Well heeled parents, for the most part, descend on a high end college in California for a weekend with the kids. What could go wrong?, you say.
Everything! Murder, attempted murder, 5 missing teenager's, exes, famous people, all weave a story of hubris and mayhem. Fun read, hard to put down.

Parents Weekend
By: Alex Finlay
Pub Date:
Publisher: Minotaur Books
This novel is riveting and as a parent, my heart was pounding. You should be able to send your children off to college and know they are safe. Life does not always go as planned.
A small private school in Northern California is rocked when parents come for Parents Weekend and five families are changed forever.
The Five-Libby, Blane, mark, Felix and Stella are missing and no one seems to know where they are. You have to pay attention as there are multiple points of view as panic sets in.
Will the parents find their children? Are they kidnapped? I don’t want to spoil any of this but that ENDING had me SHOCKED!

Parent’s Weekend by Alex Finlay hosts a large number of characters including the return of FBI agent, Sarah Keller. It was great getting to catch up with her and her family. At first, I was a bit confused by the relationships and who belonged to who but once I got a hold of that, I whipped through this book. Finlay always knows how to set a scene and create the most chaotic disruptions to these poor character’s worlds. This is a plot driven novel and a very fun one.

Thank you to Net Galley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was a fun read. It read more like a detective novel than a true thriller, since you're not seeing most of the actual action.
I enjoyed the shifting perspectives, and thought that the characters and plot were well developed.

Alex Finlay does not dissapoint!

This is a very entertaining thriller with a huge host of characters. I wondered if it would be hard to keep track of the characters, but Finlay did a great job describing them and I felt I'd met each family and had a distinct impression of them. Parents Weekend will be familiar to any reader who has or had a child in college. It's a time for unexpected connections and a chance to see your child in a new habitat. That makes for a perfect setting for a mystery.
I found some of the twists and turns to be defying reality and I wished it felt more "real." But as an escape from one's own life, it is very successful.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book and for transporting me out of my own reality.

Parents Weekend is a nail-biting thriller that turns a seemingly picturesque college town into a scene of mounting dread. The story kicks off with five families enjoying the buzz of their children’s first college year, blissfully unaware of the dark turn their night will take. When Libby, Blane, Mark, Felix, and Stella—the students known as “The Five”—fail to show up to the much-anticipated Parents Weekend dinner, the initial disappointment quickly spirals into terror.

Told from alternating perspectives, the novel plunges readers into the minds of each family member and the complex web of secrets each parent harbours. As days pass without a single word from the students, panic morphs into chaos, and the campus becomes a cauldron of speculation, hounded by social media detectives, reporters, and the arrival of FBI Special Agent Sarah Keller. The question on everyone’s mind: what drove The Five to disappear? Are their families’ past mistakes finally catching up to them, or is the danger closer than anyone could imagine?

With razor-sharp twists and an unsettling look at family pressures, Parents Weekend delivers a relentless page-turner that keeps you questioning where loyalty ends and secrets begin.

Many thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press | Minotaur Books for the opportunity to read and review Parents Weekend prior to publication.

Another exciting thriller by one of my favorites! I really enjoyed this story and the setting was really cool! I was so excited to finally be granted access to a Finlay thriller early for once! I LOVED the throwback nuggets to previous stories and possibly ones I missed because I haven’t finished his backlog yet! But this was a fun story and I really liked all the unique characters with the vastly different backgrounds because that is TOTALLY college you meet so many people so different from yourself and it is one of the best parts!!! Absolutely recommend!

Parents' Weekend is a quick, fun, can't-put-down read. The description hooked me -- four sets of parents with all different circumstances show up to their kids freshman year Parents' Weekend dinner, but the kids never arrive. What would cause the students to all not show up? How do the parents with their different backgrounds interact while this is going on? In addition to that, we also follow the FBI agent who happened to be moving to the area and was assigned to this case.

Engaging story, really enjoyed it and would recommend.

Thank you St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for providing a copy in exchange for my honest review.

As a parent, what would you do if your child goes missing? What would you do if you found out not only is your child missing but 4 others are as well?

Parents Weekend is based on a college campus where parents are visiting their children but 5 of them go missing. Alex Finlay brings out the suspense where not only do the college students have secrets, but the parents do too. Follow along as Special Agent Keller races to find the students before it's too late. Parents' Weekend will draw you in and keep you awake flipping pages wondering what happens next. I give it 4 stars. I really enjoyed it!

I received an advance copy of this book through NetGalley and was thrilled to dive into it as soon as I was approved. Throughout my reading, I kept thinking about how to rate it and found myself torn between a 3 and a 4.

The story takes place in Northern California during a university's parent weekend, setting up an interesting and complex backdrop. I found the beginning a bit challenging to follow due to the sheer number of characters and the backstories of both students and their parents. It was somewhat hard to keep track of everyone, which made the start a little disorienting.

However, by the time the detective enters in the second part, the story becomes much more focused and easier to follow. I really enjoyed the plot and how everything came together by the end. This is a unique, well-thought-out book that I’d recommend to others—though I’d also suggest keeping a notebook handy to jot down the characters and their connections, as it helps in truly understanding them."

Thanks NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. I have some mixed thoughts on this book. It definitely kept my attention and was a binge-worthy read, as I wanted to see what happened. I loved the multiple points of view, but you did have to keep track of everyone. I’m still not sure what I think of the ending. I feel as though there needed to be more clues to lead to one of these conclusions. Still a great, fast-paced book to read. Just not my favourite Finlay one. Check this book out for yourself in May 2025.

This was such a strong thriller novel and had that storyline that I was looking for when reading the description. The feel was suspenseful and was engaged with what was happening. Alex Finlay wrote this in a way that hooks the reader from the first page. I enjoyed everything overall and left wanting more.

3.75/5⭐️
“In the glow of their children's exciting first year of college at a small private school in Northern California, five families plan on a night of dinner and cocktails for the opening festivities of Parents Weekend. As the parents stay out way past their bedtimes, their kids— five residents of Campisi Hall-never show up at dinner.”

Parents Weekend follows five families who arrive at a college for Parents Weekend, only to find that their children are missing. This book had suspense and twist and turns. It did get confusing with having so many families/characters and it was slow at times, but overall a decent thriller.

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I really enjoy Alex Finlay’s books and writing style. This book kept me guessing and interested the whole time, and when I thought I figured it out…I was wrong! I will say that I felt like the ending was a little rushed in this one, and I was hoping for more of an in depth explanation of what happened. But overall it was a really fun, fast passed read that I didn’t want to put down. Absolutely worth the read! Thank you Netgalley and Minotaur Books for the ARC.

This is a mostly-hit hit-or-miss author for me, so I was glad to get a copy of his latest from NetGalley. Usually some good popcorn thriller stuff happening. Not so much this time.

Five college kids don’t show up for dinner with their parents. It’s a fast read, just super boring. Like, who cares about any of these parents or these kids? Not me. And the resolution is just, like… that’s it? Ok then.

Look, it’s an easy read and I guess it’s not awful, but it’s not that good either. I wanted to round it up to a 3, but I can’t. It’s so basic, so boring, so formulaic. There isn’t anything here. Miss this one.

PARENTS WEEKEND was a fast-paced and entertaining read with an interesting premise about a group of college students disappearing together. The setup was well done between the various characters, which made it mostly easy to track the stories although there was a plethora of names to follow. The story developed well enough with some interesting reveals; however, the ending didn’t feel very original and the epilogue chapters were overdone and cheesy.

Thanks to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for the opportunity to read and review PARENTS WEEKEND.

Actually a 3.5. This wasn’t my favorite Alex Finley book but still a fun and easy mystery that keeps you entertained.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/200705251

This was such a good thriller! A whole bunch of teens at a private college campus stop responding to their parents. The mystery isn’t trying to figure out why. It was captivating, it was thrilling, and it was terrifying. Alex Finlay Is an auto read for me!

Thank you St. Marten's Press, NetGalley, and Alex Finlay for the advanced copy of this book!

Overall, another decent read by Alex Finlay. Parents Weekend is about a group of parents heading to their kids college for, you guessed it, parents weekend, where they are scheduled to meet up at an small dinner hosted by the dorm their child is assigned to. When all 5 kids don't show up for the dinner, their parents become worried that it isn't just a case of 'they got drunk and lost track of time'. Special Agent Keller (who you meet a few times in a few of Finlay's other books) is assigned to the case and works tirelessly to interview anyone that may have come into contact with the kids the night of the dinner. Without giving the rest away, I have to say I figured out what happened to the kids fairly early on in the book and wish it wasn't so predictable. It was also very hard to keep track of the long list of characters, which family was associated with which student, etc.

As a parent of recent college students and a fan of Alex Finlay’s previous novels, I eagerly expected to be enthralled by his latest endeavor. However, it was not to be! The college students turned out to be a distinctly uninteresting group who find themselves in unexpected situations and the parents run the gamut from an important government official with an entourage of bodyguards to a single parent of a scholarship student. This reader found the plot rather insipid and actually struggled to finish the book. I expected more from Alex Finlay and I thank NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the opportunity to read and review this book prior to publication.