A group of college friends reunite after many years at one of the women’s estates for a getaway weekend together. This should be a great weekend to reconnect and celebrating one friend’s pregnancy. After getting reacquainted, some old grudges start to resurface. Not enough to deter the women from letting loose and having fun, until they wake up one morning to realize one of the friends is missing and the house seems to be in disarray. The remaining friends try to piece things from the night before together, but realize they cannot remember anything. What happened? Was there an attacker? Was it one of them? Now the time is ticking, and they need to figure out what happened, and who was to blame.

The description of this book enticed me. The set up seemed like an excellent thriller, whodunit. Not to forget to mention how cool this cover looks. I just had to read it. For me, this book started slow and I struggled to connect with the characters and really get into it. The pace picked up throughout the second half, and I enjoyed the story enough, but I think my expectations and reality clashed a bit. I’d hope that other readers could get into this story, that it could be the thriller I had anticipated it to be. It just wasn’t the book for me.

Thank you to @NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

The Girls Weekend was a fun, short read. Although I found parts of the book to be overly simplistic (June’s internal dialogue was too straight forward and helped the plot more along too generously), it was a hit in my specific genre of choice: “Agatha Christie-style group of folks in a strange location, who can we trust?” I’d recommend it for a fun and fast read, but not if you’re looking for substance.

Wow. This book wasn't at all what I expected. I read it in one sitting. The author has a very unique writing style. It kept me on my toes, and was so fast paced, almost frantic. Which is how anyone would feel in the situation they were in. Kudos.

Thank you netgalley for the ARC.

Top marks on the cover. The book itself had me hooked from the off. It started and the pace was fast from the off. I couldn’t put it down. It was well written and flowed well. It was a fantastic read

Thanks to NetGalley for a Kindle ARC of The Girls Weekend.

I was excited when my request was approved because I'm always interested in a mystery with multiple suspects.

Unfortunately, The Girls Weekend failed to capture my interest.

First, all of the characters were unlikable; each individual had serious issues that made it really hard to understand how they all could have been friends in the first place.

June was a whiner, Kimi had a chip on her shoulder, Em had secrets (who doesn't?), Sadie was a narcissist, Amy had a legitimate mental illness; I can't see how any of these women could bond and get along.

Also, I found it REALLY hard to believe June would go see a frenemy she hasn't seen in a decade, just because her boyfriend broke up with her and rather than wallowing, she'd rather haul ass and go see someone she's got serious beef with.

The women are in their late 30s but no one possesses any ounce of maturity or competence you would expect; perhaps when old friends get together, they regress to an adolescent stage, like when they first met decades ago. Okay, I can get on board that, but still, a part of me didn't feel anyone was capable enough to figure out what was going on.

The writing is decent, but the Lifetime ending and the suspension of disbelief it took to believe June and her friends were 'legit friends' made this an okay read, but not great.

The Girls Weekend is a well paced thriller, that I enjoyed immensely. I admit at the start I struggled to like the extremely flawed protagonist, June Moody as she seemed to make terrible decision after terrible decision, but by the end of the book she grew on me. It is nice to see a little bit of character growth even within such a short book.

This book is full of suspicious characters, and left me guessing who-dun-it through all of the twists and turns to the big reveal at the end.

Great book for those who like a fast-paced page turner.

A fast paced thriller that was very entertaining. I really enjoyed the complexity of the friendships between the women.

I'm waffling between a 4 & a 5, so maybe call this a solid 4.5? I really loved it. I was sucked in immediately by the JUICY interpersonal conflicts, and "trapped in a place where a murder happens" is one of my FAVORITE thriller tropes, and this one did not disappoint. Though this one is "trapped in a place and someone disappears and there is blood on the wall and everyone blacked out and doesn't know what happened" but CLOSE ENOUGH.

The Girls Weekend plays on the complicated and sometimes toxic aspects of intense female friendship, especially the type that was bright and intense when you were younger and has now faded. The 5 women reuniting for the weekend were besties in college but now they're almost 40 and life has taken them in all sorts of interesting directions. The queen bee, Sadie, is now a megafamous children's series author with a mansion and the hot Scottish TA she and the main character June competed for way back when. June's also a failed novelist turned community college teacher whose boyfriend has just broken up with her via text, and man the FEELINGS in her POV were TOO REAL. Sadie's cousin Amy is pregnant, hence the reunion, and Em and Kimiko round out the group. Every single woman has some kind of backstory/beef/bitterness where Sadie is confirmed--so of course shit gets real when they all wake up and Sadie is gone and they can't remember anything. There's a lot of dysfunction brewing under the surface.

My favorite thing by far was all the interpersonal entanglements. The conflicts were really good--high stakes but interpersonal, so they felt grounded enough to feel real. The red herrings/tension were excellent because every single person on the estate/in the house that night had a motive to do something to Sadie. Things get VERY intense for poor June. The scene-setting at Sadie's mansion/in the PNW was sumptuous and vivid and perfect. I felt like I was there.

The end was a tiny tick guessable, but still wholly satisfying. If you also enjoy rich assholes trope, complicated female friendships trope, and the trapped in an isolated place where someone did a murder trope, this book should scratch all your itches, as it did mine. I happened to parse this out over about a week, but I could see it being a perfect page-turner--a plane or beach read.

I have never read anything by Jody Gehrman until this now, but I am hooked now! This was such a well written story that kept you guessing the whole time. The characters all play off of each other and keep you guessing the whole time. I read the whole book in one day! I am a Jody Gehrman fan forever now!

After Chandler Baker's The Whisper Network I had no idea I would find another fast paced novel full of strong female characters who I really wanted to root for so soon. The Girls Weekend follows the tradition of great remote house party thrillers and does not disappoint. So many novels lately are filled with flawed women who are desperately unlikeable, The Girls Weekend did not fall into that trap. The women involved are complex and interesting and I found myself liking most of them. (it didn't hurt that they're Gen-Xers who listened to all of the same music in college that I did!)

I found myself developing one theory after another and Jody Gehrman would take that theory, recognize it, and smash it all to pieces. The ending didn't shock me but it didn't feel contrived or implausible, I raced to it and never felt cheated.

Five stars. Enthusiastically.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Crooked Lane Books and Jody Gehrman for allowing me to read an advance copy of The Girls Weekend in exchange for my honest review.

The Girls Weekend by Jody Gehrman is a quickly paced thriller with an entertaining story-line. I had only one problem with The Girls Weekend and that lay in the main character and narrator, June Moody; she’s just not a very likeable gal. At. All. Generally, when reading, I either empathize with a main character or at the very least, can see their point; investing me in their story or plight. I don’t have to love them to love the book. I had a hard time becoming mentally engaged with June; she was at turns weak and whiney and then strong and noble. Make no mistake, I love a flawed character but June just didn’t make sense to me. The other characters, primarily Em and Leo, I really enjoyed, they were well-developed and interesting.

I really liked the way this thriller played out. I had two suspects in mind at the beginning but as everyone’s back stories with Sadie played out, it seems more and more people had a reason to kill Sadie. There are plenty of smoke-screens that kept me guessing, plenty of twists to keep things interesting and a fast-moving plot which made for a page turner, despite my dislike for Jane (Ok, I’ll stop ragging on Jane).

This is a good book for any fan of the thriller/mystery/suspense genre.

A big thank you to NetGalley, Crooked Lane Books, and Jody Gehrman for providing me with The Girls Weekend in exchange for my honest review.

This book was just OK, as thrillers go. It centers around June, who joins her 4 college friends for a weekend in Western Washington after years of estrangement. The house belongs to Sadie, who was a "frenemy" of June's in college, so there is some initial discomfort in taking the trip. The weekend starts out with some foreshadowed conflict between the group, but the real mystery is that the women wake up the next morning to find Sadie gone, with the others having no memory of the previous night. The rest of the book is centered around trying to figure out where Sadie is and what happened.

The mystery part of the book was good- I suspected multiple characters throughout the story, only to be presented with new information that made me change my mind. The story itself is fast-paced.

What didn't work for me was the relationship between the characters, and particularly the lack of information around what made Sadie the villain. I didn't think the author did a good job of making the friendship between these 5 characters believable, or give the reader enough background to truly understand the dynamics between each member of the group. Furthermore, I didn;t find any of these characters all that likable, and often thought that they acted with less maturity than I would expect from women in their late 30's.

Though the book didn't really land for me, I did enjoy the mystery of the story. I found it to be a worthwhile read, but I don't feel that the story was that memorable overall.

Thanks to Netgalley for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

~ARC provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review~

June gets a text message from one of her oldest friends, Sadie, inviting the group to a baby shower at her house. It's been years since the five of them met, and June doesn't seem too eager to go to that Fearless Five reunion.
They all became friends at college, but their friendship is not as it used to be. June and Sadie were more like frenemies. Sadie was the typical queen B and, even though they are around 38 years old now, June still feels insecure around her.
Em is June's best friend, so she tries to convice her to leave those feelings behind and go to Amy's baby shower.
Once they all meet at Sadie's place, old memories and feelings come out, and June realizes that the so perfect life she thought Sadie has is not what it seems.
On the other hand, they all participate in the activities Sadie has organized, though the atmosphere isn't quite festive, and to top it all, after what looks like a wild party, Sadie disappears. No one remembers what happened the previous night, and a notorious dark red spot on the wall as well as Kimikos's broken nose make it look worst.
The Girls Weekend is quite an enjoyable thriller with some twisted details. Nothing is what it seems.

I haven't read anything by the author and went in blind but was pleasantly surprised.
This was quite a good thriller. Once I picked it up I had to finish it. It's a fast-paced interesting thriller which has you racing to the end of the book wanting to know how the story pans out.
The story is about 'The Fearless Five', a group of college friends who reunite to celebrate a baby shower. And what should have been an innocuous affair turns into something more deadly.
I read a lot of thrillers and hence I wasn't surprised at the ending so that twist did not really work for me. Having said that I still want to reiterate that it was a good read for me.

Thanks to NetGalley for giving me a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Five college friends – and I use the term loosely – get together for a reunion weekend billed as a baby shower. For most of them they haven’t seen each other in years. Old grudges, hurt feelings, and jealousy are all emotions swirling within this little group and centered on the character who is hosting the shower at her lavish home. Those old hurts and jealousies run rampant from the first moment they are all together. One of them disappears after a drunken, drug-filled night. This is the premise of THE GIRLS WEEKEND.

The hostess, Sadie Mactavish, is a famous author, manipulator and control freak.
June Moody is a college professor who has just been dumped.
Kimiko is marijuana dispensary owner.
Amy is the pregnant friend and Em rounds out the crew.

I have to admit there wasn’t one character in the quintet that had any kind of redeeming value as a human. Each of them was annoying in their own way and I had a hard time feeling any compassion or empathy for any of them. The indiscriminate use of drugs and overabundance of alcohol throughout the book was another turnoff for me.

That said, the way the “mystery” evolves, and is told, is top-notch.

I was kept guessing until the last chapters about what happened. It is a very talented author who can take unredeemable characters and somehow weave a very effective, thoughtful and engaging story around them, so kudos to Jody Gehrman for that.

All in all, this was a good read. 4 stars from me and a thanks to Netgalley & Crooked Lane books for a look-see.

I enjoyed this book and read through it in days, but felt that it wasn’t unique enough to stand apart from other thrillers/mysteries in the market.

The Girls’ Weekend is about a group of friends who get together after many years apart for a baby shower. The book’s protagonist June Moody initially opts our because of her long-standing competitive relationship with the host and her friend, Sadie, but decides to go after her boyfriend abruptly dumps her. Right from the start, it’s apparent that all of the women in the group have some sort of parent conflict with Sadie. So when she suddenly disappears after a night of debauchery, everyone is a suspect. To clear her name in the police investigation, Sadie must find out what really happened to her friend and that night that she can’t remember.

I liked that this story flowed well. It was easy to read and I liked the character of June Moody. Since she was a likeable character and Sadie was not, I was really rooting for her throughout the book. I also liked the premise and setting. It reminds me of Agatha Christie’s novels and had a really whodunit feel. The author also has a great sense of humour, which comes out in parts of the book.

But the book was a tad predictable in terms of who the perpetrator was. I also found it hard to believe all of the women were actually good friends. They just seemed to really hate each other and even though, the book made note of their history, I still didn’t buy that their friendship was that solid for them to have a reunion.

Overall I enjoyed reading this book though.

Five college friends get together for a baby shower. One of them goes missing and no one remembers what happens. After a night of heavy drinking they wake up to find one of them missing and dried up blood in the house. They all draw a big blank on what happened.

As the story unfolds you suspect almost all characters at some point. With some clues here and there I did sniff out who did it pretty quickly, but with the twists and turns in the book I started doubting it. It was a thrilling read, didn’t bore me for one second. Some characters seem a little flat, but I think that is because it is told from one point of view.

This book was good. A light read that had me guessing who the killer was. Towards the end it did fall a little flat but overall enjoyed the characters, the drama, the twists and back stories on why each character could have did it.

From the first chapter I couldn’t put this down! I quickly found myself interested in these characters. Five college best friends come together for a fun weekend to celebrate ones pregnancy. But after a night of fun partying and drinking, they wake up to the house a mess and don’t remember anything. Were they drugged? And if so, by whom? Also, one character is missing. The character who seems to have pissed off each of the other characters in one way or another so everyone is a suspect or hiding something. This was a quick read for me, twisty and fun, and I enjoyed it a lot! There were secrets galore! Would definitely read more from this author in the future.

I had doubts when I started reading this book that it could be anything other than petty jealousies from college carried over into adulthood, but I was proven wrong. This was an excellently crafted mystery with a surprising depth of character development. This is reminiscent of a classic mystery in which you're given cause to suspect every character and yet it's still a surprising end. I'm never a huge fan of throwing romance into a good mystery, but in this novel it wasn't overdone and so I have very little reason to argue against it.