Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Release Date: July 21, 2020
Source: Review copy from the publisher
Rating: ★★★½

In The Vacation, a captivating thriller from T. M. Logan, the bestselling author of Lies and 29 Seconds, four best friends on a dream vacation come face-to-face with an explosive secret.

It was supposed to be the perfect getaway: Kate and her three best friends, spending a week with their families in a luxurious villa in the south of France. Through the decades they’ve stayed closer than ever, and seven days of drinking crisp French wine and laying out under the dazzling Mediterranean sun is the perfect celebration of their friendship. But soon after arriving, Kate discovers an incriminating text on her husband’s cell phone.

A text revealing that he’s having an affair.

And that the other woman is one of her best friends.

But which one?

Trapped in paradise with no one to trust, Kate is determined to find out who has put her marriage—and a lifelong friendship—in jeopardy. But as she closes in on the truth, she realizes that the stakes are higher than she ever imagined. Everyone on the trip has secrets…and someone may be prepared to kill to keep theirs hidden.

Yikes, what a nightmare vacation! Kate has been friends with Rowan, Izzy, and Jennifer since university. To celebrate the year they turn 40, the four women head to an upscale villa in the South of France with husbands and children in tow. Yeah, not the best idea. Along with the families comes a tangled web of dark secrets ready to ruin their holiday paradise.

Not long after arriving, Kate finds some incriminating text messages on her husband’s phone, indicating that he’s having an affair with one of her three best friends. But which one? Poor Kate spends much of their week in France investigating and agonizing over who has betrayed her. But how far is the culprit willing to go to keep the secret hidden?

Wow, this group of characters! They’re all — a challenge. The adults were unlikable and the children were bratty.** This mystery/thriller is heavy on the family drama with no one communicating, unfortunately! While I was intrigued with the mystery surrounding the affair, the excitement didn’t get started until the last quarter of the book. It wrapped up with a surprising twist that I wasn’t expecting, though it was totally believable. The ending was quite satisfying.

** I listened to much of this book on audio (from the library), and I have to give a big shout out to the narrator Laura Kirman. Her performance voicing the big cast of characters with different ages, genders, and accents was amazing!

— 𝓓𝓲𝓪𝓷𝓪

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.