Thank you St. Martin’s Press and Minotaur Books for this ARC in exchange for a honest review. 3.5 stars. This was a fun read. It was a little scattered, but it kept me engaged. Every family had their problems and possible connection to the missing five. It tied up nicely without the perfect happy ending.

This was an intense thriller than was easy to read in one sitting. I was completely hooked! I loved the use of red herrings and the complexity of the characters. It was fast paced and the story was told from multiple viewpoints, with each family and individuals within the family having their stories told.

The only thing bringing my rating down for this book is the fact that I figured out who and why extremely early on. While I didn’t figure out the level of complexity as to how things unfolded and let to the point they did, I still figured out too much too soon. There was something in the book that basically spoiled it and I feel that the author could have done better to make it less obvious. I will not elaborate in case it wasn’t as obvious to others.

Thank you to #NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for honest feedback. - 3.5 stars

Well written but the “twist” was a little bit of a let down. Not shocking but still an enjoyable read

I really enjoyed this one! Thank you Netgalley for the ARC. Suspenseful throughout with seamless changes in POV that were easy to follow (for someone with ADHD). I highly recommend!

FBI Agent Sarah Keller is Unforgettable

SUMMARY
Cocktails and dinner are planned for the opening night of Parent’s Weekend at Santa Clara University, a small Northern California private college. The parents are there, but five students from the same dorm don’t show up for the dinner. Is it a student prank or a rebellion? Some parents start to worry, but others pass it off as them just being college students. On the second day, when none of the students can still be found, the parents are panicked, and the FBI is called in. Are they hostages? Why is there no ransom demand? Are they even still alive? Is this related to the case of another missing student?

REVIEW
Parent’s Weekend is a captivating mystery about the five missing students. The search is a life-or-death chase, and the writing weaves an entertaining tale of tension and intrigue.

There are a multitude of characters in this novel Between the students, their parents, the school administration, the campus police, the city police, and the FBI. It may take a few extra brain cells to keep everyone straight. Adding to the complexity, the story is told from many different points of view.

However, the one person you will not forget is the indefatigable FBI agent Sarah Keller. Keller is moving from New York to California with her family and is thrown into the case of the missing students before she even has a chance to unpack her suitcase. Sarah dives in wholeheartedly, showing courage, resilience, and determination to locate the missing students before it’s too late. We first met Keller in Finlay’s 2022 novel The Night Shift. I said she was unforgettable back then, and I believe she is even more unforgettable in this novel.

Like Finlay’s other novels, Parent’s Weekend is suspenseful, unpredictable, and fast-paced.

Thanks to Netgalley for an advance reading copy of this book. All opinions expressed here are my own.

Publisher St Martin’s Press
Published May 6, 2025
Review www.bluestockingreviews.com

I kind of wanted this review to just say "I Love Alex Finlay Books" and nothing else. But that wouldn't do this story justice.

I think this is my favorite book from this author. We get to see FBI Agent Sarah Keller, again, which made me even more enthusiastic about this story. For the record, if you have not read other books by this author, you can still read this story and everything will make sense.

This story bounces between different POVs: the different families, Agent Keller, and the missing students. This was never confusing, which I applaud the author for. Sometimes, when you have so many characters, it can be hard to remember who is who. The layout of this story made it easy to keep track of everyone and the role they played. The students have secrets, but their parents may be harboring even bigger, and more dangerous, secrets of their own. But again, it was presented in a fascinating way, and the parents are just as important a part of the story as the students are.

This was a story with some great twists and turns. That said...they made sense. You could see the pieces shifting, and some fell into place, while others led you down another direction. It was the perfect mystery for me.

If you already enjoy books from Alex Finlay, you obviously need to check this one out. But if you're also looking for family secrets, kidnapping, and twists you won't expect, you should definitely check this out.

Thank you to @netgalley and @minotaur_books for providing this eARC for my review!!

Pub Date: May 6, 2025

⭐️: 3/5

I really enjoyed The Night Shift by Alex Finlay, and it’s because of that that I keep giving his subsequent books a shot. Some have been ok, and some have been a little less than ok, including this one. One of my biggest pet peeves when reading is when dialogue feels stilted and awkward, and you find yourself at a loss to even begin to imagine a real person saying the things a character says. It just takes me out of the book so much, which kept happening in this one. It was almost like the author was told that some comp reads used more humor to up the entertainment factor so he should use humor, but it just never was funny, and just felt off. I did think it was cool that Agent Keller reappeared from The Night Shift though!

The pacing was super off in this book too, where it felt like the plot was moving at a snail’s pace, but the book itself was short, and a quick read, so we never really got off the ground. There was far too many characters and POVs, I think it would have been a much more enjoyable read if only a few of the multitude of POVs were focused on. The names were SO hard to keep straight, but even with that confusion, it was so obvious where the book was going and what the explanation at the end was going to be. I still want to read Every Last Fear by this author, since I’ve heard good things, but I also think in the future, I’ll hold off on his newly released books until I read OTHER people’s reviews 😂

First, thank you to St. Martin’s Press for the opportunity to read this book in advance. Last year, I read Finlay’s last outing (𝘐𝘧 𝘚𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘏𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘔𝘦) and didn’t hate it. The book, while definitely not without flaws, knew what it was and was entertaining, if not “high art.”

This new book, though, is a mess.

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗜 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲𝗱:
- Short chapters. Finlay writes suspenseful novels and I feel like the short chapters help keep action continuous.

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗜 𝗱𝗶𝗱𝗻’𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲:
- Way too many points of view. Listen, I like unique points of view. I wrote my master’s thesis on point of view. But there is absolutely zero reason that a 248 page book should have (by my count) 11 different points of view. It means that none of the characters ever develop.
- Too many characters. The book follows a group of five students plus their parents plus the FBI agent tracking the missing students plus her spouse. The book is too short to develop any of these. And it’s hard not to spoil it with this, but there are three more very important characters who are barely in the book at all.
- Dialogue. One of my major gripes with the last Finlay book is there was a ton of exposition as dialogue. This one did the same thing. People don’t talk like real people.
- The ending is out of nowhere. Again, trying not to spoil it, but in a crime novel, the perpetrators should be someone you’ve met more than tangentially. There’s no twist at all.
- Every single parental couple is having an affair. Every one. Either the husband or the wife is cheating or has cheated and somehow the jilted lover/relative is in town for revenge. All of them.

𝗩𝗲𝗿𝗱𝗶𝗰𝘁:
It’s a mess. It’s not a good mess. If you want to read a thriller with a mystery and a twist, grab something from Lucy Foley.

Thriller set a small, private college in Northern California during Parents Weekend when all five students in a cohort go missing while their parents are visiting. This could have been a solid thriller, but I felt like it was trying to do too much. Too many characters and too many red herrings to the point that I thought, "Oh, yet another character is having an affair??" Everyone is rich, everyone drinks too much, everyone has a secret. I did like the return of FBI agent Sarah Keller from previous Finlay books (although it was distracting that the author calls her by her last name when everyone else gets the first-name treatment).

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher St. Martin's Press for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

"Parents Weekend" by Alex Finlay is an engaging, fast-paced thriller that is difficult to put down. The short chapters leave the reader eager to read just one more, and then another.
As their children begin their first year of college in Northern California, five families plan a night of dinner and drinks to celebrate the opening festivities of Parents Weekend. As the parents enjoy their night well into the late hours, their children fail to show up for dinner. Initially, it is that the students have opted for more exciting plans. However, when another day passes without any communication from the students, panic sets in. The police are called, and rumors begin to circulate as bloggers and TikTok sleuths take to social media to speculate on the events of that night. Is the disappearance related to their parents or perhaps their peers? FBI Special Agent Sarah Keller is determined to uncover the truth before it is too late.
The narrative, told from multiple points of view, switches between families and the short chapters keep the reader excited to start the next one. This action-packed book is a quick read with a twist that is sure to surprise. A highly enjoyable read that will leave you wanting more.
Thank you, Netgalley, for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Parents arrive at a small private college in California for their freshman students’ Parents Weekend. Five families gather but then realize their kids are missing.

This was a good one that kept the pages turning fast. I loved how there were many different perspectives: investigators, parents, and students. Usually I could be confused with different parents and students but they were all different enough that I kept them straight. The parents’ dramas were interesting and the students’ college antics added extra drama. There was a lot going on from different areas, but it was never too much; it was the perfect amount of drama.

“An investigation is a team sport. Sometimes you’re the star, sometimes you’re on the bench, sometimes you’re the water boy.”

Parents Weekend comes out 5/6.

Book Review

📖📖📖📖📖

I could NOT put this down. I spent two flights and a layover with my face in my Kindle devouring this!

Five college students, a dead classmate, and parents weekend. When The Five don’t show up for their capstone dinner, each family goes about finding their college student in their own way. Add in an FBI agent reassigned to the California area on temporary assignment. It is ALL the makings of a great read.

The chapters go back and forth between the families, each with their own set of issues. Wealth, power, deception, infidelity, corruption… it’s all here. The chapters are quick and the story moves right along.

Where would you look if your child went missing? How long would you wait? How many secrets would you keep?

Thank you to @netgalley and @stmartinspress for this ARC, due out May 6, 2025, in exchange for an honest review.

#parentsweekend

Five of sets parents wait for their college student kids to arrive at the cohort's dinner for Parents Weekend. The first round of drinks comes and goes, as do the appetizers, and the kids never show. First assuming the kids bailed in favor of a party, no one panics, but when none of the kids return at all things are quickly turned over to the police.

I absolutely loved this one. At the beginning I was a (very) briefly concerned that I was going to have a hard time keeping all the characters straight as there are minimally 15 important characters, but I absolutely loved the way the author used the fact that parents meeting other parents at a college weekend wouldn't know each other and would therefore also need to learn each other's names to reinforce who was who. For example, one parent speaks to another parent and clearly doesn't remember their name so she reminds him of her name and her son's name. You also got so many perspectives (5 families) and each had similar perceptions of the others so again it helped solidify the characters. Just really, really well done. Additionally, if you were somehow still confused, the FBI Agent (so happy to see her back!) helps keep the story cohesive.

The pacing of this book was also perfect, it was such a quick read! I'm a huge fan of this author and this was another really great addition to the collection!

Thank you for an advance copy of this book by an author I have enjoyed in the past. This thriller follows 5 sets of parents at a college in North Carolina. They meet for parents weekend, and after a night of dinner and drinks, the kids go missing. This starts the mystery. I did enjoy this but it has many, many characters and it was difficult to keep track of everyone. I had to keep going back to remind myself who belonged with who. But it still had some good twists when I did figure it out. and I love the academic setting.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martins’ Press for an ARC of Parents Weekend by Alex Finlay in exchange for my honest review.

I loved Alex Finlay’s 2022 thriller/crime novel, The Night Shift. It was one of those novels that made me love, not only the thriller genre, but also crime fiction. It was thrilling and gritty and I could not turn the pages fast enough. But what I loved the most, was the character of Special Agent Sarah Keller. When I heard that Finlay had a new novel coming out featuring Keller, I jumped at the chance to read an advanced copy.

Finlay’s latest novel, like the title suggests, takes place during Parents’ Weekend at a small college in California. But instead of campus tours and dinners with mom and dad, 5 students go missing. This mystery/thriller, with short chapters, told from multiple POV’s of each of the families, as well as Special Agent Keller, kept me turning the pages.

Sadly, Parents Weekend, fell short for me. There were too many characters to keep track of, and with the exception of Keller, I did not connect with any of them, although I sure tried. Finlay throws plenty of red herrings our way, which I typically enjoy in these types of stories, but in this book they felt a bit forced, and disconnected from the main plot. I don’t want to give my thoughts on the ending since that might lead to a spoiler.

Overall, Parents Weekend was an average thriller for me. I do think it will appeal to readers who like a crime novel set at a scenic college campus, as well as those who enjoy rich people behaving badly.

It was well written, but I really just didn't care that much about the characters or what happened to them. The parents were mostly unlikeable and we didn't really get to know the kids.

Wow! Alex Finlay does it again! I have read many of his books and always enjoy them. This story was so easy to slip into. A rich cast of characters that kept me captivated and flipping pages long past my bedtime. I enjoyed the family dynamics and being a parent that has survived four ‘parent’s weekends’ myself I could easily relate to packed with tension, thrills, a little humor and a lot of magic. Highly recommend.
Thank you NetGalley, Alex Finlay and Minotaur Books for the opportunity to read and review this book

3.75 STARS - Parents Weekend centres around five university students who were supposed to meet their parents for a parents weekend dinner but the quintet suddenly vanish. FBI Special Agent Sarah Keller is brought in to piece together what happened and to find Libby, Stella, Felix, Mark and Blaine.

This book grabbed me from the beginning. There are a LOT of characters and it took me a bit to remember who was who, but I enjoyed the alternating perspectives - especially how the story is mainly told from the POVs of the parents of the missing students. Through the changing POVs, readers will be pulled into the lives, lies and secrets of the Roosevelt, Maldonado, Akana, Wong, Goffman (and Keller) families.

The story goes along at a good pace with chapter endings to entice readers to keep reading. Agent Keller was a standout character (and her husband was my fav), but where the story felt a bit weak was in the actual mystery. I was hoping for a more layered story. Instead, it felt a bit predictable when I was really hoping for one final twist to reveal a different culprit.

Overall, I enjoyed this story's unputdownable first half and meeting Agent Keller who I hear is in two of Finlay's earlier books. I am eager to now read Every Last Fear and The Night Shift). Look for this book in stores in early May 2025!

Disclaimer: My sincere thanks to Minotaur Books for the complimentary digital advanced copy of this book which was provided in exchange for my honest review.

This review was posted on my blog, Indigo.ca and socials on April 7, 2025.

I really enjoyed this one! At first there were a lot of characters and I had trouble keeping them all straight, but I told myself to just push through and it will all eventually make sense - I did and it did. I got everyone down and even when I was mixing them up a little bit, it didn't matter. The pacing on this book was so fast and I really liked the short chapters. Multiple POVs are always welcome and this one was done so well - I loved that we even got to explore the students' side of things. This book definitely had that addicting quality that I love. I really had no idea where this book would lead or who was responsible, so I enjoyed the ride and how it all came together. I never had a "oh snap!" moment, but this was still a solid thriller that I recommend reading!

The book had SO MANY characters! It was hard to follow which families were which families. I feel like a lot could of been done with this book and the multiple families, it would have been cool if they were all intertwined.