3.5 stars rounded up to 4. (Does anyone else wish that Goodreads actually allowed for .5 ratings?) The Long Weekend was my first book by Gilly Macmillan and it definitely won't be the last. I absolutely loved the setting, premise and overall mood of this story but struggled with a few execution points. Overall it was a dark, twisty and fun read.

Three women arrive at a remote farm expecting their husbands to join them the next day for a relaxing long weekend among friends. Upon arrival there is a letter from a forth woman whose husband died recently telling me that one of their husbands is going to die that weekend. There is no cell signal at Dark Fell Barn where they are staying, the owners' farm is not easily accessible and there is a storm fast approaching. Is the threat real or a hoax? Isolation, storm and a sense of fear start bringing to the surface secrets each one of them was not planning to share.

The complex dynamic and history among this group of friends, as well the side story of the farm owners were my favourite elements of this book. I also enjoyed the sense of suspense and isolation woven throughout. None of the main characters were particularly sympathetic but that worked really well in the context of the story. The aspect that I struggled with was the way narration unfolded. Everything was told in third person narrative except the killer's parts, which were told in first person. However each chapter would share perspective of multiple characters in succession and I found this distracting and at times hard to follow (I found myself having to go back and reread passages because I wouldn't always notice the switch). My guess is that for many readers it won't matter.

If you are looking for a dark, moody, suspenseful psychological thriller I suggest you pick up The Long Weekend. I am extremely grateful to NetGalley & William Morrow and Custom House for gifting me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book is a whole wild ride and it's crazy beginning to end. I am relatively new to the thriller/mystery genre and I am still trying to develop my tastes and interests with what I like and what is not for me. The Long Weekend falls on the like spectrum with a good solid medium rating.

I found this book difficult to get into at the beginning, I believe most of this to be because of the formating of the e-arc I received (all the paragraphs squished together). I tried to look past this and forge forward into this world, but I will admit to being very confused with what was going on for longer than I would have liked.

The twists were nuts and I did end up enjoying the book for the thrill of those "holy smokes" moments.

Thank you HarperCollins Canada for providing me with ARC to review.

Jayne, Emily, and Ruth are going away for the weekend with their husbands. It's an annual event. This year their friend Edie isn't coming, it's been awkward since Edie's husband died in a freak accident and the dynamics in the friendships have changed. Most of the women aren't really comfortable with Edie as it seems their husbands are still smitten with her after all these years. Their husbands have been friends since school. Off to Dark Fell Barn they go to a lovely farm setting which turns to a stormy environment. Their husbands are going to join them on Saturday. When they arrive at the Barn there's a note from Edie, saying she isn't coming because she knows they don't like her and that by the end of the weekend one of their husbands will be dead and they will never see Edie again. I don't want to give away too much of the story by providing too many more details.

This book started off really strong for me. I was really hooked and captured by the story and curious about the characters and where the story was going. I had a hard time putting the book down initially and kept hoping that it would finish it because I wanted to see how it all came together. Unfortunately, the book started taking some turns I wasn't as enthused about and my interest started to fade. The further along I got in the book the less I liked the characters and less the believable they became for me.

I liked the writing style and was able to follow the multiple POVs and enjoyed the story overall. I haven't read many books with people in remote areas that are isolated from society. I really enjoyed the previous book The Nanny which the author wrote. I would still recommend this one if you are up a twisty thriller to distract you and keep you reading.

A group of friends head out for a getaway to Dark Fell Barn, a retreat that sounds perfect. The girls get there ahead of their husbands for some alone time.
As soon as the outing gets underway, the women discover an ominous note declaring that someone’s husband will be murdered.
This group has kept secrets for so long, will the final one end up killing them?

Excellent! Everything I love about thrillers is in this book. Twisty and unreliable narrators make for a great story.

This psychological thriller full of complex twists packed into about 36 hours, making it fast-paced and hard to put down!

The story takes place on a weekend getaway. The husbands are longtime friends but their wives don’t share the same history… Or trust.

I loved the characters! The author tells us just enough about everyone that we don’t know who to trust, who is genuine and kind, and who is dangerous!

She drives the point home that communication is key in every relationship. Do you really know your spouse?!

I really enjoyed MacMillans books in the past and truly enjoy this one as well! I highly recommend this new novel of hers.

Thank you too killer crime club for this giveaway through Net Galley and to the publisher William Morrow.

Good atmospheric thriller with all the details necessary to make a good read - a couples weekend away at an isolated barn, no cell service, a raging storm and, of course, a note delivered indicating that someone will be murdered. Three wives head up to the farm and wait for their husbands to join them later, when they get there, the note is discovered and they are all wondering - is it their husband that will be murdered? Of course they can't get cell service, a storm is raging and they all turn on each other. A good creepy read with some drama and mystery. Thanks to NetGalley and Wlliam Morror for an advanced copy.

This is a hard one for me to rate. I didn't love it and often found it difficult to follow, but some of this might have been with the arc. The story itself is told in 3 long chapters, so there was little, if no, separation between sections at times and I struggled to find out which character I was following.

This story is told through multiple POVs and each person has a big secret to hide from their friends or family, which makes their interactions tense. I found myself drawn in at the start, but I quickly lost enthusiasm for the plot. I don't mind unlikable characters, but I found most everyone more annoying than dark and twisty.

The twists were kind of fun to unravel and I see many positive reviews, so perhaps this just didn't hit the mark for me personally. I do want to try another by this author in case it was this mystery I didn't care for.

A wonderfully dark and grim setting with well developed albeit unlikable characters. A good twisty plot but I found the lack of definition when changing POVs really affected the flow of the story. I had to go back a page or two to figure out whose POV it was too many times. I realize this was an ARC and an ebook, but I think a few formatting changes would make a big difference.
Thank you Harper Collins Canada for this ARC

I have read other books by Gilly Macmillan and enjoyed them. I was looking forward to reading this one too.
The Long Weekend starts out with three women making their way to a remote location for a long weekend with their spouses. Unfortunately, one by one they are informed by their husbands that the will not be arriving until the next day.
Upon arrival, they are greeted with a gift and card from one of the group who will not be attending. The note states that by the time you read this one of your husbands will be dead. What? Image that scenario!

What I liked:
the suspense, was it all a hoax or could it possibly be real?
the mystery narrator
multiple points of view
the overall story
the setting

What I didn't like:
the lack of chapters. This made the book difficult to follow. Took a lot of getting used to figuring out who was speaking.
some of the characters could have been fleshed out a bit more. One character in particular I felt I knew very little about even at the end.

Overall outlook:
I enjoyed the story, just not the presentation.
Some other readers didn't seem bothered by the lack of chapters/separation so maybe it's just my personal preference.
Hopefully some of these things will be changed before publication making it flow much better.

Thanks to netgalley and William Morrow and Custom House for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to the publisher, Harper Collins Canada, and NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Three couples plan a relaxing long weekend trip to an isolated, refurbished barn on a remote Northumbrian farm. When, for different reasons, the men, Toby, Paul and Mark are delayed, their wives arrive ahead of them for a girls’ night, and they feel this would be a good opprtunity for Emily, the latest addition to the group to get to know Jayne and Ruth a little better. But what should have been a restful trip almost immediately turns into a nightmare, as the three women arrive to a disturbing letter, supposedly from Edie, the fourth of their group not joining this trip, claiming that she is going to murder one of their husbands. While they initially think of it as a prank, something typical of Edie, they have their doubts, and with a big storm in the area and no cell service or internet to make sure everyone is ok, tensions begin to run high, leading them to take some drastic steps.

This was such a fun read! Despite knowing from the premise what the first twist is going to be, the way the story opens in a rather normal mood is what made it a shocking twist. And from that point on, it doesn’t really stop at all. With each chapter, twist and reveal, it drives the tension up higher and I had the best time trying to figure out what was going on and who was behind it all. The way the plot unfolds deliberately leads the reader to a lot of false assumptions as it becomes evident that these three couples who seem perfectly normal at first glance have a lot of secrets they’re hiding, even from each other. The setting of the story was as integral to building the tense mood as the plot itself, and the isolated barn and wild surroundings worked perfectly for the purpose. It would have been nice if the latter half of the book also took place in the isolated barn as it was a very atmospheric setting, and as the plot moved back to the city, I felt like it lost a little of that mood.

The Long Weekend is narrated through several POVs, from the three women and the farmer who owns the barn for the first half, and it adds more perspectives as the story progresses, including that of the mystery murderer. The characters were all intriguing, though I found the three women’s POVs to be much better, especially since their husbands are not really introduced until well past the midpoint of the story. As more and more unfolded about their characters and their past, each of them looked suspicious at one point or another, which made this an exciting read.

The biggest downside of this book, I found, was the style of narration. It jumped frequently from character to character with zero indication of whose POV it was. I don’t know if it’s because I read an eARC, but it didn’t even have chapter breaks, which are something I find very essential to my reading experience. That said however, once I was used to this style and could identify the characters’ voices better, it became easier to follow the story despite the jumps.

Overall, this was a thrilling read and quite an intense one at that. The mystery was woven in such a manner that it was truly impossible for me to figure out who was behind it until it was revealed. It’s a book you have to give your full attention to, what with all the unexpected twists, but it was well written and definitely one I would recommend to fans of the genre!

What an exciting read! Gilly Macmillan is an expert at weaving an intricate plot. Her characters leap off the page. The amount of twists keep the reader turning the page because they want to find out what happens next.

Three couples plan on going away to a remote farm for the weekend. Unfortunately the men get stuck behind and the three wives go up the Friday night. They find a gift with a letter stating one of their husbands will be murdered. Then all hell breaks loose and deadly secrets are exposed.

This book was wild. Every character had secrets and just when you think you know what’s going on the story takes a sharp turn and throws you in a different direction. Solid 4 star thriller

Thank you William Morrow and Custom House, NetGalley and Killer Crime Club for the advanced digital copy of The Long Weekend. All opinions in this review are my own

The Long Weekend
by Gilly MacMillan
Pub Date: March 29, 2022
William Morrow and Company
Thanks to the author, William Morrow and Company, and NetGalley for the ARC of this book.
This fits in with the type of books I usually love to read but for some reason, this one didn't click for me.
In this pulse-pounding thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of The Nanny, a group of women travel to the most remote place in England for a weekend escape, only to discover a startling note that one of their husbands will be killed before they return home—perfect for fans of Ruth Ware and Lucy Foley.
I liked it but I won't be recommending it.
3 stars

The blurb sounded just like the type of book I'd enjoyed, but I struggled with this one. The pace and thriller angle was far slower and more mild that I expected and prefer. Lots of plot holes and way too long for things to come together. Overall, the story felt very disjointed, and I never really connected with any of the characters.

An isolated couples’ weekend goes awry with the opening of a simple letter. This is a great novel filled with unexpected twists. Just when you think you’ve figured it out you get a new clue to this wild read!

I thoroughly enjoyed the multiple points of view. Each character was so independently unique that it was not difficult to follow along. The authors writing was gripping and made it difficult to put down!

(4.5 stars)

THE LONG WEEKEND centers on three women who head out to a remote location together for a weekend getaway, only to be confronted with a note stating that one of their husbands has been murdered. Fear begins to unfold as the women try to find a way to contact their husbands.

WOW. This one was absolutely wild. I’ve read most of Gilly Macmillan’s previous work and I felt the chaos and thrill were really amped up in this one!

This book rapidly switches from one POV to another and it kept me captivated to the end. Macmillan also throws in some twists that are *chefs kiss* and I think they will shock many readers.

I DO wish we got to learn more about each of the characters, but with the number of them, and the quickness of this novel, I understand why that may not have been feasible.

Well done, Gilly, well done.

Run, don’t walk, to get your copy of this book on March 29.

Huge thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow and Custom House for an e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!

It’s a hoax! Or is it?

Couples’ weekend has gone seriously wrong.

When all three of their husbands are delayed, Emily, Jayne and Ruth set out to the remote Dark Fell Barn for their couples’ weekend alone.

However, things turn sinister when they arrive and find a gift with a suspicious note claiming that one of their husbands will be murdered.

The fourth member of their group, Edie, didn’t join them this weekend due to the recent death of her husband. Did she write the note?

When the weather takes a turn for the worse and tensions run high, the weekend getaway is ruined.

Is one of their husbands really in danger? If so, which one?

Gilly Macmillan packs this atmospheric thriller with trope after trope. Dyscalculia, PTSD, Dissociative Disorder, Dementia, Alcoholism, Psychopathy and more. Combined with an unsavory cast of characters and continually changing perspectives, my mind was spinning!

The long three chapter structure leads to a slower read overall, as it takes a long time for the action to ensue. However, I was hooked by chapter two!

This book will take A LOT of suspension of your beliefs, but is a fun ride. While it is not technically a locked room thriller, it definitely toes the line.

Fans of Lucy Foley and Ruth Ware will really enjoy this one!

3.5/5 stars rounded up

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow publishers for the ARC of The Long Weekend in exchange for an honest review.

I have been hearing great things about this author but this one didn't do it for me unfortunately! I was left feeling the need to rush through it, just to get to the end, and unfortunately it felt longer than it needed to be. I was hoping for a bit of a faster paced thriller but this was more of a slow burn.

This book is great! Would definitely recommend. Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.