Sandie Jones has come up with a great thriller set in Portugal,5 friends travel out to a villa for a wedding of Jacks brother Will who they meet out there.bu.t all is not what it seems on the surface because they are all hiding secrets which when they come out will blow their friendships apart,it is a well written thriller as are all Sandie Jones's books and this one once again doesn't disappoint,it kept me gripped from the first page and is a surefire winner in my book.A 5 star read which i can highly recommend.

Ooh I enjoyed this so much.
It’s full of drama, suspense, red herring clues, twists and revelations. Great read.

Love this author and loved this book. When you are left gripping your seat as the story ends you know it’s been a good ride! This book will have you hooked straight from the start.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishing house for this ARC in return for an honest review. I was very excited to receive this as an early release as I have loved the authors previous books. This book took a while to get into, it doesn’t really go anywhere until it does. I found Rachel, who’s point of view we hear, insufferable. The author writes well and there are enough twists and turns along the way to make it engaging, you just have to give it time to get going (about 50%) I’d recommend this authors previous books to friends and I would read future books too.

I’ve always loved Sandie Jones books, however this one didn’t quite hit the mark for me.
I struggled with the different relationships and to differentiate between the characters and couples.
That being said, the ending was excellent and did pull together the story.
Overall, it’s a good psychological thriller but not my favourite read by this author.

I found this book to be very entertaining and it was an excellent 'bed time' read. The characters evolved throughout the book and I was able to imagine them and the situations they were in. The descriptions of the places and people worked well and added to the plot line. All in all I would recommend this book to somoene who likes a bit of a twist, and also likes a mix of characters whilst set in the same moment in time.

Having enjoyed previous books by the author, I was excited to read The Guild Trip, especially given the intriguing blurb. Although easy to read with enough going on to keep me interested, it felt really obvious to me where the book was going, something I feel is always the problem when a book has a small amount of characters such as this one. As a result, this unfortunately left me disappointed when I was proved correct. I also found it hard not to be sceptical of the friendship group as a whole, constantly feeling that it was unrealistic that such people could be friends, especially as there was clearly a lot of animosity amongst them all for one reason or another.

A straight forward enough read with some plenty of red herrings but overall a book that sadly felt a bit flat for my liking.

When Jack and Rachel go to Portugal with Paige and Noah for the wedding of Jack’s brother, Will to the live wire that is Ali, no one could expect what is a happy occasion to be overshadowed with deceit and lies.
I’m a massive fan of Sandie’s books and this was no exception. Sandie created a web of lies and you end up caring about what happens to the characters. Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for this arc in exchange for my honest review.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for this arc. Wedding/holiday destination thrillers seem to be all the rage at the moment; possibly due to the pandemic and lockdown, readers are seeking escapist reads. I certainly am! That’s why I requested The Guilt Trip. A sun-soaked thriller read to Portugal? Count me in! This was a satisfying read. What Crimebythebook would call a popcorn read 🍿 and it was a sweet and salty snack alright. Although a bit light on the thriller aspect this was a page/turner.
This is narrated in close third-person and follows Rachel, a woman in her early 40s, who is travelling to Portugal for her brother-in-law’s wedding to the high maintenance, Ali, with her husband, Jack, and her university best friend Noah and his wife Paige, who over the years has become Rachel’s close friend too. A sea-facing villa has been booked for these six. Over booze-soaked starry nights secrets are disclosed and tensions fly high as decades bound locked secrets and resentment simmers...
This was a firecracker of a read. It zips along so steadily. The dialogues are packed with tension and mistrust. The characters are all real. I felt like if I bumped into them on the train or the street I’d instantly recognise them. There’s lots of reveals and twists too. I did find the last 20% to be quite rushed though and found the ‘antagonist’ a bit caricature. Had that aspect of the novel been better developed this would’ve be a five star read. Nonetheless this was gripping and a damn good ride. 4/5. .

2.5 stars - After reading the description, this wasn’t quite what I was expecting. I did enjoy the way Rachel and Ali’s relationship developed throughout the book, and all the twists that came with it. The story itself was decent, but I found myself constantly waiting for the real excitement to start and didn’t get that until the last 25% of the book.

Had I been expecting more of a drama, rather than a thriller, I think I would be more satisfied. I did really enjoy Rachel and Ali’s characters and would’ve loved this as a dual narrative from their perspectives!

Overall, it wasn’t for me but I’m glad I gave it a go.

I have enjoyed previous books by Sandie Jones and this does not fail either.

A fast paced thriller regarding 3 couples who go away with each other for a wedding and what unravels during this time. I devoured this book and wasn't sure how it was going to wrap up! All the deceit and lies come to a head during the wedding reception which ends in a twist you won't be expecting!

I liked the relationship between Rachel and Ali and how that played out over the course of the book but the final third left me a bit confused and I had to reread several chapters again to clarify it all, especially the ending!

Overall a good and pacey read but left me feeling a little confused by the end.

Thanks to Sandie, Pan & Netgalley for the ARC :)

A fast paced physiological thriller! I really enjoyed this book. It's a story about a group of friends who attend a wedding.. their lives are intertwined with betrayal and deceit... but who is telling the truth?

One of the most twisted and entertaining plots. A perfect beach read to escape with fabulous characters

Absolutely brilliant book, delving in to the depths of being a close group of friends and trying to let someone new into the group.

Jack and Rachel are strong friend’s with Noah and Paige. Jack’s brother Will is getting married to Ali, who is desperately trying to be accepted by the group.

Everyone is quite suspicious of Ali, Jack is just plain rude to her. But is Ali really the issue people are making out.

Stunning twists that you won’t see coming and a truly excellent read.

Thanks to Netgalley for the preview of this book. Unfortunately I found it very different to what it promised. It was not really a thriller or a murder mystery more of a drama between friends I did like the character but I felt it didn't live up to what it promised.

I really enjoyed this book as it gave a great insight to each character. I especially liked the connection between Rachel and Ali, complicated to start with but all ends well.

The twisted love story followed many different avenues - just as you thought you knew what was going to happen, the author would throw in a curve ball and send you in a different direction.

Thoroughly entertaining book and one that you could see made into a TV series.

I thought the way the Author wrote this was genius, giving you not only the conversations between the characters, but their individual thoughts too

Rating: 2.3/5

Having read the marketing blurb I was expecting a very different book to the one I ended up reading. I quote: 'They went away as friends. They came back as suspects.' And then: 'By the end of the weekend there’ll be one dead body and five people with guilty consciences wondering if they really know each other so well after all. Because one of them has to be the killer . . .' Now, I'm pretty sure it isn't just me getting hold of the wrong end of the stick, but doesn't that suggest the tried and trusted premise of a "locked room" style murder mystery? But that isn't what "The Guilt Trip" delivers at all. It is much more of a drama story with a "frenemies" theme to it, that is full of secrets, lies and deception.

At the heart of the story is the imminent marriage of Will and Ali in Portugal. They are joined on the trip by Will's brother, Jack and his wife, Paige, in addition to Rachel and her husband, Noah. Most of the group, except for bride-to-be, Ali, are in their early 40s and have been close friends for many years. For the sake of remaining as spoiler-free as possible I will not go into great detail here, but suffice to say that the plot development very much hinges on a number of secrets, lies and deceptions - some more recent, but others that are quite long-standing.

How much each individual will enjoy this novel will, I suspect, depend very much upon the amount of dramatic licence they are prepared to grant the author. Personally, I found it difficult in the first instance to envisage the likelihood of this group of people being such devoted friends, given their history. However, if you are prepared to accept this, then there is still the fact that this group of, supposedly, incredibly close friends seem incapable of communicating with each other in order to sort out even the most minor of potential misunderstandings.

If you are prepared to look beyond this, then the writing is generally quite engaging and there are twists and turns along the way, with plenty of misdirection too. On the whole, the pace is good, though during the middle third of the book I did feel as though the story was meandering around for a while without really going anywhere very quickly.

Overall, this a fairly easy read with some appealing elements, but it stretches credulity a bit too far and the misleading blurb doesn't do the writer any favours.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for supplying an ARC in return for an honest review.

I rather think that I’m in a minority with this one. I didn’t particularly enjoy any of the characters - it seems so unlikely that with all the underlying tensions and secrets amongst the 4 principals they would have remained such close friends for some 20 years. Rachel herself appears to have transformed from a ‘happy’ wife and mother to a shrill and histrionic woman within less than 24 hours from the start of the journey; the husbands were both just extremely bleah and I felt uninteresting. The bridegroom-to-be was interesting but underwritten I felt. I couldn’t figure out Ali at all.

To be honest I skimmed through the post-wedding events and I’m not sure I figured out why and who did what to whom as it all seemed rather a blur towards the end, But then again I don’t really care.

I hate to be so negative, but nonetheless want to thank NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC

Really enjoyed this book and the twists it had to offer. It keeps you gripped from day one right through to the very end

Hi, this was a great story, with a very clever twist in the tale. It did get so complicated it was quite exhausting trying to work out the truth behind all the lies...but well done and enjoyable!