Title: The Guilt Trip
Author: Sandie Jones
Release Date: August 3, 2021
Genre: Adult, Mystery, Thriller
Rating: ★★★
Synopsis
Six friends.
Rachel and Noah have been friends since they met at university. While they once thought that they might be something more, now, twenty years later, they are each happily married to other people, Jack and Paige respectively. Jack’s brother Will is getting married, to the dazzling, impulsive Ali, and the group of six travel to Portugal for their destination weekend.
Three couples.
As they arrive at a gorgeous villa perched on a cliff-edge, overlooking towering waves that crash on the famous surfing beaches below at Nazaré, they try to settle into a weekend of fun. While Rachel is looking forward to getting to know her future sister-in-law Ali better, Ali can’t help but rub many of the group up the wrong way: Rachel’s best friend Paige thinks Ali is attention-seeking and childish, and while Jack is trying to support his brother Will’s choice of wife, he is also finding plenty to disagree with Noah about.
One fatal misunderstanding . . .
But when Rachel discovers something about Ali that she can hardly believe, everything changes. As the wedding weekend unfolds, the secrets each of them hold begin to spill, and friendships and marriages threaten to unravel. Soon, jumping to conclusions becomes the difference between life and death.
Review
I didn’t love it but I didn’t hate it. The Guilt Trip was a long winded story about a group of friends who journey to Portugal for a wedding. All is not as it seems though and cracks in relationships start to show almost immediately. It was a twisted tale full of lies and deceit.
The writing was good, but the set up took just a tad too long. I found myself skipping passages of nonsense to get the drama go unfold quicker. It’s a four day trip and we definitely could have cut a day out, but then again maybe we needed that set up? It was definitely a fast paced story though even with the extra fluff. Doubt was perfectly casted and I knew what was going on from the start. Things weren’t quite as they seemed with the friend group and I was fully invested in all the drama that unfolded.
The relationships were so well established and you could really see the connection between Noah and Rachel. They were college best friends who swear you and down that they never had feelings for each other. We also get to see their relationship with their respective spouses or lack thereof. I felt no connection between Noah and Paige, but Rachel and Jack appeared to have this amazing marriage that is entering its golden years now that their son is in college. It was an interesting dynamic with the ever dramatic Ali.
Poor Ali was done so dirty on every level. I loved her immediately and felt so bad that everyone seemed to be against her and were kinda awful to her. I think my favorite part of this book was her story and watching it unfold along with her relationship with Will.
While I may have seen some of the twists coming from the start, the ending shocked me. Definitely did not see that coming and the epilogue was the icing on the cake. If you’re looking for a fast paced story to read in an afternoon, this is definitely the book for you.
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