first chapter did a great job of establishing a tense setting.
The middle portion of the book was somewhat unmemorable, but the ending was great. All the twists came out at a satisfying pace.
I’ve been a Gilly MacMillan fan for a long time, and this book certainly lived up to my expectations for her!
Audio Review: I think I’d recommend reading a physical copy of this one. It was definitely hard to follow the plot on audio without chapter/character breaks, and I frequently had to rewind to figure out that the POV had changed.
If you liked The Long Weekend, check out The Last Party next.
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