Thank you Netgalley for this ARC of The Weekend Away by Sarah Alderson.

Did I just read the female version of The Hangover?

Orla, a new mother, is ecstatic to be getting away with her BFF Kate. Kate has planned an over the top girl's trip that should be luxurious and relaxing, at least that's what Orla thought. But after being dragged to a club way too late at night, Orla realizes just what different places her and her friend are now in. Orla wants to catch up on sleep and enjoy some quiet, Kate wants to party and meet men. So, already disgruntled and hazy, Orla wakes up after a wild night out to find that her friend is missing. Now Orla is stuck alone in Portugal, and needs to find Kate, and put the pieces together of what exactly happened last night.

Yeah, I'm a total sucker for this stuff. I love a good domestic thriller. I was hooked immediately. I could also totally relate to Orla through most of it. I do love a good girl's trip! I don't want to go out past nine! I don't want to talk to people! I don't want to meet your friends!

I'm giving three stars instead of four because the ending! Ergh!

Orla and Kate have been best friends for 2 decades. But for the last four years or so they have spent a weekend away every year, each time at a new location. This time they decide on Lisbon, to get away from Orla's blues as a new mom and Kate's messy divorce.
As always Kate has made all arrangements and she wants to make the most of the time they have by club hopping and partying till wee hours as soon as they land.

The next day Orla wakes up all alone in their apartment with no sign of Kate. Calls go unanswered and there is no sign of Kate's wallet or passport. Her suitcase and clothes are still in her room though. Orla has no recollection of the night before except flashes of some parts. Where could Kate have disappeared to?

The plot seems predictable but the story has a good twist in the end and then a final twist. Almost didnt see the final one coming. The pace and narration made it for a wonderful read on my weekend away.

Thank you Netgalley and Avon books for the ARC

This story hooks the reader from the beginning and takes you on a ride of your life. There is twists and turns and you don't know what to expect next. The book is recommended for anyone who loves a good read!
TB

This was a quick adult thriller that follows two best friends that take their annual trip every year and this time they’re in Lisbon, Portugal despite their problems. Soon a night of exploring the town ends disastrous and Orla starts the doubt everything about that she thought she knew. This was a quick thriller once the stage was set. I was doubting when it became a little Liam Neeson, but that was quickly thwarted and SOOOO SHOOK until the very end. I guessed the ‘whodunnit’, because they were a lot of choices she did that I was like ‘Why would you do that?’

Actual Rating 3.5

Overall an enjoyable read. IT was a little unbelievable due to the main characters naiveté. Which seemed a little disingenuous to me. After Orla and her best friend go away for a girls weekend, the friend goes missing. What follows is a fun but slightly campy romp.

This book kept my interest, had some interestingly weird characters, and was overall suspenseful. The main character, Orla, is a tad naive but still a compelling character. This is a great creepy thriller. Thanks for the ARC.

This is the first book I have read by this author and it was a good read. It was gripping from the first chapter and didn’t go the way I was expecting which made a pleasant change as I thought it would be a totally different ending. I did find that the main character Orla was a little bit too trusting of strangers to be realistic and that she didn’t contact the embassy and started playing detective I found a little far fetched! There are loads of twists and turns towards the end so just when you think you know what’s going to happen it all changes even up to the very last page!!

This is a fun, addictive, popcorn thriller you should read you on a beach with a cocktail (if only we weren't in lockdown).

Yes, some of the twists and turns are a little predictable (*cough* the Airbnb landlord *cough*) but this was such a fun, edge-of-your-seat read. Though, the main issue that bothered me is how naive and trusting the main character, Orla, was. If she was a little more savvy, she might have been more wary over one or two characters and their kindness/motives... including the killer (those last few chapters had me spinning!)

But I forgot how much fun it was reading Sarah's books! I've read Sarah's YA novels (her debut, Hunting Lila, Conspiracy Girl & I believe I have Out of Control on my TBR) in the past, but I had such fun with this adult thriller, I immediately bought her previous thriller, In Her Eyes.

At first you think it’s just a new version of the lost weekend then things get messier and messier. Trying to make people as anxious as she is sure something is wrong sets Orla on the trail to remember what happened the night her life long friend Kate disappeared. It is gripping in its fear of loss and frustrating in the ambivalence of the authorities. At times you want to punch someone, and the twist is one I didn’t see coming. Happy reading

Sarah Alderson has captured the essence of friendship, added more than a touch of jealousy, stirred in a drop or two of fear and mixed it all up into a lethal cocktail that contains an explosive ending.

Looking for a quick-read popcorn thriller? This one might do the trick. It’s not gonna win any awards but it will entertain you for a few hours.

Orla has gone away for a weekend with her best friend of 20 years. She has a new baby so this is their first girls trip in awhile. They get to Lisbon, go to dinner and a club, start partying and mayhem ensues. Her friend is gone when she wakes up the next morning, no idea where she is.

Every other chapter you are convinced you know what happened, but then you don’t. What if it’s him? What if it’s this other guy? Secrets are revealed along the way but you literally don’t know the full truth until the last few pages.

This book seemed a little repetitive to me. I would have liked more character development especially with Orla and her husband. Some developments at the end of the story seemed out of the blue and needed a little more explanation.

I received an advance reader copy of this book to read in exchange for an honest review via netgalley and the publishers.

The weekend away is one of the best books I have read this year. An utterly compelling, twisty read that makes your head spin, your heart race and makes you suspect EVERYONE!

Orla and Kate have bern best friends for over two decades and go on a short weekend break to Lisbon in Portugal. Orla is looking forward to the break away from her baby and husband and Kate wants to party. One of them ends up missing and the chase is on to discover what really happened that night and who is responsible.

This book had me flying through pages to discover what happens next. And the ending left my heart in my mouth!
This is the first book of Sarah Alderson that I have had the pleasure of reading and I am hunting to get her other books ASAP!

The Weekend Away was ok. It wasn't written as well as I the thrillers I normally read. The cover didn't match the story at all. I think the main character was just so naive that it made it difficult to really like her at all. Just a bunch of shady people.

When two best friends take a weekend trip to Portugal, they think they'll be continuing their tradition of creating memories abroad. But everything goes horribly, terribly wrong when one of them goes missing.

This twisty-turny thriller was like riding a rollercoaster that gives you whiplash-I was never quite sure where it was going or how it was getting us there. There were several continuity errors, there were random almost romantic feelings towards a stranger thrown in, and odd little stereotypes peppered among the mystery. From the typical Latinx machismo stereotype to assuming the exact region someone is from based on their skin color alone.

And then there was the ending. That final, ridiculous twist that happened within the last page. And boom, it's just over. What? I didn't find that entertaining or satisfying at all. It felt very cheap and like an easy way to just attempt ending the book in a shocking manner.

I loved the fast pace of this book. I read it in 24 hours. I found Kate to be pretty appalling. She was a terrible friend and I couldn't figure out why Orla would want to spend time with her and leave her baby to go on a vacation with her druggy friend who no longer really fit into her life. I liked the Konstandin character the most and could see through the creepy Air BNB neighbor's rouse. It was pretty obvious he was taping them from the beginning. The baby was sort of a throw away character and the cover not matching the story line really bothered me. Other than those things, I think this is a great read for someone who wants a fast pace mystery while on their porch or vacation. 3.5

I enjoyed The Weekend Away—it was a fast paced thriller with lots of questions and several unreliable characters. As Orla searches for her best friend Kate who has disappeared during their girls getaway, we experience all her worry, bewilderment, then panic. Where could she be? What happened to her? What happened that night? Then as it dawns on her that the police actually suspect *her* in her friends disappearance, the stakes get even higher. She NEEDS to find Kate.
This is an entertaining page turner, the perfect beach read.

I bet you’ve all been there at one time or another and thought that a holiday with a best friend would be a fun idea. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t, and sometimes you find out some things about your bestie that you would never have guessed. Which makes for a pretty good premise for a novel, doesn’t it?

In the Russian roulette of bestie trips away, Orla was definitely on a losing streak. It’s obvious from Day 1 that whilst Orla has been living under a rock for the last twenty or so years of her life, best friend Kate has gone the other extreme. Travelling with a stash of drugs in her toiletry bag she is fully set on a weekend of partying and sleeping with random men, and she won’t take no for an answer when Orla pleads tiredness and a preference for an early night in her own bed. Things soon go from bad to worse as Orla succumbs to her spiked drink at the night club and comes to in her own bed – but with male company, and Kate nowhere to be found. I let you imagine the rest. Or, if you feel like a girls-trip-gone-wrong nightmare, pick up the book for yourself to find out more!

Even though the beachy book cover was deceiving – there wasn’t a beach mentioned anywhere in the story, and Orla was too busy agonising over her drunken escapades and her search for the missing Kate to even contemplate donning her cozzie – the Portugese setting immediately appealed to my travel starved mind. However, it wasn’t the sort of travel I had in mind. I would have preferred roaming Lisbon’s street and admiring the architecture and people watching in picturesque cafes rather than drudging through sleazy nightclubs to locate the missing bestie, but in times of quarantine beggars can’t be choosers, right? Even though I was somewhat comforted that at least the dodgy airbnb experience has been avoided this year. But I digress. THE WEEKEND AWAY was for me what some bloggers have termed a “popcorn read”, i.e. sit back with a glass of wine and some popcorn and enjoy watching the characters stumble headlong into disaster.

Books like this work best with characters that fit certain stereotypes and which you can picture quite clearly in your mind, just as if they were projected there onto the big screen. Orla, the anxious and naive forty-something first time mum who follows her extroverted worldly friend around trustingly. It was a bit strange that she was blissfully unaware of Kate’s real nature whilst everyone else in her life had no illusions about that whatsoever! Kate, divorcee, party-girl, rule breaker, and not as trustworthy as Orla thinks. Konstantin, a Bosnian uber driver with a Schwarzenegger-ish physique and accent to boot, who is taking little Orla under his wings. A creepy airbnb landlord. A couple of suspicious Portugese detectives. It all worked well to entertain and to lead us down the garden path to a somewhat surprising finale. It would have been more surprising had it been left to my own inept detective skills, but a Sherlock in our buddy read group pointed out the likely culprit very early on and was proven right in the end - *applause*.

All in all, THE WEEKEND AWAY was a fast, entertaining popcorn read that made for the perfect buddy read as we all enjoyed comparing theories. Of course mine was way off, but that didn’t make it any less fun. Personally, I would have liked a bit more sense of place and a couple of things niggled me (such as Konstantin’s perfect and well articulated dialogue when it was pointed out several times that he struggled with English), but in the end I went with the flow and enjoyed the journey anyway. Choose it for those times when you don’t want anything too in-depth and are just craving some good entertainment. Thank you to #thechestnutgals for choosing another fun group read!

This is a really good thriller, which makes you guess what's happened constantly.

It's about two women who have been friends for years, who decide to go away for a weekend in Lisbon.

Things start off with a nice dinner and then a trip to a bar after and then things get confusing a ugly for them.

When one of the women wakes up the next morning, her friend has disappeared.

For the woman left, suspicious and lost, she seeks to find out the truth

Thank you Netgalley and Publisher for ARC

I didn't lovevthis thriller. I saw a lot of the plot development coming so it wasn't very engaging. I found myself guessing what was going to happen before it did.

This might be a good thriller if you aren't used to reading thrillers.

I received an eARC of The Weekend Away by Sarah Alderson from Avon Books UK and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you!
4 stars! This thriller was well written, with a solid storyline. Definitely worth the read!