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. Highly enjoyable.

An outstanding read. This book flings you in so many different delicious directions. A group of friends who go on holiday in a huge luxurious villa. All seem chilled and fun until Kate believes someone is betraying her. As she delves into finding out who and what is going on allsorts of secrets and suspicious behaviour emerges. This was truly a fantastic book and I was held captive all the way through with breathtaking moments and a didn't see that ending coming.

What do you think of when you think of a holiday? I personally like to imagine a lovely place, with my closest friends, and books, obviously. We always hope the days will be filled with good food, laughs, and happy moments. Then we grow up and learn it never really happens. But if we’re lucky, we never go through the same holiday as the four friends in T.M. Logan’s book!!

I thought long and hard about what to say about The Holiday. Yes, it’s brilliant. Yes, it’s taut. Yes, you get a swimming pool and the caress of the sun on skin. Yes, you will adore the description of the setting because the author knows how to transport you at the heart of the action. But there is so much more to enjoy…

Kate, Izzie, Jennifer, and Rowan have been friends since university. If at first, they managed to reunite once a year, life eventually got in the way. This year, though, at the threshold of their 40th birthday, they managed to pack clothes and family to spend a week in France.

Meet the team. Kate, whose voice we listen to the most in the book, feels something is off. I took an instant liking to her. While she tried to make sense of the dynamics around her, I picked up hints and details that I would add to her point of view, pondering over and over if she should be bolder, until my thoughts merged with her and I found myself completely engrossed by her thoughts and rooting for her.

Dear Rowena, who made the holiday happen, has a cloud of mystery around her as she is on the edge of a big change career-wise.

Izzie, single but dating someone no one knows… Someone married.

Jennifer, overprotective of her two boys, anxious to be the best mother possible.

Those four women share talks, memories, and so much more. How much more??? I just loved how we only get glimpses of each lady. It gives so much room to the imagination to create the wildest scenarios and I couldn’t stop my brain from distrusting everyone.

The little fly I am could not have been happier to snoop around in those families’ business. The grass is definitely not greener on the other side! Perfectly normal moments every family knows by heart, like breakfast tension or dinner tiredness resonated with me, giving me flashbacks of my own holidays with family, both as an adult and as a child. Every character feels so alive and kicking that you can’t help but think you’re part of their group when reading this book! You get involved, you start caring… And you can’t tear yourself away!

I can say without any bias (I swear!) that T.M. Logan has drawn a beautifully picture of Béziers and its surroundings. I welcomed the familiar roads, the vineyards this French girl will forever cherish, and the oppressive heat that comes with the sun… and secrets.

Before they even reached their destination, we get a hint that not everything is perfect in Kate and Sean’s life. What do you make of a distant husband glued to his phone? I know! Me too! And it didn’t take long for Kate to get a strong suspicion on an affair. Isn’t it the first thing we think of? Don’t lie, I know it’s what popped in your head when you read the beginning of this paragraph!

With a week ahead and far from their routine, Kate believes she can reconnect with her husband, or at least get to the bottom of the situation. But a series of texts narrows down her list of suspects to the women she is sharing her holiday with. Now that calls for disaster, doesn’t it?

Stuck in a foreign country with the people she is supposed to trust the most, Kate tries to make as little waves as possible, bidding her time for the sake of her family and her friendships. I don’t know what I would do in such a situation, but I understood her reluctance to confront her husband right away. Without a name and real proof, is it worth it to throw a bomb on the first day?

Then begins a dance of whispers and looks. What Kate doesn’t know is that her search for the truth will be hampered by layers of secrets that come together like grain of sand on your legs after you’ve put the sunscreen on! T.M. Logan has written a scorching cracker of a read!

Who is ever truly 100% honest about everything with their friends? Who can say they have nothing to hide? I have heard people say men can’t write women properly, that it takes a woman to explore the female psyche and behavior. I laugh and throw them one of T.M. Logan’s novels, as he proves once again that he knows what he is writing about! The Holiday is the perfect read to devour, whether you’re sitting by a pool or in the train, commuting. The Holiday will also probably be the reason you decline to go away with your friends the next time the idea is mentioned!

This intense novel tells the tales of women, friends, wives, and mothers, questioning everything they say and do, digging up old scars and revealing new ones.

The final chapters had me in dire need of a cocktail to help bear with the tension. The climax had me completely lost for words! After a full week of questions, the answers hit me hard, revealing truths I could never have imagined.
The Holiday is exactly what the title says – the perfect gateway for any reader looking for a stunning psychological thriller!

Great read, had me hooked from the beginning did not want to put it down, a real page turner. Would be a great poolside read on holiday!

Will Kate find out the truth of her suspicions? If so, to whose cost?

I have to admit that I got annoyed with Kate as to why she didn’t just ask her husband Sean outright what was going on instead of listening to his excuses and then to have her ponder on it for hours or days on end. Just when you think you’re about to learn something new about all the goings-on, someone or something gets in the way. It was extremely frustrating!

I did however, love the way each chapter was from a different person’s perspective, a style which I absolutely adore. Like an actor is able to make you loathe or love them when playing a role, Logan is able to make you feel the same way about his characters. This shows a true writer’s skill.

An superbly fantastic read that keeps you in suspense literally right until the last pages. I’m sure many reviews will say this a great summer holiday read, which it is, but this will also be a equally great tucked up in bed with a hot chocolate and the rain beating on the window in the middle of a dreary November.

A brilliant read!

This book was very easy to get in to. I pictured the characters easily and felt myself reading the story like a fly on the wall.

It keeps you guessing the whole way through and the twist was the pinnacle!

I will definitely be recommending this book!

Oh my goodness this book has secrets galore and will definitely keep you entertained !!

Kate and her three friends from University decide to arrange a holiday for themselves and their families, to celebrate their upcoming 40th birthdays. The holidays is meant to be all about getting together and having fun but it doesn’t go exactly to plan.

Kate thinks her husband is a little distracted and giving in to temptation she looks at his phone and discovers some messages from another woman. To make matters worse the messages are from someone stating in the villa, which means it must be one of her three friends. Which one is it ? Can Kate discover the truth about her husband and friend ?

This is a fantastic summer read, but don’t read it if you are on holiday with three friends and their families !! There are plenty of secrets to be revealed throughout the book and rest assured it will keep you hooked until the very end. A book you really need to read whilst sitting in the sun !!

Thank you to Bonnier Zaffre and NetGalley for a digital copy of this book.

It Should Be A Holiday To Remember - It Was.....
An idyllic holiday in a stunning French villa, four good friends celebrating 40th birthdays together with respective families - it should be a holiday to remember.....it was. Character driven, domestic mystery, compellingly.written with mounting tension and twists and turns aplenty which you may or may not see coming but which are mostly satisfying. Characters are well drawn - not all likeable but credible they are.. Pages will keep turning to a neat denouement. Would make an ideal holiday read - from armchair or otherwise - although perhaps think twice before booking a villa holiday with friends.... Recommended.

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.