THE GUILT TRIP

SYNOPSIS

They went away as friends

They came back as suspects . . .

Jack and Rachel. Noah and Paige. Will and Ali. Five friends who’ve known each other for years. And Ali, Will’s new fiancée.

To celebrate the forthcoming wedding, all three couples are having a weekend get-away together in Portugal.

It’s a chance to relax and get to know Ali a little better perhaps. A newcomer to their group, she seems perfectly nice and Will seems happy after years of bad choices. But Ali is hiding more than one secret . . .

By the end of the weekend there’ll be one dead body and five people with guilty consciences wondering if they really know each other so well after all. Because one of them has to be the killer.

Title: The Guilt Trip

Author: Sandie Jones

Publisher: Pan

Publication date: August 19, 2021

REVIEW

RATING: ⭐⭐⭐

If there’s one thing literature has taught me is that destination weddings are never a good idea, unless you want to become a widow quickly, so you know, if you’re thinking of getting married you better elope!

Rachel is married to Jack and best friends with Noah, who’s married to Paige. They’re all traveling to Portugal for Jack’s brother Will wedding with Ali, who isn’t anyone’s favorite person (except Will’s, after all he’s marrying her!). Tensions start right at the airport and keep escalating during the weekend until the happily ever after gets threatened.

I had only read one book by Sandie Jones prior to this one and I was not that impressed. While this one was an improvement it still left me wanting a bit more. For starters, it is not a thriller cause there’re no thrills (at least for the first two thirds). It is more of a domestic drama/soap opera with lots of gossip and women talking shit about other woman based on what they heard or were told about her. Rachel and Paige behaved sometimes as a pair of (hypocrites) mean girls, as if they were above good and evil, when it was later proved that they had more than one skeleton in their closets.

There was also lots of misunderstandings based on characters assuming things and not letting other characters talk, and I found that pretty annoying.

Although nothing much happened for the first half, the audiobook still managed to keep me hooked (good choice going with the audiobook). Once the secrets started being revealed the pace picked up leading to an ending that still surprised me somehow.

The Guilt Trip doesn’t bring anything new to the domestic suspense genre but still was an entertaining read.