This was a really good dark and atmospheric novel. It is a bit of a slow starter but keep going. Loved it. Highly recommended xx

This book has so many twists! It is a real page-turner, with so much going on with all the characters. The suspense is kept up all the way through the book. The ending was quite melodramatic, and all the questions were answered.

Well paced psychological thriller that kept me guessing.

The setting was great with the location almost being used as another character. The plot and characters are well written.

Thoroughly enjoyable and unpredictable read.

This was a very dark and twisted read that really took off once we got to the Sunday part of the story.

I found the Saturday part a little confusing as I thought the narrator was someone else... Not sure if that was the intention though?

Would recommend.

Thanks to netgalley for the opportunity to review this book, this is my honest opinion

A group of friends are spending a long weekend at an isolated barn conversion booked by Jayne. The idea is for them all to have a relaxing break but none of their husbands arrive. A letter does arrive to them that have been delivered by a courier. It tells them that one of their husbands is dead. Is this a cruel trick or is it true? Missing this year this year is Edie, who was the glue holding them together. Has she sent them the message? On a really stormy night and two of the women try to get down to the farmhouse below. The owner of the Barn does not want them there as his illness is getting worse but can he help them when they get lost? This is a frightening situation that they are all in. The story makes you feel all the tensions that they all have. The narrative starts to be told by the murderer himself and who it is a real surprise. Edie’s daughter is in real danger from the person she has always trusted.
This is an amazing read that is told with real tension and the description of the stormy night makes it all realistic and frightening. You can make up your own mind about the murderer. Was he calculating and cruel or did he have a mental problem?

This is deliciously tense and twisty. Very clever!

Felt the climax spiralled out of control in a rambling, strange way, but it never allows the tension to drop, definitely worth a read!

This is one of those books that I'm finding hard to review!

I found it very hard to get engaged in the first half of the book and at times it was slightly confusing as more characters were introduced and different POV were added however it defiantly picked up the pace when the story moved away from the barn and the characters returned home.

Would of loved to have had more of the characters of John and Maggie and their plight as having personal experience of a loved one with Lewy Bodies Dementia, this would have really made the book for me and brought more awareness to the condition.

There are a lot of layers to the story that unravels as the story progress with lots of red herrings to boot.

Three women arrive for a weekend getaway at an isolated countryside retreat. They only have one night to spend together before their husbands arrive – surely nothing can happen in that time? Well, they’ve no phone reception, the weather is horrific and someone they thought was a friend has left a note that has put the beejesus in them (you’d feel the same way if you received that letter). Quite quickly they realise they’re stranded and as unhappiness and fear sets in, so too do the tiny fractures of their friendship, all too easily broken. Dark Fell Barn no longer feels like an idyllic place to relax, it’s become a prison. Most of the group have been friends for a lifetime but someone’s decided their place in the unit isn’t enough… and they want more. You’ll jump from one suspect to another as Gilly’s tale is gradually unravelled until that oh so satisfying conclusion. If you haven’t read any of her books, I strongly recommend starting.

Gripping, unpredictable, engaging and completely impossible to put down.
Just some of the ways I’d describe this book. I have loved how it has been written and have been completely caught up in the pages. I have loved the characters and the way this is written. Definitely a book I’ll be recommending.

I stayed reading this book until well past 3am its just an amazing read full of surprise and intrigue .

An excellent book to read. There were some good twists and turns along the way and much of this was unpredictable. Thank you for the chance to read this one, Netgalley.

#TheLongWeekend #NetGalley
I really loved Gilly's books. I wait for them for a year to read a new book. This book is great. Loved it's suspense. Definitely tell my everyone about this one. Read it.
Thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK Cornerstone Century for giving me an advance copy.

"The Long Weekend" is a brilliant page turner of a thriller. The narrative is delivered by different characters throughout the book and at times it is not clear who the narrator is. This adds to the tension. How Gilly Macmillan came up with such a convoluted tale is beyond me but I am grateful that she did. Many of the characters lie at different times, plus there is a man with dementia and an alcoholic to confuse matters further. The characters are interesting and the settings, especially Dark Fell Barn, are atmospheric. Highly recommended.

Thanks to Net Galley and the publishers for the opportunity to review this book.

The Long Weekend by Gilly Macmillan

Wow ! An amazing read . Had to read it in two sessions as couldn't put it down.
Full of suspense and twists you don't see coming .

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an ARC of this book which I was intrigued to read
Overall I thought this was a good read, Certainly if I found it in a book case on holiday I would have been pleased.
The main characters are all loathsome which made it hard to gel with them, however they were well crafted and developed. The book has a great storyline which is well executed but it is quite a hard book to follow. There are no chapters which is not necessarily a problem if there is a definite demarcation between blocks of text. With this book I did have to double check that the POV had changed and I knew who was speaking. This made it a bit onerous and laborious to read. A lot of the time you had to guess who was speaking, which most of the time was easy enough but occasionally difficult. The ending was a bit chaotic.
I do understand that authors want to use different writing techniques that suit their plot but sometimes you really are better off with a tried and trusted formula. It wasn't quite stream of consciousness style but it was heading that way and I'm not sure really fits with the genre-too confusing.
Overall 3.5/5 stars

This was a very good story. I really liked the concept and I was genuinely surprised by a couple of the twists.

The characters were well described. Some were definitely more interesting than others (I especially liked John and Maggie's storyline) but they all at least felt like real people.

There were a lot of layers to the story and as the reveals started rolling in, I didn't want to put it down until I found out how it all ended.

My main negative is that I felt like the book was over-long. It takes a really long time to get going and there is way too much description near the beginning and not enough to propel the plot forward. From the mid-way point, this stops being an issue but I did find it very hard to get into the story. I don't know if the version I read will be the final one but chapter headings would have made this book much better.

Overall I would recommend the book as there is a really good story there, but I did have some problems with the execution. 3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

As many other people have said, the format made this really difficult to follow at times. There's a major twist that I didn't quite get the impact of because I couldn't tell whether I was following the right perspective. There were all a couple of choices that felt gratuitous and made me uncomfortable. Aside from that, once it got going I swallowed the rest of it up quickly and it was a decent amount of fun to read. Not a fave but a decent thriller.

Good premise but I found this a very tricky novel to read as it was quite confusing with no chapters or indications of who was talking I kept having to go back and forth to check and that's not something I enjoy when reading a book for pleasure. I didn't like any of the characters but to be fair they felt all similar to me and the ones I think I don't like are actually parts of the real one joined up in my confused mind.

So, cracking premise and a great sense of foreboding at that remote weekend lodge I just didn't get the rest of it,

I read this mostly over a super stormy winter weekend and the atmosphere worked so well with this novel. Winter storms are not required to enjoy this though!
At one point I had to write down the strands making up the story as there was so much going on that I needed to take note of. I read this novel in Digital, prepublication form thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and author, but this does not influence my review.
I loved the very tense atmosphere created in the novel and really admired how this was kept at optimum pitch throughout.
Our characters are flawed, have secrets and are often not very likeable, but are very memorable all the same.

I struggled with this, although the idea is a good one... a group of friends go on holiday to a very remote barn house. Each of their husbands were called away for various reasons so won't be joining them till the next day. When the women arrive, a message has been left for them from 'E' which indicates one of their husbands is now dead. Its a long night for the women and problems soon start but things only get more complicated when contact with their partners is made.

Im sure its a deliberate feature of this book tharpt there are no chapters or no indication which character we are with at any given time - part of this is about disguising the identity of different characters at different times. It also adds to the sense of confusion the characters must be feeling... but it makes it REALLY hard to follow. I also really struggle when a group of intelligent professional women are put together, they get spooked and become hysterical and irrational. As the twists and turns unfold, it is really clever but its complicated and not helped by none if these characters being very likable. Its hard to tell who is good and bad as none of them are very nice. I think overall the style and the characters made this a difficult read for me and I struggled to finish. However, the story itself is very good.