Reading Between the Wines book review #38/115 for 2021:
Rating: 4 🍷 🍷 🍷 🍷
Book: The Weekend Away
Author: Sarah Alderson
Genre: General Fiction (Adult) | Mystery & Thrillers
RELEASES on April 13, 2021!!! GET YOUR OWN COPY TODAY!!
Recommended to readers who like a good thrilling mystery with a few twists and reveals.

Sipping thoughts: Reading this book a year after Covid hit us hard, made me yearn to also be able to go on a girl’s weekend with my friends. But let me tell you, if and when I go, I hope I do not have a weekend like Orla! What was supposed to be a nice weekend with her best friend and time away from being a new mother, turns into a horrible nightmare. I loved the pace of this story. I did not feel it dragged or left any unturned stone. While I guessed what happened to Kate then guessed again, lol. I do not feel like it was so farfetched that another reader couldn’t figure it out. I finished this book in just a few days, eager to solve the mystery. The last part was aaagggghhhh!!! It had me shaking my head and smiling at the same time.

Cheers and thank you to @NetGalley, @sarahaldersonauthor and @Harper360 for an advanced copy of @TheWeekendAway

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A how-to manual for going from mom to murder suspect is a handful of unwise decisions. Mmm. Mmm. Mmm. The choices we make. Orla leaves baby Marlow with her husband Rob for a weekend getaway with best friend Kate. It all starts off well in Lisbon and their gorgeous Air BNB flat, but it doesn't take long for the entire trip to implode. After a night of dinner and clubbing, there is only one friend left in the flat. Orla is desperate to find Kate, certain there has been foul play. Why do so many of the people around her seem to disregard her worries? Why does Orla feel like she is swimming upstream? This was a page-turner and I was often surprised by the twists and turns of the plot. What surprised me most is the fact that Orla never once consulted a lawyer and/or the British embassy for assistance. She ran around in circles quite a bit -- not always her own fault to be sure. I also thought this book really made the police in Lisbon look terribly incompetent. Fair or not fair? I have never been there, but I would like to give them the benefit of a doubt since I have a husband and son in law enforcement. So, a hearty four read-this-on-vacation stars for this new thriller. Perfect for fans of T.M. Logan ('The Vacation') and Alex Berenson ('The Power Couple').

Thank you to Avon and NetGalley for a DRC in exchange for an honest review.

Not sure where to start.....this book is full of twists and turns - and definitely keeps you on your toes! I enjoyed this book while on my “Spring Break Vacation” - so you could say I was spending a Weekend Away! This was a perfect vacation read! The story wasn’t overly complicated and at some points predictable but I definitely enjoyed it and recommend it! This book is part mystery, part romance, part comp.I cared friendships, and part thriller! I constantly felt like I was the main character and thinking about what I would do next! This is a fast passed book that keeps you turning the page.

What I enjoyed most about this book, is that I have been thinking about it every day since I finished it a week ago.

Wow, I still don’t know how I am feeling about this book, in a good way! Swept up in the fun of a weekend away with her best friend Orla’s vacation turns in to a nightmare. Parts of this book were a little slow moving, but overall it was a great read with many twists and turns to keep the reader guessing and the pages turning. I will be looking for more books by Sarah Alderson in the further.

We all have that one friend....fun to be around, life of the party, friends forever who we know everything about. Or do we? Orla and Kate have been friends for years. They’ve enjoyed many a girls getaway together. This is the first one in a while, since Orla became a Mom and Kate’s divorce. They are looking forward to a beautiful long weekend in Lisbon, girl time, sight seeing, a AIRBNB with a view. But, this time, things just seem off and the first night goes from bad to worse and Orla is thrown into an unbelievably stressful situation...waking the next morning hungover with no memory of the night before and Kate is missing. What happens in a few days will change her life forever.

I flew thru this book. It pulled me in and kept me in the story till the ending. Great beach read or me time book. Characters were well written, realistic for their situations. You could so feel Orla’s pain and fear throughout the book. Everything she knows and loves is put into question. Who can she depend on?

Thanks to Ms. Anderson, Harper 360 and NetGalley for this ARC. Opinion is mine alone

I really enjoyed The Weekend Away. It started slow but as soon as Orla and Kate set out on their crazy night in Lisbon , my pulse quickened. I’m pretty sure it didn’t come down until I finished the book. I had my suspicions about what was happening but I was still surprised at the end. My favorite character was Konstantin, the Uber driver. He needs his own book. I will definitely be looking for more books by this author.

The Weekend Away is a pitch-perfect thriller. Kate and Orla head out of town on a girls’ trip that quickly turns sour when Kate is nowhere to be found the morning after a night of drinking and debauchery. From there the story takes so many quick twists and turns I was truly on the edge of my seat and couldn’t flip the pages fast enough. The easy-to-read writing style and twisty story makes this a great choice of thrillers to read this summer.

There were a couple continuity errors I noticed that I think are due to this being an unfinished copy. Thank you to Avon and NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

I was pleasantly surprised with this suspenseful psychological thriller. The cover didn't exactly draw me in, but it was all about the description. A trip with a best friend in a different country? Something I could completely imagine (in a different time than this last year). A total page turner. Lots of twists and misdirections for the reader. I enjoyed the build up of the characters, the setting and piecing together all the little clues left along the way.

2 friends go on a trip to Lisbon. They used to have regular trips, but with Orla becoming a mother, these trips have kind of fallen to the wayside. But "good time" Kate needs her friend with all she is going through and Orla will always be there. The basis of this story is one that a lot of people can connect with. But it's what happens after a night out with a good time friend that pushes beyond what either of them expected.

The Weekend Away was a book that I couldn't put down. I had to keep flipping those pages to find out what was going to happen next and who Orla was going to trust. The setting, the people, the sketchy characters, all the small bread crumbs left for us to follow? It was a thrilling ride. While the ending wasn’t my favorite, the book itself was well written and executed and left room for maybe a follow up.

Kate and Orla have been best friends for most of their lives. The girls promised one another that they will always make time for an annual girls trip each year, but life got in the way the past few years. So, their girls weekend to Lisbon is long overdue.

But, on their first night out, things get out of hand and when Orla wakes up in the morning, Kate is missing.

The Weekend Away kept me hooked from the start. The story is a typical mystery/thriller but I thought the author did a fantastic job of leaving the reader clues along the way, keeping things exciting, and developing the characters.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a good mystery. I was pleasantly surprised with the “who-dun-it” aspect of the book, and did not see the ending coming.

Thanks to Netgalley, Sarah Alderson and Avon for the eArc in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was the first book I've read of this author's and I really enjoyed it. Fast paced with a couple of twists, it really kept my attention.

Orla and Kate have been the best of friends and have faced many struggles together. Kate books them a trip to Lisbon for a little getaway....little does Orla know that Kate has a secret.

While there, they go to a bar, and meet a couple of men who they take back to their flat. What happens next, Orla can't believe. Kate is missing and she has no idea where she is...is she alive? Dead?

While I did end up knowing in the end of who was involved, it wasn't a firm belief until the very end since the author made me question with a couple of twists.

Enjoyed this book. Looking forward to reading the author's other novels.

Best friends Orla and Kate go to Lisbon for a girls' weekend. After a night out clubbing, Orla wakes up the next morning to discover Kate is missing. Trying to locate her friend proves difficult with Orla not speaking Portuguese, not remembering what happened the night before and not knowing where to start. Add to the mix an unhelpful police force, an Uber driver from Kosovo, the creepy landlord, Orla's husband, Kate's ex (or is he?) and the two male escorts....Orla has a lot of people that she is suspicious of.

A tad predictable but quite twisty and the ending was a bit of a surprise. I try not to predict what's going to happen next but was able to a couple of times in this book. First time reading this author and will be checking out her other books.

I wish I liked this book a lot better than I did. Everything excited me a both this story and I couldn’t wait to read. I struggled with the story in parts and was also confused at times. Hopefully others give this a read and form their own opinions.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the Advanced Reader Copy.

When I read the premise of this book I had high hopes for more of an adventure. All in all this book was fine, it just fell flat for me. It felt almost repetitive at some points, and some of Orla's choices just seemed unrealistic for how her character was set up in the beginning.

There was also a point where Orla couldn't remember a fact from the night before, but, then she said/thought it and then in the next paragraph she was back to not knowing and then she had the big "Ah-ha" moment of remembering. Maybe I didn't understand it correctly but it didn't make any sense.

This was a quick read, I had to know what happened in the end!

In my opinion, this book is mediocre. It was little slow & not very believable. I did push through & finish it though. And I would try another book by Sarah Alderson to see if she changes it up.

Orla and Kate have been best friends forever. Together they’ve faced it all – be it Orla’s struggles as a new mother or Kate’s messy divorce. And whatever else happens in their lives, they can always look forward to their annual weekend away.

This year, they’re off to Lisbon: the perfect flat, the perfect view, the perfect itinerary. And what better way to kick things off in style than with the perfect night out?

But when Orla wakes up the next morning, Kate is gone. Brushed off by the police and with only a fuzzy memory of the night’s events, Orla is her friend’s only hope. As she frantically retraces their steps, Orla makes a series of shattering discoveries that threaten everything she holds dear. Because while Lisbon holds the secret of what happened that night, the truth may lie closer to home…

The Weekend Away is a slow start psychological thriller. A thrilling plot, a host of questionable characters that Sarah Alderson does a great job of keeping her reader guessing, a main character that became an unreliable narrator as we got deeper into the story and a whole of lot of secrets, lies and deceit, makes this such a twisty, suspenseful read! Thanks Netgalley and the publisher for the advance ecopy.

If you like stories in which you're never sure which characters are on the up and up, you'll probably love this one. It begins when besties Kate and Orla head off for a weekend of fun in Lisbon. They've done similar adventures before, but for Orla, this one's a real treat: after a trying time with infertility treatments, she and her husband Rob have finally become parents, upending her life (mostly in a good way) and making her more eager than usual to get out in the world.

So when Kate insists on hitting the night life, Orla doesn't resist - until Kate starts to get a bit carried away and hits on a couple of guys in a bar. For Orla, that's all she wrote until morning, when she wakes up in a fog with virtually no memories of what happened but a feeling that something went terribly wrong. Worse, she can't even ask Kate what happened; she's gone missing. But when she starts asking questions, no one - not Orla's husband Rob, who's back home in London watching their infant daughter, nor the Lisbon police - will take Orla seriously. Only one person, the women's Uber driver Konstandin, believes as Orla does - that something terrible has happened to Kate. But really, he's a total stranger, and one who may have ties to the Russian mafia as well. So can he be trusted?

Little by little, readers learn what really happened and who did what and when - and often, it's surprising. So, too, is the ending - which if I'm being totally honest, wasn't very satisfying to me. But it does fit with the rest of the story, which I very much enjoyed, so far be it from me to complain. Thanks to the publisher, via NetGalley, for providing me with a pre-release copy to read and review.

Two friends go on a holiday. Only one comes back.

Orla and Kate. Friends forever. In different phases of life - Orla has a new baby, Kate is going through a divorce. But they decide a weekend away is what they both need.

But it's far more than Orla bargained for when she wakes up to find Kate missing. The adventure she goes on to find her friend has many twists, turns, secrets and surprises. And just when you think you know what happened - maybe you don't!

A good suspense novel and I will look into more by this new to me author!

Thanks to NetGalley and Avon Books UK for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Orla is a new mother, and she is looking forward to a weekend away with her old friend Kate. But it doesn't take her long to realize that she and Kate's worlds are now very different. Kate wants to party with the two good looking men they have met at the bar but Orla just wants to go home and go to bed. And why does she feel so drunk? She knows she didn't drink that much. The next morning she awakes to find that Kate has disappeared. She spends the day searching for Kate and as the day unfolds she realizes something is very wrong and that Kate's disappearance is very troubling. Orla is very inventive in trying to solve the mystery of Kate's disappearance and she is greatly helped by the Uber driver from the night before, Konstantine. As clues appear Orla begins to realize she didn't know Kate at all, and that she may be surrounded by lies. I enjoyed the fast pace of this story and the characters were well drawn out. The drama kept me interested and I sped through the reading of this story. There is a twist at the end which I kind of debated over whether I liked it or not. Hellespont, this book kept me guessing and kept my interest until the end. Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with this ARC, and the author Sarah Alderson and her publisher for allowing me to read this ARC.

⭐⭐⭐ for this one, folks and I'm still kind of hovering about it. I just don't think it was my cup of tea.

The Weekend Away is a fast-paced adult thriller focusing on a pair of friends who run away for a holiday in Lisbon together for some much-deserved rest and relaxation. Kate is rich, beautiful, and now very much on her way to divorced and looking to spread her wings. Orla is a new mother who is struggling with all of the new aspects of her life, her body, and her own mind. A holiday is just what these two childhood friends needed. But when Kate disappears, Orla searches desperately for her, following a near-nonexistent trail of breadcrumbs to find out what happened to her friend and clear her own name in the process.

There are times I find I am just not in the mood for a certain type of book. I like to put them down and come back later with fresh eyes to give them a fair shot because sometimes, it really is just me. Unfortunately, I came back to this several times and find that more than anything, the theme of this story is Envy.

I feel like this book is a perfect example of why a lot of people can struggle with the Adult genre as a whole. It is tiring to open an Adult novel and hear nothing but how unhappy grown-up life is. How people hate themselves, or their friends, or their children and spouses, how the world turns to a dull grey and there is no more happiness to be found, and it breeds jealousy and contempt so powerful that it often spills over into—all of this.

I read enough of the genre to know that some of these things are there for a reason. Content people don't usually turn to murder, but the sheer extent of Orla's jealousy of every single existing facet of Kate was exhausting and led me to wonder why they were friends at all if she disliked her so much. Orla was exceedingly naive, but her penchant for melodrama was what continuously threw me out of the story. If there was a trope to be found, it was thrown into this thing, and the execution had me rolling my eyes more than it had me excited to see the ending. The final 'gut-punch" was overshadowed almost entirely, once again, by Orla's dramatic and insincere-seeming reactions to her own thoughts. I just...It wasn't my thing.

Lovers of the genre and the juicy, campy, betrayal-based type of thriller will definitely enjoy this and I know it definitely will continue to find its audience. This one hits the shelves on 13 April 2021!

My thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for granting me this ARC in exchange for my honesty review.

You won’t want to put this one down. Two best friends on a getaway have a great time until one goes missing. Pleas to the local authorities for help are ignored. What does one do next?