About the Book:
In the vein of The Other Woman, Sandie Jones’s explosive new novel The Guilt Trip will have listeners gripped to the very last chapter.
Six friends.
Rachel and Noah have been friends since they met at university. While they once thought that they might be something more, now, 2 0years 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.
My Review:
I love Sandie Jones but I think this story was a difficult audiobook because of the many characters. I did like the plot and the huge surprise at the end!
The audiobook narrator Clare Corbett did a good job keeping me invested in the storyline. Rachel is the main point of view and it was difficult at times to keep all the characters separate. Was Rachel just being paranoid about Ali, or was Ali really as much of a threat as Rachel assumer her to be?
I was expecting more of a murder mystery or suspense but this book is really more focused on the relationships and drama between the main characters. The “fatal misunderstanding” referred to in the book synopsis does not occur until very late in the book. It was still a very quick and engaging story, and all the secrets and lies did keep me listening to the very end.
I loved the seaside setting of the book and could easily imagine the wild cliffs and the huge waves surrounding the villa. There are many twists in this book and the shocking conclusion was worth the wait. If you love family drama and a contemporary setting, you will enjoy this one. I absolutely loved the author’s earlier book ‘The Other Woman’ and look forward to reading more from Sandie Jones.
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