I'm a big Alex Finlay fan, but Parents' Weekend was disappointing. Five college kids go missing, which is a great premise, but it falls flat with no character development and a predictable ending. I did like the short chapters and that we see Agent Sarah Keller again, but, really, this is one you can skip. Unless, of course, you like Scooby-Doo mysteries and Smurf masks (literally!).

If you like your thrillers fairly straightforward -- no thinking really necessary -- with basic college freshmen and their families involved, this is an easy read. Five students fail to show up to dinner with their parents on Parents' Weekend--this seemed like a great hook. But following the five families and their dirty laundry (how many affairs??) along with Agent Keller and her mild family drama was tedious. There actually wasn't enough detail about the actual students and what made them targets, besides their parents! And why on earth did it take an entire squad of detectives to spot the eventual connection that solves this case? I mean, seriously, that should have been their first stop. Overall, I'd probably give this to high school students-no real inappropriate parts-and yes, there is literally a Scooby-Doo Mystery Machine van and Smurf masks.

Alex Finlay does a great ensemble cast as always. On the positive side the book was fast paced, compulsively readable, and the characters that elicit some degree of investment. I loved the atmospheric backdrop of the story and the setting (parents weekend) was really good!

On the negative side the "who" of the whodunit aspect fell flat. Despite many attempted red herrings, it was evident from the get-go who the only character(s) were that had a motive for targeting the students.

So by the time we've gotten to the end of the ride, the reveal was anticlimatic. I would still read and recommend Alex Finlay and this book to readers, I just felt it was not Finlay's strongest.

I am generally a big fan of Alex Finlay’s fast paced thrillers so I was disappointed when this one fell a little flat for me. The concept of five college friends going missing over parent’s weekend was alluring, but the action throughout the story felt slow and stagnant. I wanted more from the characters and from the plot, and the ending didn’t hit home for me. I will recommend this to a fan of Finlay but rank his other books, like The Night Shift, or Every Last Fear, higher on my list.

I really flew through this book! I loved the setting of Parents Weekend on a college campus. While I still feel like a college student, I had to sadly admit to myself that I’m a parent now and had to stop relating to the kids. Ha!! But seriously, I couldn’t imagine my kids missing from their college campus, how terrifying and scary. The points of view from each of the kids and their families was easy to read and follow. Sometimes when there are too many characters, books get overwhelming and hard to follow but this book was quite the opposite. It flowed perfectly and kept me engaged until the very end. I would highly recommend it! Thank you to NetGalley, Alex Finlay and your publishers for giving me the opportunity to read and review this ARC!

Alex Finlay does it again with another great thriller. A combination of locked room meets atmospheric coast, I genuinely did not see any of the book coming and usually I have the plot predicted early.

Alex Finlay does a great ensemble cast as always. Pros: fast paced, compulsively readable, characters that elicit some degree of investment - even if I didn't like them, I cared what happened to them and who did it. Cons: The "who" of the whodunit aspect fell flat. Despite many attempted red herrings, it was evident from the get-go who the only character(s) were that had a motive for targeting the students. So by the time we've gotten to the end of the ride, the reveal was anticlimatic. I would still read and recommend Alex Finlay and this book to readers as everyone likes a fast readable thriller in their repertoire.

It was great to see Special Agent Sarah Keller back in action! Alex Finlay delivers another fast-paced thriller, but I felt like there were too many characters to keep track of, and a few loose ends left me wanting more closure. While I enjoyed the book overall, it wasn’t my favorite of Alex Finlay's. However I will always continue to read his books and look forward to the next one!

Thank you to St. Martin's Press | Minotaur Books and NetGalley for the ARC!

Thank you to Alex Finlay, St. Martin's Press/Minotaur Books, and NetGalley for this ARC of Parents' Weekend.

Agent Sarah Keller is back! She was previously a character in Finlay's book and I LOVED her then and I love her even more now! Finlay is the king of short chapters, it has me fly through his books! The plotline of this book is great, missing person stories are always so gripping and hard to put down. Sadly, the plot was easy to guess and the ending had me feeling a little cheated. There were also so many characters that at times it felt convoluted and I had to revert back in the earlier chapter(s) to figure out who they were and their relation to the story. 3/5 stars for this novel but I do love Finlay and look forward to reading more of his works in the future. This one just was a little to predictable for me.

Cinco universitarios desaparecidos, cinco familias buscando a sus hijos, un asesinato, una venganza y un secreto.

Lo que se suponía sería una cena familiar para celebrar el término del primer año de universidad termina en tragedia cuando los chicos no aparecen y no logran encontrarlos. Cada familia guarda sus propios secretos, que podrían estar relacionados con la desaparición. La agente especial Sarah Keller tendrá que luchar contra reloj para hallarlos con vida.

Al final, algunas familias se unirán, otras se separarán, algunas aprenderán de sus errores, otras no, y alguien morirá.

Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A solid 3 stars!! Alex Finlay is an auto buy author for me. I always find his writing fast paced and easy to binge. I was hooked from the beginning and loved all the different POV’s. I also liked how it was by family not by character and of course we got to be with our fav FBI agent again in this one. The whole plot wasn’t my favorite of his but I was still entertained!

Such a good read. Keeps you on your toes the whole time!! I could not put this book down!!! Can’t wait to read more by this author !!

Parents Weekend by Alex Finlay

I'm here for Agent Keller and we get to see a lot of her. Thank goodness for her husband who is such a good father to their nine year old twins. Wait, has it been that long? I remember when she was doing incredible acrobatics while approximately 8.5 months pregnant with these two. Mind boggling! This time her antics are much more realistic. Keller is a favorite character of mine and I hope to see her again. But time passes quickly between books, I could be seeing her grandkids pushing her around the retirement village in the next book or two.

It's Parents Weekend at a small private school in Northern California and the parents of first year students, Libby, Blane, Mark, Felix, and Stella, plan to celebrate with their kids. But the kids never show up to the festivities. Did they all decide to bail out on their parents? Because a missing student was found in not favorable condition, everyone is a bit on edge on campus. Now these five students are missing and some of their parents are wondering if it is because of what they have done wrong in their past. Almost all of this group of parents has one or more things to regret and hide in their past and maybe one more more pasts is coming back to haunt the five students.

It was pretty much impossible for me to be sure who might be the culprit since just about everyone has big secrets, big transgressions of some kind, or is just not very reliable in one way or another. So I went along for the ride and enjoyed that the college students were indisposed in one way or another so that we didn't have to put up with them being much more irresponsible than their parents. Really, what do parents expect when they set such bad examples for their kids?

Thanks to St. Martin's Press | Minotaur Books and NetGalley for this ARC.

3.5 stars
I wasn’t sure what to expect with this book. There were so many new characters introduced in the first few chapters. The chapters were labeled with each family name every time the focus was on one of the five families plus the FBI agent.
For me, the FBI agent was my favorite part of the story. She, her husband Bob and the twins were part of Every Last Fear and The Night Shift. I loved the moments with them as a family as well as what a badass Sarah Keller is.
Until the reader could figure out who all the players were in the story, it was a bit slow and confusing. But about 1/3 into the book, it began to pick up quickly. At that this point, I was able to figure out who the culprit was. It was obvious to me but I don’t know if it would be to everyone? I would be curious to hear other readers thoughts.
The death of a student before parents weekend at college, was possibly connected to five students going missing on the first night of the weekend. There is quite a bit flipping to different characters with each chapter as well as past and present.
Overall it was a very quick read but it felt a bit convoluted and superficial. I wanted more from a few of the kids characters and I definitely wanted more of Keller. This one was not a favorite of mine but I did enjoy this take on a perilous college parent weekend.

This was a very entertaining and bingeable mystery - I finished it in less than 24 hours! I loved the college setting and the entire premise of the book. Some of the government jargon went over my head but I was certainly along for the ride.

After finishing it, I felt that among the twists and turns there were a few holes in the narrative, plot twists that seemed designed to bamboozle readers. Still, for the most part it was an easy read, and kept me turning pages. It was plot-based and I prefer character-based narratives, so readers who prefer twisty plots will likely give it a higher rating than my three stars.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advanced copy/eGalley of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I have yet to read an Alex Finlay novel I didn't like. This one fits right in with the others for me and it was great seeing Sarah Keller back in the character line-up.

The multiple characters were a lot at first, but once I learned who was who and settled into the story, I did not have much of a problem keeping them straight. The book really hit its stride about 25% of the way into the novel when the characters and plot started connecting a little bit more, plus the short chapters kept me wanting to turn the page and find out what piece of the puzzle would be revealed next.

I adored Keller's points of view and thought they were a great contrast to the college student drama. The final moments and plot climax were halfway predictable halfway surprising to me. Some of it I was able to see coming, other parts came as more of a shock. The ending wrapped up a little faster than I would have liked, felt like I didn't get total closure on the students and their "different paths forward" from the events of the novel.

That being said, I think this book would make a great travel companion, beach or poolside buddy, or just a binge-able rainy weekend partner. Bittersweet reading an Alex Finlay novel far in advance knowing I will have to wait quite a bit of time to get my hands on the next work of his.

On the verge of parents weekend, 5 college students go missing after another student is found dead after a beach party in California. Each family has their secrets that raise suspicions as to why the kids were taken, but only the kids know the truth.

This is the 3rd book by Alex Finlay I've read. They're all consistently entertaining, but I felt this was lacking something that "If Something Happens to Me" had that really had me hooked. It might have been the large amount of main characters and their families that I had to keep up with in Parents Weekend. All in all, a good read, but not the author's best.

A good ole mystery when five students don’t show up to family dinner at school. The parents assume they choose partying over spending time with them but quickly realize something else is going on. So many secrets and betrayals are spilled linking to the disappearances.

Multiple POV
Short Chapters
Secrets
Dysfunctional Families
Lots of clues sprinkled in each chapter slowly rolling you into the conclusion.


Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and author for this digital copy in exchange for my honest review.