A thrilling book with a lot going on. Charlotte, a self-made, ‘Keto Queen’ on the surface has it all, when she meets Bianka who emanates confidence, charm, and charisma, she is completely taken a back. What starts as a friendship, quickly escalates to a relationship during a girl’s trip to Ibiza.

What unfolds in Ibiza is a combination of drugs, partying, poor decisions which ultimately ends up with a murder. At which point Bianka’s toxic and manipulative nature is exposed.

Storm’s point of view adds another dimension, as he is Bianka’s step child and as he starts digging to uncover the truth about his biological mother, all kinds of secrets get dragged up.

The plot is slow in places, however for the most part many of the loose ends are tied up.

A decent read – 3 stars.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Head of Zeus for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

I found this book okay. I liked the way it was written, I felt the main character had depth and an interesting backstory but in places I feel like the pace wasn’t quite right. The first half felt too slow and the final 10% of the book sort of felt misplaced as the actions of the main character didn’t match up to what we knew of her! Although I know why Storm’s chapters were important I wish we could have come about the same conclusion without his chapters as I didn’t really have interest in his character and much preferred reading as Charlotte or Bianka!

Overall I think it was decent and I just feel like it has so much more potential! Interesting storyline and characters just fell a bit flat!

REVIEWED MARCH 29 2024

Girl Friends is a decent read with short chapters allowing you to read whenever you can.
Charlotte has it all, husband, family, lovely house, holiday home and her own cookery show being the keto queen. Her life is a bit dull though so when Bianka arrives in the neighbourhood with her husband who works for Charlottes husband everything seems to fit together. Charlotte invites Bianka to her week at her holiday home with her two other friends but things get deep very quickly and Charlotte is led astray quicker than anyone would have thought and then they have to deal with something that will affect the rest of their lives.
This was a decent read, it was far fetched at times!! But I can live with that as I liked non of the characters and that added to the enjoyment slightly. Chapters were a good length and the book didn’t stagnate at any point.
I would like to thank NetGalley and Head Of Zeus for this ARC I received in exchange for an honest review.

When I read the blurb of this - something happening on holiday, threatening to ruin someone's life back home - I immediately thought of Nikki Smith's The Beach Party. But then I read it, and it was completely different to that book 🤣

I enjoyed GIRL FRIENDS. I could see myself reading this one again, by the pool, if I ever went on holiday 😑 Charlotte was an interesting character and I liked getting to know her. She seemed likeable to begin with and I wanted to hear more of her story. Bianka is very manipulative which I loved, and poor Charlotte fell for anything she said 🤦🏼‍♀️

A death occurs. There is toxic friendships and unbalanced relationships. Give it a read for a fun jaunt to Ibiza with a bit of violence and escapism :)

Love love love this book! found everything about it from the storyline to the characters to the twist amazing, could really immerse myself into the story and would love to see this made into a film / tv series

Awful rubbish. Got to 35% through what started as a promising read when I gave up. If gratuitous lesbian sex, drugs and an elicit ‘affair’ were supposed to hold this book up it failed miserably. No plot, tenuous potential plot lines and a cast of characters who were one dimensional and unlikeable. Frankly I wish what had happened in Ibiza had actually stayed there.

If you are looking for a thriller that will transport you to glamorous locations full of intriguing characters you will love to hate as you are taken on a wild ride, then can I recommend Girl Friends, a book that would make a perfect holiday read.

Norwegian Charlotte Vinge appears to be leading a charmed expat life - great career as the “Keto Queen”, successful husband, big house in Wimbledon, happy family. But her marriage has hit a stalemate and her life lacks excitement - so when she meets Bianka, the wife of her husband’s colleague, she finds herself strangely drawn to this free-spirited individual. Charlotte invites Bianka on a girl’s holiday at her house in Ibiza, and away from her normal life, Charlotte lets loose in a way she never has done before - but the consequences prove to be devastating ….

Told from the points of view of Charlotte, Bianka, and Bianka’s sixteen year old stepson Storm, this is a story of toxic friendship, jealousy, loss and obsession. The first half enables us to get to know the characters, from the more naturally uptight Charlotte to the beguiling Bianka, and the teenagers who are probably the most “normal”, and the glamorous Ibiza setting is vividly captured. The story gathers momentum and as the twists keep coming, it becomes a gripping read as things spiral and as a reader you strap in for a slightly crazy but thoroughly entertaining read.

Meet two complex heroines.
Bianka and her husband move to Wimbledon and she befriends Charlotte, as both have moved from Norway to London.
Bianka is everything Charlotte admires - she’s brave, bold and full of confidence
Bianka is invited with Charlotte’s two other friends, Annette and Linda to Ibiza
Charlotte holidays in Ibiza every year, in her late mother’s house.
But was it a good idea to invite Bianka?
You know something is going to happen in Ibiza
Showing where a toxic friendship and jealousy can lead - Bianka is just pure evil and always gets her own way
An interesting thriller with lots of twists and turns
Perfect holiday read only not with your best girl friend 😝
Thanks @alexdahlauthor @headofzeus and @netgalley for one of my favourite reads of 2024 so far

I really enjoyed this book - what's not to love about sex, obsession, partying and murder.
It kept me interested right the way through, and I stole some time I normally wouldn't have to keep reading. I liked the twisted relationship between Bianka and Charlotte, and learning about Bianka's past.
Reminded me a bit of sex in the city, but a darker version!!
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC.

What an absolute page turner this was, this a book that you will stay up late long into the night to finish as you just need to know what happens.
This read is full of twists and turns with lots of dark aspects & I real insight into the toxic side of friendship and the world of influencing. An exceptionally well written book with well developed & brilliant characters who will often shock you with their behavior.
A really great read.

This starts of at fairly slow pace and at times it doesn’t feel like it’s going anywhere. But it’s worth sticking with as the book does start to come together in the last third and I did like the ending. The author does a great job of describing her leading characters and their toxic relationship. Not so much a thriller but more of a book about obsession with deadly consequences!

When Charlotte’s husband suggests she gets to know the wife of his new boss, she isn’t particularly keen. Charlotte is successful, rich, happily married with two children and has an active social life with the Scandinavian expat community in Wimbledon. But… looks can be deceiving. Charlotte is not happy, and when she meets Bianka she is intoxicated by her.

Meanwhile, Bianka is keeping secrets about her past and she certainly doesn’t like it when things don’t go her way. Charlotte and her friends find this out the hard way when their girl’s trip to Ibiza takes a sinister turn!

Is there a sub-genre for Frustrating Thrillers? There should be, and this book would be right at the top of the list!

Girl Friends is one of those books that has you screaming at the page, events just begin to spiral out of control and there’s nothing you can do about it except read on and hope that things work out.

This was a really surprising read for me, it was the equivalent of a Scandi Crime Popcorn Thriller - really readable and a lot of fun. Unlike the more typical Nordic Noir books, this in contrast is more Scandi Sinister Sun. Perfect for fans of domestic thrillers or thrillers based around toxic relationships!

I really struggled with this book there are multiple POVs, but they're all written from different aspects, which was really confusing. Multiple POVs is just not my thing therefore I just think the book wasn't for me.

If your guilty pleasure is reading novels about wealthy people whose carefully constructed lives fall apart, then you will love Girl Friends. The story unfolds from the point of view of three characters: Charlotte, Bianka and Bianka’s stepson, Storm.

Charlotte has become an online sensation as the ‘Keto Queen’. She’s a self-confessed control freak whose image is carefully curated and whose domestic life is rigidly organised. But behind the facade, everything’s not so perfect. Her marriage to bank executive Andreas has become stale and passionless so she lives for her boozy get togethers with her friends Anette and Linda, fellow Scandinavian ex-pats. When Andreas asks her to cosy up to Bianka, the wife of his boss Emil, she agrees but, boy, does she not realise what she’s getting herself into.

If Charlotte is an expert at controlling herself then Bianka is an expert at controlling others. And, it transpires, she has a history of it. (As the book progresses, we get little suggestions that experiences earlier in Bianka’s life might have contributed to her need to control.) Bianka fawns over Charlotte wanting to learn every detail of Charlotte’s life but without giving away too much about her own. What she does divulge is, one suspects, often complete fiction carefully designed to create a bond between them. Bianka dresses to stand out, seems assured in any social situation and proves up for anything. It’s that adventurous spirit that proves irresistible to Charlotte.

Charlotte’s decision to invite Bianka to the annual ‘girls only’ trip to the family villa in Ibiza doesn’t go down well with Anette and Linda but by this time Charlotte is too dazzled and besotted by Bianka to care. Egged on by Bianka, long afternoons dozing on the terrace, morning yoga sessions and trips to fancy restaurants are soon replaced by wild, hedonistic parties where all forms of intoxication are available. From that point on it’s like watching an impending train crash. But who is the driver, who is the passenger and will anyone else be injured in the process?

In case you think I’ve forgotten Storm, I haven’t and, in fact, his was a storyline I really enjoyed. He is much the most empathetic character in the book, although that wouldn’t be difficult. Why is it, he wonders, that his father and, in particular, his stepmother Bianka are so reluctant to mention Storm’s mother Mia, or the circumstances of her death, supposedly the result of a freak accident in the mountains. As he digs into the past, memories that he’d previously suppressed start to emerge and what they reveal is shocking.

With its mix of intrigue and glamour, Girl Friends is like an exotic cocktail but one that will leave you with an almighty hangover in the morning and perhaps yearning for the carb hit of a piece of garlic foccacia. I confess I wasn’t a fan of the epilogue-type ending which seemed a little farfetched. But that apart, Girl Friends is the perfect beach read or book to get you through a long, otherwise tedious journey.

Girlfriends pulled me in from the first page. It is told from three perspectives: Charlotte’s, Bianka’s and her stepson sixteen-year-old Storm.
Bianka meets Charlotte when her husband is transferred from Oslo to London to work. Settling in Wimbledon, among a community of Norwegian ex-pats, Bianka and her husband are invited to a barbeque at Charlotte’s home. There is something about Charlotte that is both familiar and compelling to Bianka and the two become friends. Charlotte, a qualified doctor, is the founder of Viking Keto, an alternative way of eating that has a healthy international on line following and spawned cook books and accessories, making her very wealthy. Both women are in unhappy marriages. Charlotte and her husband Andreas have drifted apart, probably from the amount of time she devotes to her company, and Bianka realises she married Emil for all the wrong reasons.
When Charlotte organises her annual girls’ week in her luxury villa in Ibiza with friends Anette and Linda, she invites Bianka along. A weekend of fun and relaxation is promised. It intensifies the relationship between the two women, causing Bianka to take risks, pulling Charlotte into unfamiliar and dangerous situations, leading in tragedy.
I had difficulty warming to either Charlotte or Bianka. I disliked them both, perhaps Bianka the most. Charlotte lives and breathes Viking Keto, taking it to obsessive levels, both with her work and her appearance. Bianka is devious and unpleasant and at times her behaviour is outrageous as she takes control of Charlotte, who has fallen completely under her spell.
Bianka has been 16 year old Storm's stepmother since he was four after his mother committed suicide. Unclear at first why his narrative is important, his childhood experiences are woven into the story, bringing past secrets to the surface. Although the story began slowly, it soon developed into a gripping read which was difficult to put down.
A compelling twisty tale of friendships, manipulation and self-preservation. My thanks to Head of Zeus, the author and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was super gripping and had me hooked from the start!
Some of it was pretty dark, which I loved. I stayed up way too late to find out what happened - it's a definite must-read.

Things I liked about this one:
✅ intense, unhinged relationships
✅ a tiny bit of spice 🌶️
✅ very scene setting driven
✅ multiple POV
✅ lots of glitz and glamour

This one is a rich people behaving badly read, which I LOVE! But it is a slow burn, it smoulders along until the last 15%. I'll be honest, the ending felt rushed and I need more back story, particularly from Bianka and some of the plot points. I also think there is a plot point about Bianka's stepson/husband that feels a bit unfinished.

That said, for those of you that love a scene setting, slower, story than this is perfect for you. It does that really well, and you feel you really know the characters and the world they are living in. I never wanted to either main character, but I think that's deliberate as the story develops 🤷🏼‍♀️

I'd recommend this to slow burn thriller lovers!

RATING
⭐️⭐️⭐️

A real rollercoaster of a thriller. The two main characters, Bianka and Christine, have layer upon layer to them that is slowly revealed throughout this tense novel. It allowed you to suspend your disbelief in just the right way and had no major plotholes - you could almost say this book got away with murder…

The very last chapter let it down somewhat however. I can’t believe Max’s father would be so willing to accept Xara with all of the circumstances still in play. But hey - some people have all the luck!

To begin with I thought this was a slow start but really appreciated the background to the characters. But lots of questions are raised at the start, why does Bianka have an issue with her stepson? Who does Charlotte remind Bianka and Emil of?

Th book opens with a death and then jumps back in time to before the main characters actually meet, so gives plenty of build up and really gets your mind working as you try to figure out who killed who.

I loved all the twists and turns, really kept me guessing. I think this would make a perfect TV show or film and I'm going to seek out more of Alex Dahl's books and not read any before this one.

4 stars!

I had already read most of Alex Dahl's books and really enjoyed them, so I jumped at the chance of reading her latest one.
'Girl Friends' follows the point of view of 3 characters: Charlotte, Bianka, and Bianka's step-son Storm. In the first half of the novel we are exploring Charlotte and Bianka's friendship as they grow closer, first in Wimbledon Village, and then on a girls holiday in Ibiza. Meanwhile, Storm is back in Norway trying to uncover dark secrets relating to his past and his suspicious step-mother.

I found the first half rather slow as there is a lot of depth to the characters and immersion into the plot, but I was really pulled in through the second half after a murder that the girls have to hide. Dahl deals brilliantly with twisty thrillers that have you gripped till the end.

Read via Netgalley, and thank you to Head of Zeus for providing an advanced copy in exchange for a review.