So I really enjoyed TM Logan’s last book 29 Seconds so I jumped at the chance to read The Holiday.

The story opens with the discovery of a body at the bottom of a cliff, we don’t know who or why the body ended up there but it painted a really visceral and realistic picture and set the tension for the whole book. 
 
We go back in time and follow Kate and her friends Rowan, Izzy and Jennifer with their families as they holiday in a Villa for their fortieth birthdays. But all is not right in paradise as Kate finds some messages on her husband Mark’s phone and believes he’s having an affair. Tensions simmer beneath the surface boiling over and resulting in the death of one of the people in the mansion. 

The Holiday was a sun soaked thriller that for me was the perfect summer read. It’s full so full of tension that it had me on edge just waiting for the killer reveal.

It’s told mainly from Kate’s first person perspective, which we really get inside her head and I felt really connected to her. There even a scene where she’s standing over her son sleeping, with this irrational need to check he’s still breathing which I found myself going ‘oh my god, I do that sometimes with my own son!’

My only minor issue was I felt the author kept me waiting just a tiny bit too long, not getting to the really juicy stuff until about the last quarter of the book. Although I can safely say I did not guess the end of this book by a long shot!

Overall The Holiday is a slow burn tension packed thriller that will keep you hooked from beginning to end.

Fantastic book that I read in one afternoon. I couldn’t put it down once I started.

Lots of little twists and turns, all of which had me guessing.  This is definitely an author I want to read more of. 

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC in return for an honest and unbiased opinion.

This book comes highly recommended 

It is a fantastic summer thriller. 

The characters were engaging and this had me on the edge on my seat throughout. 

I loved 29 second and lies and this book did not disappoint.

This is a real rollercoaster of a read. Just when you think you’ve worked it out, you’re pulled in another direction - and not just once! 
I really enjoyed this book and loved the way the characters were portrayed. 
Three friends from university go to France for a holiday with their husbands and children and meet up with their other friend, Izzy. 
They all lead completely different lives but as it’s a fortieth Birthday celebration they all make the effort. 
Most of the book is written from Kate’s perspective and on the first day of the holiday her world crumbles around her. She finds messages on her husband’s phone from another woman which is bad enough, but it says they’ll sort it out ‘in France’ so she knows it’s from one of her friends. 
There’s lots happening in this book and I raced through it as I was desperate to know the identity of the other woman. 
This is a great psychological thriller about secrets and lies amongst friends and families. 
Thanks to Bonnier Zaffre and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

Wow, where can I start with this book!? It gave me a book hangover for sure! The twists and turns, I just did not see them coming. I suspect everyone and everything, would it be as cut and dry as an affair being discovered in the idyllic French resort?

A holiday with a large group of friends always sounds like so much fun in theory. Hey, let us take a week off, go stay in somewhere grand and watch as everyone starts to crack underneath the secrets they all hold. I mean ok, it is not going to be like that every time you go away…but in Logan’s book well what do you know! And do you know what I thoroughly enjoyed every single crack getting bigger and bigger!

Kate, on holiday with her 3 best friends from university, discovers that her husband Sean is not so loyal and honest as it first seems. In the days following she suspects everyone of her friends, and so did I! But is it that simple? Aaah no! Told predominately through Kate’s eyes, you only have her point of view to consider. Her thoughts and feelings slowly envelop you and become your thoughts and feelings. I did find a few times I wanted Kate to have a bit more of a backbone and say NO. Maybe if I had the chance to push her in the pool she might have woken up a bit quicker. However, through watching her you garner things she does not at first, and it becomes obvious that 2 and 2 become 5.

Does Rowena have everything you are led to believe? Why does she need to be completely squeaky clean for this upcoming audit? What is she whispering into Sean’s ear?

Jennifer, always protective over her boys, maybe more she than she should be, what is she hiding? Why is secretly hugging Sean when no one is looking? Does she want to rekindle her old flame with him?

Izzy, the single lady, the one dating a married man. Is it Sean she is dating? Being his oldest friend, does she want more? Why won’t she tell Kate? Is there more than meets the eye?

Well, these are just some of the questions me and Kate were asking throughout the book. Whilst Kate is wrapped up in herself, we see chapters from other characters. We have Kate’s daughter Lucy, what is she hiding from everyone? Why so sullen? Her son, Daniel, worried about his sister but are the boys bullying him? Why are Ethan and Jake, Jennifer’s boys, just wanting to find oblivion? Why such darkness in them? Is Odette, Rowena’s little girl, just a little girl wanting her parent’s attention? Or does she know something darker?

You see!! So many blinking questions to answer, all flying through my head when I was reading. My head was spinning, still is when I think of it. The ending came so left field, that if I had been playing rounders I would have had a ball in my face, I should have seen it coming but Logan just blind sighted me for sure! It was a heartbreaking discovery, one where my heart stopped and the tears flowed until the shocking and intense conclusion.

It is a perfect book to devour….maybe when you are on holiday! It makes you question friendships, social media and watch everything your friends and partner does. It sows the seeds deep in your mind. My only disgruntle is Kate began to get a bit whiny and did not stand up for herself when she first discovers the messages but waits a long time to confront Sean.

If you want a book that batters you with answers and red herrings at the same time in such a rampant tirade, then The Holiday is for you. However this is a slow burn, it is not all action. With each bit of new information you get, you have time to digest it as you are given a new point of view, a new situation to think about. All the while making your head spin, wondering which way is up!

The Holiday gave me such a book hangover! It is one that stayed with me once I had put the kindle down and I could not stop thinking about it until I got the chance to carry on reading. It will have you hooked and it will throw you through the wringer, but it will take a long tortuous time doing it, making you suffer until the final jigsaw pieces start to fit. For me, this is a contender for book of the year!!

4.5 Stars.
I've read and enjoyed both this author's previous books. I loved 29 Seconds more than Lies, and I would put this book in between the two on the enjoyment scale.
We meet four women who have been friends forever as they head to a luxurious villa in the South of France for a holiday with their respective families. It soon transpires that maybe the women aren't as close as once they were as cracks start to form in their relationships both to each other and also within their own family. Secrets are in danger of coming out. One such secret must be kept, at all costs. As the stakes climb higher for certain individuals, tragedy strikes. But how far will they go to protect themself?
Well, this book kept me spinning around for the majority. With one woman suspecting her husband to be cheating on her with one of her friends, the bar of intrigue was set quite high from the off and my guessing game began. I thought I knew where we were going several times along the way but the author kept sneaking curve balls in and I pretty soon just gave up and followed the action in a more passive way. Allowing the author and characters to lead me on my journey.
It's quite character driven and I did have a bit of fun getting to know the cast. As with a lot of books which introduce a lot of characters at the same time, I did have to write myself a cast list of the families so I could keep myself straight. It's not that they weren't distinct enough, I'm like it in real life when I meet a bunch of people all together for the first time. 
On the whole, the pacing is pretty high and mostly consistent throughout. There were the odd occasions where it dragged for me, especially those where I was also yelling at one or other of the characters to "open their eyes" and realise what was really going on. They were a bit daft at times, but always within the story and important to the plot and suspense. I also had to suspend belief along the way as some parts were a little contrived.
The action ramps up towards the end, nearly meeting warp speed as it races to the finale. An ending that I actually didn't see coming and pretty much shocked the heck out of me. But one which also left me satisfied albeit being a bit on the busy side.
All in all a cracking read. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

4 old friends, along with their husbands and families decide to take a break in rural France to celebrate their 40th birthdays

Whilst their kate becomes suspicious that her husband Sean is having an affair with one of the friends ..

What follows is a sizzling thriller full of lies and deceit, of dysfunctional families , mistrust and serious Betrayal.

The characters are good, they’re believable which is always a good thing but I never particularly liked any of them other than the young Daniel

The writing is inviting , easy to read as this is a seriously clever story, this is a serious page turner and a cracking read for the summer months .

This book is absolutely full of twists and if you crack this mystery before the author reveals it your a far better investigator than me! I love how TM Logan has invented a brilliant twist , far from what you expect.

4 🔥🔥🔥🔥

I was hooked onto this book as soon as I read the first page (cliche I know!) but with the  description of a body found bleeding and many open wounds without saying who it was, I spent the whole time reading the book waiting to find out who died or will there be more than one?

When Kate finds her husband phone hidden away in a bedside cabinet, with message notification come pinging in, she decides to read the messages and regrets it as she finds her husband Sean is having an affair, and to make it even worse it's with one of her best friends who is in the same villa? So naturally she starts to wonder who could be playing away with her husband?

Is it Jennifer, Sean first love at uni who was his best ever apparently, which upset Kate at the time but now she's thinking could they have rekindle their amazing/first love romance? 
Or is it Izzy, who both came from the same area, went to the same high school and briefly dated for a while but never spoke of it since.
Could it be Rowan, who arranged for everyone to stay at the villa in order to show off to Daniel to show what his life could be like, especially after  Rowan's husband declares to Kate he thinks his wife is having an affair. Could it be with Kate's husband?

Over the week, more and more bad things happen to the families (mainly the children). With little Daniel trying to prove to Jennifer's two teenage boys he can be part of the gang by doing some things he knows his mother wouldn't approve of, Lucy seems to be hiding a big secret about something that happened at a party, I wonder what it could be? The adults also seem to be brushing each other the wrong way. 
And the night where Izzy decides to Kate what she knows (is she about to confess?) there is a terrible accident, costing someones life and suspicions rise. Was it an accident or a deliberate murder. Also will Kate find out who her husband is having an affair with?

My thoughts on this book: I loved how each character is written and how they all have their own secrets they're not sharing with anyone. This book got me thinking the whole time who could be having the affair and what happened to Lucy. 
I will be reccomdending this book to everyone and to all you people who will be reading this blog.

T.M. Logan is the bestselling author of the standalone thrillers “Lies” and “29 Seconds”. Having enjoyed the latter novel, I was very much looking forward to reading this, his latest publication “The Holiday”.
Although this is far from fast paced and a definite cliched ‘slow burn’ it did open with some beautifully atmospheric descriptions that pulled me into the French setting perfectly. 
I liked how the chapters were told through the different characters with the main voice being the female protagonist Kate. I did however, have some issues with the characters, Kate in particular. She didn’t suit her occupation of a crime scene investigator and felt that she was rather (for want of a better term) a wet blanket. Having discovered texts on her husband Sean’s phone, causing her to believe he was having an affair with one of her three best friends they were currently on holiday with, she is stunned to believe he could be so deceitful. To continue playing happy families with her husband and keep up social niceties with her friends, just didn’t ring true. I’m not sure many people would handle the situation in the same way but it did allow for the story to develop enough suspicions to keep the reader intrigued and focus on trust within friendships and relationships. Generally all the adult characters were uninspiring, unlikeable and odd, though I felt (through personal parental experience) the teenagers to be very true and realistic - moody, secretive and surly, generally due to the current world of communicating with peers, involving the internet and social media! It’s possible that due to the author being male and writing emotions for female characters, that was why the women seemed off kilter but I did sadly struggle to endear to any of them at all.
I wasn’t sold either on the whole big twist and reason for Sean’s secrecy but I undoubtedly wanted to follow the story to the end and was intrigued enough by who it was having the affair with him to see it though.
The story begs the question, can we ever trust our best friends, even those we’ve known for many years and explores many other issues, including how far would a parent go to protect their own offspring. 
Not earth shattering by any standard but a nice quick ‘holiday’ read that, if you like slow burn mysteries, you should enjoy and I was entertained enough to read more again by this author in the future. 

3 stars

Thank you Netgalley and publisher for this book 

This was my first T M Logan book and it won't be my last and I suggest you don't take it with you if you are going away with a group of friends! 

You do need to work out what is happening and can't really second guess, I tried and was totally wrong.  It’s a rollercoaster of a book and really kept me guessing.  

I would recommend and is a good holiday read if going as a couple!

I am a great fan of TM Logan having read 'Lies' and I was equally thrilled with "The Holiday".  
 
I loved everything about this book - the story-line, the characters and all of the many twists and turns as four female university friends go on holiday together to France with their families.  The setting was glorious, but all was not perfect with the families' relationships, giving rise to surprises, shocks, drama and suspicion.

The development of the interrelationships between the families and their children meant that I was totally addicted to this drama-thriller from start to finish and could not put it down.  The clever writing by TM Logan made it unclear as to what exactly was going on but that resulted in an even more compelling story. "The Holiday" is very highly recommended and it is another must-read from this brilliant author,

Not my first and will certainly not be my last T.M. Logan book.  I love this author and The Holiday didn't disappoint.  
From start to finish, Kate had the holiday from hell.  It starts with Kate the main character finding a text on her husband's phone and immediately thinks that her husband is having an affair. From the text it signifies that it is with one of her three friends from the villa.  The next few days are spent trying to find out who.  Along with some other stories with their friends and their families intertwined, the character's personalities just jump off the page.  The storytelling in this book is excellent.  At one point I got a little bored about 3/4 of the way through the book but it quickly picked up towards the finish line.  I did not guess at all!!  Four and a half stars but I will give it 5 for this review.

This ARC was courtesy of netgalley - all thoughts and opinions are mine and unbiased

I haven't read any of T M Logan's work before so am thrilled to have found another author to search out work from

Thrillers are not my usual genre but thanks to netgalley, it's one I am enjoying more and more and this is a perfect example 

A great holiday read

Great cover, this is what drew me in in the first place and I thought I would love the book - and I do !!

Well written, great characters - lots of marvelous twists in the story that kept me guessing right to the very satisfactory end 

Very highly recommended

Four women and their families spend a week in a French villa. Friends from university, they haven't spent much time together recently. Kate suspects her husband Sean is having an affair and it's one of the other women. 

This book starts off tense and you can tell from the beginning that something big will happen. Twists and turns along the way lead you to a dramatic ending where the truth finally comes out.

I loved this. It was addictive and I couldn't put it down.

This is a book where you have to work to find out what is happening- you will not be able to second guess. It’s a read that takes you on a huge rollercoaster. This book will keep you guessing from the word go.
Thank you to both NetGalley and Zaffre for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest review

Scheduled for the 11th July on my blog - onemoreword.uk

How have I missed out on reading T. M. Logan up until now? How!?!?

Since finishing The Holiday I have seen his other two books every time I’ve popped on to Amazon – 29 seconds and Lies are now in my wishlist. I probably would have already bought them by now, but after splurging a lot recently on books I am trying to have a month or so off. No more kindle books. Well, at least until August. Or until I cave tomorrow. Does a book buying ban ever work for anyone?

Anyway.

So, I read The holiday by T.M. Logan while on holiday. Yes, on holiday. I was sitting in the glorious Majorca sunshine while reading about the sweltering heated holiday of a group of friends who all booked some time away together that ended disastrously. A holiday for them that was complicated from the start and only proceeded to get tenser by the chapter. A holiday that I was glad I wasn’t on. And thankfully was nothing like my relaxing family holiday.

Seven days. Three families. One killer. – The tag lines and the cover completely grabbed my attention.

I love the cover. I don’t think it does anything very original but it caught my eye. It is simple but totally works for me. It’s bright and summery. It’s good, isn’t it? And just in time for the summer holidays?

The setting was gorgeous, and I would have loved to wander around that gorgeous, luxurious villa. The heat, the atmosphere was all very well done. It made me want to pack a suitcase and go and visit the French coastline preferably staying in a very similar beautiful villa. As if. But I can dream. And play the lottery.

My one and only small complaint with the novel was that the author worked a bit too hard at trying to keep me (the reader) guessing. I felt like the setup dragged and I didn’t quite like how much of a doormat Kate was being, especially because she didn’t seem to be that easily walked over in the rest of her life. I can’t really explain too much for fear of spoilers, but I did have a few moments where I wanted to tell our main character to find her backbone and stand up for herself and her children.

I loved the twisty ending. I didn’t guess it at all. Not even a little bit. The ending was great, a real shock and oh so interesting. I just felt like it took quite a while to get there. But it was worth the wait.

I love a big cast novel. I love the different POVs and I love following all the different stories centred around the same holiday in France. I found it compelling. I happily relaxed by the pool reading about a totally different holiday than the one I was on.

Recommended.

The Holiday by T. M. Logan will be published on the 25th July.

I received a copy of The Holiday by T. M. Logan for review from the publisher via NetGalley – Thank you!

Four university friends and their families go on holiday to a villa in France to celebrate their becoming 40. What could go wrong? 
Katie's Husband Sean has seemed distracted recently and Katie, desperate to get to the bottom of things checks his phone and gets more than she bargains for. It seems he's having an affair with one of the 3 friends and they are planning on coming clean whilst in France. 
Several reviewers have said they found this book to be a slow burner. I found i got straight in to the book and just wanted to keep reading it. I got a bit confused regarding who was married to who and who their children were. Not sure there's anything the author could have done about this though. 
I loved the authors writing style and Katie,  as well as the reader,  suspects each friend in turn. There was no way I could have guessed the ending as it was original and fresh. 
I enjoyed this book so much that I went straight to Amazon to buy the authors other 2 books , to find that , fortunately for me, I already have them sitting proudly on my Kindle. I can't wait to get started!

New to me author and what a gripping story!
I really liked this book, enjoyed everything from the writing style that made me read and realised when I was more than half way through that I needed a break to gutter my thoughts on what I was reading and envisioned, to the characters that are so reliable and felt real, each one of them with their own insecurities, thoughts and past or present drama /angst.
There are a few twists and made me realised how much they were necessary for the story.
Who wouldn't be jealous or loose their beliefs in their other half when there are so many reasons to believe the worst of it.
That twists at the end was unexpected for me and I was all along wandering what happens next and what the author has in his sleeves for us

I was delighted to get the chance to have an ARC of this novel as I loved the previous two books by TM Logan this is an honest and unbiased review of the book.

Unfortunately I found the first 80% of the book very slow the premise is good.  Four good friends who have known each other since university go on a group family holiday arranged by Kate to celebrate her 40th birthday. I struggled with Kate seemingly to have had a happy marriage until her husband Sean starts behaving slightly differently just before they go on holiday. Then she starts to believe he’s having an affair. From reading a text on his phone seems to confirm it to her and she suspects it’s one of her three friends each one being suspected at some point in the story. The children of all the families are an absolute nightmare in one way or another. I just found it very slow going literally until I got to the last 20% of the story. When there are a couple of unexpected twists. I understand the story is showing how far a parent would go to protect their own children. I think the fact that Kate is a crime scene investigator so is a rational woman who from what we learn she looks at the evidence but she has previously been wrong on 3 occasions in her private life which makes you wonder how good she is at her job in the first place. The writing is good and it flows well I just felt it was dragged out too long. But this is just my opinion and others may feel differently as we all like a different pace in a story. I will give this 4 stars out of 5

Have loved previous books by T M Logan and this one did not disappoint.  The French setting is perfect for four university friends and there families to reunite.  Then Kate finds a text on her husbands phone.  Is he having an affair?  Is it with one of her friends?  A real page turner, with a great ending, highly recommend.