Today’s book review is of Louise Candlish’s new novel, Our Holiday. Read on to find out what I thought…
Title: Our Holiday
Author: Louise Candlish
Publisher: HQ
Synopsis:
THERE’S TROUBLE IN PARADISE
Charlotte and Perry have owned their clifftop holiday home in Pine Ridge for years. They’ve worked hard for it – why shouldn’t they enjoy it? Even if the locals can’t afford to live in the village these days…
Now city friends Amy and Matt have bought a second home nearby and when the two families descend, they plan lazy days at the beach and evenings sipping rosé and watching the sun set from Charlotte’s summerhouse veranda.
But this summer is different. A group of locals – headed by the charismatic Robbie – will stop at nothing to make the second home owners pay for their holiday. By the end of their break, marriages will be torn apart, friendships shattered and crimes exposed.
And one of them will have lost their life.
My review:
Our Holiday is a slow-burning, well-written psychological thriller from an author I have come to expect great stories from – and this novel is no exception.
The story moves between various perspectives but largely centres around two couples – Charlotte and Perry, who have owned a holiday home in Dorset’s ‘Pine Ridge’, at the top of a beautiful Cliff, for 15 years; and their friends Amy and Linus, who have just bought their own home nearby. We actually start the novel with Robbie, a member of the NJFA (Not Just For August) group which protests against wealthy people buying second homes in the area and stopping locals from accessing affordable accommodation, as he witnesses a house fall off the edge of a cliff – and this really opens the book with a bang! We also get inside the heads of Tate (Robbie’s best friend), Beatrice (Amy and Linus’s daughter), Tabitha (who is the girlfriend of Benedict, Charlotte and Perry’s son) and others. Sometimes it took me a minute to remember who was who, but I soon got used to them all.
I love the character-building in this novel, done expertly (as always in Louise Candlish’s books) so that they feel like real people. The way the second-home-owners speak and refer to other people or current events is a brilliantly subtle way of highlighting their ignorance or hypocrisies. No one in this novel is painted as good or bad, but people with flaws and personal views, and I found reading about them all utterly absorbing. I always enjoy the mystery element of a novel but in this book that was just a bonus because I so enjoyed reading about the multi-layered, convincing characters.
Add the intriguing plot, excellent writing and characters, and evocative setting together and you have a great read that would be great for any time – not just holidays!
My rating: 5/5
Many thanks to the publisher, HQ, for providing a copy of this book on which I chose to write an honest review.