Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book. It was a good read.I felt that it was slow to get into. Orly, Thea, Lenny & Mel are all different & well developed characters. Each girl has a different back story & all interesting. In saying that the festival parts were a little bit chunky at times & it wasn't until the last few chapters that the story really got going. Overall a good read

What’s not to love about a festival. The only fact is that’s there is murder happening and not all survive. I liked how we read about all the characters too. Looking forward to the next one :)

Two decades on from school, Orly, Mel, Thea and Lenny’s friendship has waxed and waned, but – in celebration of a big birthday – they’re heading to a festival in their old hometown. It’s a chance to reconnect, to let loose and have some fun, while reminding each other why they were friends in the first place. But with personal and professional life creeping in from all angles, their weekend of freedom turns out to be anything but. In fact, not everyone is going to leave the festival alive… Nicely plotted, you get a real insight into each character and their motivation for being how they are. There are a few red herrings to keep you on your toes too.

The Festival by Sarah J Naughton. This book is about four friends Orly, Lenny, Mel and Thea who were best friends at school but had drifted apart but for Lenny’s 40th birthday they decide to go to a Festival to reconnect. Unfortunately things don’t go to plan. I haven’t read anything by this author before and was drawn to the cover. This book for me is hard to articulate how I felt about it, simply because I neither liked it or hated it. It wasn’t what I was expecting in the respect of it being a thriller and it didn’t grip me as I would expect a thriller to, as other thrillers I’ve read have. It was a very very slow burner and even though throughout the book there was stuff happening to the group of girls that didn’t add up or were slightly suspicious, these little nuggets of suspense and mystery didn’t really grip me or make me wonder what was going on or to look at the bigger picture. The story for me didn’t feel like it really opened up with potential until nearly the end, when I was sort of 80% of the way through. There’s a lot of back story to each character and each character has its own story. Without giving any spoilers I didn’t predict the outcome and so in that respect it was surprised, however again the big reveal of what was going on and who was behind it all happened very close to the end and made it feel all slightly rushed and took away from the shock from which I would expect from a thriller. This is a very tame thriller and throughout the book when I thought the story was opening up to reveal something big, a big clue, it just didn’t deliver. On the positive it does give you those little snippets, the anticipation that something exciting is going to happen. If you are a fan of thrillers I probably wouldn’t recommend this one, it was a bit lacklustre for me. I have got other books by this author and even though I’m not a fan of this book, I would try her other books. I wouldn’t go as far as saying I hate this book, it just wasn’t for me, it just lacked something.

Really enjoyed this! Four forty-year-old women attend a music festival that, 20 years before, they attended as school leavers. We get to know these women well and, as the story progresses, we worry for them. The author conjures up the living conditions of the festival excellently - the drinking, the tents, the portable toilets, the squalor - oh, the squalor! Along with the women, you start to feel claustrophobic. You feel the unrelenting sun beating down on you and, when the weather changes, you feel the downpour and the haste to shelter from the rain. And then there's the mud!

The Festival is an absolute treat. The Big Reveal, when it comes, is delicious: it's a shocker but, in the context of the story, makes total sense.

I will certainly be reading more by Sarah J Naughton.

Even though the plot was similar or in the same vein as many others that I have seen on the market recently/read, I decided to give The Festival a go. But sadly it was pretty average and doesn't stand out in the crowded field.
It was frustrating to see the majority of the characters behaving like teenagers, instead of the age that they actually are. And that made it difficult to warm to many of them, for me.
It was also pretty predictable.
I did enjoy the atmosphere and setting but the story itself wasn't the strongest that I've read, in terms of this type of revenge story.
Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I really liked the first half of this book, really atmospheric and made me yearn for a summer festival to drink beer and hang out with friends but I felt like the last maybe 3rd of this book seemed a bit disjointed? Maybe just me! However, I would 100% recommend this to someone who wanted an easy summer read in the sunshine and liked thrillers!

Woah this novel is dark and twisty. It’s a great read, one that will have you up late, on the edge of your seat. Thoroughly recommend this.

Absolutely loved each and every character in this book. They were so well written. The story followed each woman in generous chunks, not just focusing on Orly overall. Each woman was so relatable!

For Mel's 40th, these women bring us all to a festival to celebrate.... and Naughton certainly paints the scene. I've never been to a festival, but was able to imagine myself right there in the thick of it, thanks to the brilliant writing in this book.

Full of suspense and twisty turns. This book was 'unputdownable' ... I finished in roughly 24 hours!

A story of a group of friends, all at different points in their lives and having been somewhat estranged, come back together to attend a music festival and revisit their youth.
I found that I identified with these characters, being the same age and having experienced some of their life experiences and I found the characters to be real and we'll rounded. I enjoyed the way each character has a distinctive voice and how she reflects the very real insecurities we all have, no matter how others may view us.
The plot slowly unfurls, gaining in pace until it reaches a breakneck conclusion and one that was just a little bit far-fetched when compared to the relative normalcy of the book as a whole.
Enjoyable, entertaining and ultimately satisfying, I would have no hesitation in recommending this book to anyone who loves a light-hearted crime thriller.

What a gripping read this was!! I absolutely loved it!! It sums up everything I love in a story, festivals, murder and who is the killer!
I loved how the author wrote about each of the friends in this story! It really kept me guessing as to who could have been the murderer. A brilliant and gripping read, cannot wait to see what the author has for us next!

Thank you to Newgale, Orion and Sarah J. Naughton for the opportunity to read this ARC in return for my honest review. This book drew me in from the first pages. Knowing from the outset that not everyone survives was exciting as I was trying to work out who, why and how one of the friends dies. Interestingly written showing the darker side of friendships, the cliques within cliques and all the in fighting, competition, jealousies and snarkiness that goes with it. I enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend.

This was fantastic. The concept is right up my street: Four friends all with problems/secrets meet up for a weekend at a festival and someone is targeting them. You know from the start that at least one character is going to die and it's so much fun working out who, why and who the potential murderer/murderers are.

I was really excited to see a map when I first started reading. Love a map. It makes it so much easier to picture where the characters are and make the setting more real. Talking of the setting, the author did a fantastic job of describing the atmosphere at the festival.

At first I thought there was too much time spent on getting to know the characters before they even get to the festival but upon reflection I'm actually really glad we got all the backstory as it made me care about their fates much more.

I loved the sense of danger that the characters were in and I genuinely had no idea who the murderer would turn out to be. There were so many potential suspects and it was fun trying to work it out.

The only thing I didn't like was the insistence by multiple characters that people without children couldn't possibly be as happy as those with children. It's just not true and came across as a bit preachy.

Overall this was a brilliant read and I would definitely recommend it.

This book has been completely and utterly impossible to put down. I have been completely gripped, suspicious of all the characters involved and completely unable to predict where this book was going. This is well-written, completely addictive and all round a wonderful gem. I absolutely recommend this book.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This thriller was exactly what I like in a story - multiple possible killers, an initially unknown victim and a claustrophobic one location setting.

The Festival takes place largely over one weekend at Gillfest - basically Glastonbury with a different name - and four old friends are there celebrating turning 40.

Orly is a young widow who wanted kids but lost her husband too early, Mel had a baby in her teens and now he's all grown up, Lenny didn't want a relationship so had twins with a sperm donor and Thea has two kids whose father is in jail and a rich older boyfriend to take care of them.

Children underpin this story and provide motivation for all of the main characters in both subtle and obvious ways, and the narrative examines the lengths women are willing to go to protect their children. One thing which I felt was a bit far fetched come the climax of the story.

Several cliche archetypes are present and set up as potential villans from the outset:
- the dodgy drug dealer
- the creepy farmer's son
- the old school friend with a grudge
- the angry ex boyfriend
- the ex boyfriend's new fiancée
- the bullied peer from their school days

And while bumping into familiar faces with such regularity may seem outlandish in many stories, by choosing the closed location of a festival as the setting, the author manages to keep these encounters believable.

Overall I really enjoyed this book, and the social media snapshots scattered throughout helped move the story along without being intrusive.

This is perfect for fans of CL Taylor.

Festival Weekend Turns Sour...
A festival weekend for a big birthday celebration and a reunion of friends combined turns sour in this very readable suspense. A large cast populates the plot, events move swiftly and although this is undoubtedly predictable and perhaps formulaic as a read it’s really none the worse for that for some entertaining escapism.

I really enjoyed the setting of this book and was intrigued about the direction the author would take the story. Lenny was the only character I found I liked, as even Orly annoyed me at times, as much as I sympathised with her situation. While I originally liked that equal amount of detail spent on each of the friend's personal lives, I soon found that a lot of this ended up being unnecessary information that didn't lend itself to anything in the plot. E.g. The whole Pandora storyline which felt a bit random. A lot of the characters also acted quite childish which didn't feel accurate of a group of 40-year-old women. There were a lot of pretty big clues to who the main culprit was but the ending was ultimately unrealistic and a bit disappointing.

This is a great read about four close friends, all dealing with things in their lives.
Orly is a recent widow, struggling to cope with the death of her husband. Lenny is a successful business women raising twins as a single mum. Mel is a struggling single mum of a teenage son who is about to leave for university, but she doesn’t know how she’ll cope and Thea is mum to two children but her partner seems to be losing interest in her.
With Lenny’s 40th birthday fast approaching they decide to get together for a weekend away and go to a local Festival that they went to when they were younger.
All is well until they find a case on the train which belongs to a man they just met, and agree to meet him at the Festival to return it to him. It seems he wanted them to find the case and take in the contents for him so they dump it when they realise what it contains.
Threatening texts are then received and also weird items left outside their tent.
It’s clear something will happen to some of the group but it was a surprise when I realised who was behind it all.
A great read that I thoroughly enjoyed.
Thanks to Orion Publishing Group and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

It’s a decent enough psychological thriller, however a little slow and repetitive.
I also found the plot predictive and it was easy to guess the ending.
That being said, the characters are well developed and it’s very easy reading.

#TheFestival #NetGalley
An electrifying thriller of 2021.
Orly, Lenny, Mel and Thea have been best friends since school. But now it is 20 years later and inevitably they have drifted apart.
ONE WEEKEND.
It is Lenny's 40th birthday, plus Orly and Mel need cheered up, so Thea suggests a weekend away at a festival in their hometown. It's a chance for them all to reconnect.NOT ALL OF THEM WILL SURVIVE.But their holiday soon takes a sinister turn, and not all of the friends will leave the festival alive...
I loved this thriller. All are not what they seem in this book. It's brilliant.
Thanks to NetGalley and Orion Publishing Group Trapeze for giving me an advance copy.