This novel starts very compellingly with three women arriving at an isolated property in Northumberland to enjoy a weekend away, only to find a note warning them that one of their husbands will be killed. Though the women are unsure whether or not the note is a hoax, it quickly becomes evident to the reader that it is not and the novel takes an eery turn. I particularly enjoyed the first half of the novel, the characterisation of the three women and the insights about loneliness in marriage. However, about half-way through the mystery became obvious and the story dragged a bit up to its denouement. The flip-flopping from scene to scene was also distracting and prevented the necessary tension from building. Though enjoyable, not the page-turner I was expecting.

Three women are heading to an isolated retreat for a long weekend away. Their husbands are due to arrive the next day. When the women arrive at Dark Fell Barn, they are greeted with a note which tells them one of their husbands has been murdered.

They have no internet coverage or phone at the property to be able to contact their husbands and a storm is fast-approaching. As cracks start to appear one of the women decides to trek to the farmhouse to use their phone, but the storm hits, and the relentless terrain leaves them stranded in the open air.

This is a fast paced, compelling read, told from multiple points of view, which will have you sat on the edge of your seat.

The blurb on this book sounded amazing..By the time you read this I’ll have killed one of your husbands.
What was supposed to be a getaway weekend turned into a living nightmare. Three women checked into Dark Fell Barn with their husbands to join them late morning the next day. The note found on entry was very disturbing and started the twisted chain of events.
The setting was very atmospheric in the Northumbrian landscape which also added to the chill of the story.
There are a vast array of characters within the book which I personally found too many and I found the structure of the book very confusing and difficult to follow. Without chapters the only indication of change of narrator/setting was the use of paragraphs and even then I struggled to determine who the narrator was.
The actual story is very good with lots of twists and turns but having found it difficult to follow this deflected the enjoyment for me.
I gave this book a three star rating only because of the confusing structure.
Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for an ARC.

I was intrigued by the beginning - three women arrive at an isolated cottage with their husbands are arriving a day later. but a letter awaits them saying that one of their husbands is dead. The cottage is isolated up a long farm track so the owner has to drive them as it is impassable in an ordinary car. There is no phone signal or wifi and a storm begins. So far so good but the plot then becomes implausible. To make matters worse, the story is written from several points of view with no indication of who is talking apart from the content of the paragraphs. Sometimes 3 short consecutive paragraphs will be by 3 different characters. As I read an advanced kindle copy, I would hope the final version might have indication as to the change in narrator.
This is a love/hate book. As much as I hated so much about it I carried on reading wanting to know the end. I would have preferred a shorter book with less unnecessary sub-plots.
This is an honest review of a complementary ARC.

I’m afraid this book wasn’t for me at all. I really liked the premise but unfortunately, for me, it didn’t deliver.

It was long-winded and unbelievable with some seemingly almost irrelevant strands of storyline. Basically all of the characters had some kind of major mental health issue, which felt unlikely and forced. The biggest reveal came just over halfway through, after which what little tension there was, was broken.

It’s also pretty unusual for a thriller to not be broken up into chapters, and I thought this did seem to affect the pace.

I’m sure there’ll be plenty of people out there who will love this one but sadly it didn’t do it for me. With thanks to the publisher for gifting me a digital copy to review.

A relaxing long weekend away for three couples goes horribly wrong, becoming instead the weekend from hell.

From the outset, this annual long weekend planned as an idyllic break for three couples got off to a bad start. For various reasons the three men, Paul, Toby and Mark, were unable to get away until the following day so their wives went ahead to spend the night alone in the off-grid, refurbished barn they had booked on a remote farm in Northumbria.

A cosy fire, a good meal and a few glasses of wine sounded like the perfect way to spend an evening before the men arrive the next day. It would help the newest wife, Emily get to know the other two women, Jayne and Rachel. However, after the farmer had driven them up to the isolated barn and left them on their own, they found a disturbing letter which would change everything for them. Waiting for them on the kitchen table, the letter claimed to be from their close friend Edie, stating that she had murdered one of their husbands. With no phone or internet reception, the women became frantic, unable to contact their husbands to reassure themselves this was just a poorly judged joke.

The group was originally made up of four couples. Rob, Toby, Mark and Edie had all been close friends at school, along with the boys’ rugby coach Paul. As students they would holiday together, and after Paul and Edie married, would go away on couples’ weekends with their wives or partners. However, since Paul had recently died in an accident, Edie turned down the invitation to join the other three couples, so this weekend was always going to be different.

With a storm closing in, tensions build as the women try to reassure each other that the letter must be a hoax. After all, why would Edie want to murder one of her life-long best friends? However, each of them feels anxious worrying that it is her husband who has been murdered. As the night goes on, strange things start to happen, and they become more and more desperate, chaotically charging around the property in the dark trying to get a phone signal or searching for the way back to the farmhouse in the storm.

Told from multiple viewpoints, by the three women and the farmer as well as an unidentified voice belonging to someone who is clearly deranged and obsessed with carrying out a disturbing plan. The lack of chapter breaks, made it a little confusing initially to know which character is narrating at any time, but this improved once their voices become clearer and everyone’s actions and motives started to come into focus.

All the couples have flawed marriages and secrets they are keeping from each other and their partners. New mother Rachel, normally a capable doctor, is reeling from coping with her new baby and Toby’s refusal to help out and is self-anaesthetising by drinking heavily. New wife Emily has found out that Paul lied to her about a trip he took and in no longer sure about trusting the man she dearly loves. Jayne has her own issues she has been hiding since she left her job in army intelligence, and perhaps doesn’t know Mark as well as she thinks she does.

Dark and intense, this is a with a gripping tale of obsession overlaid with a menacing atmosphere as the sinister plot unfurls.

This is my first book by Gilly Macmillan and I was excited to read it as the blurb sounds like exactly my type of book.
The story was certainly filled with events and thrilling twists and the setting of Dark Fell Barn, harsh Northumbrian landscape was very atmospheric & the harsh weather conditions made it perfect. Definitely a dark and twisted tale.
The characters were plentiful (too many in my opinion). The Elliott family, the barn owners, John & Maggie the farmer and his wife were the only ones I really warmed to.
The story revolves around the lives of four couples, whose friendships date back to Uni, with the three ‘new go the group’ wives.
The structure of the book I found very confusing, and at times frustrating, makes reading difficult to follow. The paragraphs are the only indicator that you have changed narrators or settings and it is (probably deliberately) not always easy to work out who is narrating. The jumps between multiple narrators and settings, with a few back stories/ secrets thrown in for good measure, take some getting used to and it took me quite a while to get my head around who was married to who and what their history was. Add to this the main protagonist is a ‘blind’ or mystery narrator, which cleverly sets you to making wrong assumptions.
The book is full of disturbing events and dark twists but sadly I found it a touch unrealistic, difficult to follow, particularly with so many characters / narrators which hampered the flow.
Having said that, it kept me reading to finally solve the mystery so it had obviously become a gripping read.

Oh, this was good! Suspense, creepy setting, interesting characters and twists and turns. Lousy weather, isolation, it has it all. Excellent book read in very few sittings. Just had to get to the end.

I received a gifted copy of ‘The Long Weekend’ by Gilly Macmillan in return for my honest review.

This book follows three married couples as they plan to go away for the weekend to stay at Dark Fell Barn.

The husbands all seem to have last minute reasons for not being able to come along on the first night, so the women set off on their own for a girly night. The plan being that the husbands will arrive the next morning.

When the women arrive, they find a mysterious gift and a letter which tells them that one of their husbands would have been killed before they reach the barn.

What follows is two days of panic and anxiety for the women as they try to work out if the threat is genuine and if one of their husbands has actually been killed.

What will be in store for them on their weekend stay? How many secrets are being hidden awaiting to be revealed?

I must say that this is a book with so many twists and turns, you just don’t know what is going to happen next.

I found it a little hard to follow, only because it switched between the characters point of view very quickly and suddenly. There are quite a few characters that it went between too, but this does add to the intensity of the read and builds the tension more and more throughout.

Following the characters throughout the story, you get drawn into the panic that the women go through, and it is impossible to work out what is going to happen next.

Overall, an intense and twisty psychological thriller which will have you drawn into the lives of these three couples.

The Long Weekend is an atmospheric book set in and around a rural barn where a group of three friends - Jayne, Emily and Ruth - have gathered to take some time out together. In actual fact, it's their husbands who are all best friends, and they'll be arriving the next day to join the women.

Things get very strange when the group receive a chilling note from their other friend, Edie, who isn't at the barn with them, saying she's killed one of their husbands. But whose husband exactly? And why?

It soon becomes apparent that there are lots of secrets and complicated histories between their husbands. We see multiple points of view, which I enjoyed. There are twists along the way and plenty of suspense, and we get to know the characters well. Gilly Macmillan does a good job of slowly revealing more to the reader, leaving them wanting to read on. It's full of drama and intrigue with a tight, enjoyable storyline - and the mystery element kept me hooked!

Recommended!

Unfortunately I could not get into this book. I tried twice to read this as the. Lien and reviews really sold it to me, but found the storyline messy and was a bad version of a story that has been told better before. The lack of chapters, or a recognised division between segments was hard going, especially as the story skips between characters/ narratives. I found all of the characters unlikeable.
This is my personal opinion, after reading other reviews I think it is well worth others giving this book the benefit of doubt as I seem to be in the minority.

I found this book to be extremely creepy, and absolutely gripping, it really stirred my already fertile imagination!!
Three women arrive at a converted barn , high up in the fells of Northumberland. The husbands have all been mysteriously delayed, and there is no mobile phone signal or internet available to find out when they will arrive. A letter awaits them on the table, which states, very matter of fact, that by the time the women read this , one of the husbands will be dead.
There follows much soul searching, as each woman tries to make sense of this event, each woman is hiding secrets, and has a different point of view, that makes one wonder, how they first became friends, and was it true friendship or did misery feed upon misery? None seemed very happy or content with life, it felt like a miserable situation was made worse and intensified as the secrets were revealed!!
The harshness of the Northumberland fells and the strangeness of the farmer added to the sense of dread and fear.
The murderer, well, several times I mentally patted myself on the back, only to be disappointed several pages further on. At times, I felt as confused as the women themselves. I only had an inkling of the truth towards the last few pages.
It was very well written. The addition of chapter headings might have made clearer which POV we were following. The murder scenario has been used before in several books I have recently reviewed, but I still enjoyed the read.
Strong, but not particularly likeable characters. I liked the owners of the barn and the son, there was great comfort in their relationships, and a shock involved. A harsh story for a harsh place.
Many thanks to Netgalley and the publishers Random House UK, for my digital copy, in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.
I have given this a three star rating, and will leave reviews to Goodreads and Amazon later.

This would have been my first book by this author but sadly I just couldnt really get into it like I wanted to.

I’d like to thank Random House UK, Cornerstone and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read ‘The Long Weekend’ written by Gilly MacMillan in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.

Three women, Jayne, Emily and Ruth, arrive at Dark Fell Barn for a weekend break, their husbands due to join them for the following day. When a letter written by Edie, the fourth member of the female group, has been left on a table in the barn saying that she’s going to kill one of their husbands that night, the women try to make contact with them but the barn is isolated, they’re out of range for using their mobile phones and there’s no internet.

‘The Long Weekend’ is a story of three women who have their own problems and add to that a wind and rain-battered isolated barn where they’re unable to phone to check on their own husbands and we’re given the backdrop for a thrilling plot. Edie’s husband Rob died five months earlier, drowned whilst filming wildlife, so why should she want to murder one of their husbands who she’s known for years? The plot is chilling and the characters, although not particularly likeable, are interesting and make for a tense and dramatic story. I would have preferred to have chapters and the narrative moves from character to character making it hard to work out who’s saying what at that time. Not my favourite book by this author but worth reading.

What is meant to be a quiet retreat to an isolated cabin takes a dark turn when the guests arrive to a note informing them one of their husbands has been murdered.

Although the premise of this is not exactly novel, I was intrigued and hoping for an interesting mystery. Unfortunately, that is not entirely what I got. While it started off well and had me curious it gradually devolved and seemed too overt in its attempts to mislead and misdirect.
Typically I enjoy a rotating POV, but here it just switched far too often and needlessly which just ended up slowing the narrative down, and to be honest caused unnecessary confusion (and I dont think the intentional kind) where the POV would switch without warning and often just for a few sentences. These POVs were also heavy on the flashbacks and reminiscing to each characters' tragic past or troubled personal life, often at the most inopportune of moments, further slowing the plot.
And while I find thrillers with unlikeable and unreliable characters interesting, it seemed slightly implausible for every single one of them to be so very unstable and for that to be the factor the entire book hinges on.

All in all I just felt like it was trying to do too much and couldn't quite bring it all together. It could have benefited from a few fewer POVs and side plots, in my opinion.

Thank you to NetGalley and RandomHouse UK for my e-arc of this title, received in exchange for an honest review.

Three women go on a long weekend with their husbands expected to join them the next day. The husbands all went to school together along with Eddie and Rob. Rob has since died so Edie doesn’t want to go with them. The three women are in a cottage in the middle of nowhere up from a farm and no wi-if or phone signal.

I always think I would never go anywhere so isolated for the exact reason of reading about situations like this! On arrival, they receive a letter threatening one of their husbands.

I got a bit confused towards the end but found the characters interesting and complex!

There were two things that immediately drew me to The Long Weekend. The first being I simply love Gilly MacMillans previous books so I was eager to read this one. The second was that this book is set in one of my most favourite places in the world, Northumbria. It is mine and my husband's ideal holiday destination, an isolated barn conversion with no mobile signal. but after reading this we would think twice. This book is full of tension, suspense, twists and turns and it kept me guessing right to the end.
I highly recommend it.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my ARC.

Three couples decide to spend a weekend away together. Unfortunately the husbands are not able to go until the Saturday.
When Jayne, Ruth and Emily arrive there is a present and letter waiting for them. One of their husbands is dead but which one?
And has their friend Edie who lost her husband really written it?
This is written from the pov of the many characters including Edie's daughter Imogen.
Well this had me guessing who the perpetrator was for quite some time until I went with my gut instinct which proved to be correct.
The descriptions of the barn and the weather made it feel quite eerie especially when Rmily decided she wanted to get to the farmhouse so she could phone her husband.
There was plenty of revelations between the women who had their own problems.
I know this was an ARC but there were chapters. Also no breaks between paragraphs which can get confusing when switching characters.
I thought the ending was a little weak. I was expecting a final twist.
Overall an enjoyable read.
Thanks to Netgalley and Random House for the ARC in return for an honest review.

By the time you read this, I’ll have killed one of your husbands.

Three women arrive for a weekend getaway to an isolated barn deep in the Northumbria moors. Their husbands will be joining them the next day, or so they believe

However, when they arrive at Dark Fell Barn the women find a gift with a note that holds devastating news. With no phone service or internet and a storm coming in, they are stranded.

The evening spirals out of control, with each wife reacting very differently and no knowledge of which husband might have befallen a hideous crime.

Now is the time for reckoning.


Having never read anything by Macmillan before I was completely drawn to requesting this story due to the engaging synopsis. Had I known this would be the best part of the book I would read, I definitely would have given it a miss.

I absolutely love a good crime thriller, however, the burden of this can be that I have read some great crime thrillers, and this one didn’t even come close. Not only was the storyline lacking, but the overall reading experience was also affected by the decision to not use chapters which considering this story is told from multiple viewpoints was a huge oversight. Not only were there no chapters but this book was hindered even further by the fact there was no clear definition to those different points of view, so I often found myself wondering which character I had moved onto.

The writing was haphazard and frantic which I’m unsure whether this was done to try and create a frenzied feeling for the reader or was just the authors chosen style. Either way, it didn’t work for me. I just felt like I wanted to get off!

I’m sure once this book hits the shelves I will be in the minority with my opinions, but I have high standards for this genre and unfortunately this didn’t tick any of the boxes for me.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4

Dark Fell Barn is a "perfectly isolated" retreat. or so it says on the website when Jayne books a reservation for her friends. A quiet place, far removed from the rest of the world, is exactly what they need. The women arrive for a girls night ahead of their husbands. There's ex-army Jayne, hardened and serious but also damaged. Ruth, the driven doctor and new mother who is battling demons of her own. Young Emily, just wed and insecure, the newest addition to the tight-knit band. Missing this year is Edie, who was the glue holding them together until her husband died suddenly. But what they hoped would be a relaxing break soon turns to horror.

This story is told from multiple points of view. The atmosphere is tense, the characters were flawed, unlikable, they all have secrets but they're well developed. You have to give your full attention whilst reading as you don't always know who's speaking. and there is no chapters. I enjoyed the mystery and intriguing plotline. The pace is steady in this well written book. I didn't see the last twist coming.

I would like to thank #NetGalley #RandomHouseUK #Cornerstone for my ARC of #TheLongWeekend in exchange for an honest review.