Member Reviews

Fran's sister Jenna went missing on a wellness retreat in Malta. Tom Wade runs the wellness retreats, aided by his powerhouse of a wife Kate, who markets him and is the engine behind the operation, making everything happen.

Tom has recently been released from prison, following the debacle in Malta, and so Fran books herself onto the retreat in Wales, at her mother's request, hoping to discover what happened to her sister.

The story is narrated by Kate, Fran and Jenna. Numerous characters are introduced, and there are a few red herrings along the way, which is to be expected. What carried the story for me was Fran - I really liked her as a character, and she actually made me laugh out loud at times. Kate's voice is full of ambition and bile. It's a bit of a romp. Not the best of its genre, but entertaining.

With thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a pre published copy in return for an honest review.

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Jenna disappeared on a retreat in Gozo ran by soulshrink. Fran, her sister, is talked into visiting a retreat ran by the same people, by her mother to find out what exactly happened to Jenna.

An interesting concept, lots of characters that all seem suspicious.

I didn’t guess what was going on or what happened to Jenna.

Not my most favourite book from CL Taylor. But an enjoyable read nonetheless.

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Her Last Holiday by C.L. Taylor

****This ARC was provided by NetGalley for a free and honest review.**** Fran’s sister, Jenna, went missing after she went on a spiritual retreat in Gozo lead by Tom Wade. Two other people died in the same retreat and Tom has just been released from prison. He is offering healing retreats again so Fran books herself a spot in order to find out more about Tom and ask questions about her missing sister. I really liked this book. The suspense and suspicious characters had me guessing what truly happened until the very end! Definitely put this on your to read list if you love a good suspense novel. Mark your calendar because it publishes on April 29, 2021.

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Another great book from C.L. Taylor. The book starts in the present and then moves between the past and present to build the story. Loved the way the story built slowly and kept you guessing. There were some creepy/sinister characters and some working out to do to figure who people were as their name in the past is not always the same as that in the present.

Thank you to NetGalley & Avon Books UK for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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I really didn't like this book. Totally unbelievable. I hated the characters. Why would anyone send their daughter to a potentially dangerous place and why would the daughter take notice of a mother who has never shown any interest in them previously! I've always liked C.L. Taylors books but felt this one was very poor.
Thanks to NetGalley for my copy.

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Another really enjoyable read from C L Taylor! I thought this was quite different in style to Sleep and Strangers, but brilliant in a completely new way. The storytelling was excellent and there are some really clever twists and turns along the way. Characters are really well written, I definitely believed they were real people by the end - especially Jenna and Tom. Very immersive, mysterious and a little bit creepy! Loved it.

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This is a cleverly constructed story that drew me in from the beginning. It is told from the perspective of three different women who are central to the plot. A good suspense novel that is full of twisting intertwined storylines. No-one on the retreat is who they appear to be.
Thank you to NetGalley and Avon Books for the advance copy.

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"Her Last Holiday" by CL Taylor ticks all the mystery/thriller boxes that make it an enjoyable read.. The characters are likeable, you want Fran to find out what happened to Jenna, and want to see why Tom ended up in prison in the first place. The nice touch is the "rebirthing" which means you aren't sure who is who until the character names are put together. Clever but makes me sad that I never did get to Gozo, because of the pandemic.

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Does this book has the most believable plot? No. Are the character’s motivations strong enough to justify their actions throughout the book? Not really. Was this an engaging and fun story that kept me turning the pages compulsively until the final twist? Hell, yes!

Although this is not a traditional mystery/thriller in the sense of the main character investigating and discovering clues, I was totally engrossed since page one, never being sure of where the story was going or what twist would come next. Though not action packed, the characters more than make up for it, especially Fran and her character arc. The only minor issue I have is that, after the climax when the villain is revealed, the last chapters drag a bit and are a bit too saccharine.

This is only my second C.L. Taylor and I can’t wait to dive into her backlist.

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Picture a time in your life, if you would. You’re thisclose to a nervous breakdown, and your family is as helpful as a court summons — they’re the root cause of all your problems anyway. What are you to do? You’re going to need help, right? A little counselling will go a long way, but you just need to find the right people to guide you. So the internet becomes your friend, and very soon you’ve signed up to a few days in the sun with like-minded messed-up individuals, ready to throw caution to the wind and your worries into the sea. Sounds ideal, doesn’t it? Well, it would be, if you didn’t end up missing, presumed dead, with your life coach in prison for negligent homicide. This is what happened to Jenna Fitzgerald.

Jenna joins a group called ShrinkSoul, a self-help organisation run by Tom Wade and his wife Kate. They’re a kind of internet sensation who supposedly help people in crisis to attain better control over themselves and their lives. Tom oozes charisma and is the handsome face of ShrinkSoul. Kate runs the business and micro-manages her husband every step of the way. Jenna is attracted to what they have to offer, as well has being drawn to Tom in other ways. Her Last Holiday, the latest psychological thriller from bestselling author C.L. Taylor (The Fear, Sleep, Strangers), is a fast-moving, page-turning read that examines, amidst the confusion and drama, how domestic violence, whether physical, verbal, or both, turns lives upside down and make the most confident person in the room tremble at the very mention of ‘family’.

The story begins with Tom being released from a two-year stretch behind bars due to the accidental deaths of two people at a retreat on the Mediterranean island of Gozo, off the coast of Malta. Jenna went missing, and the coroner confirmed that she more than likely took her own life. No one was ever charged with her disappearance. Kate, meanwhile, has had to start from scratch, but she sees an opportunity to take advantage of Tom’s release and pretty soon they’re both back in the self-help business. Jenna’s sister Fran is sent by her mother Geraldine to investigate the new organisation, and tasked with finding out exactly what happened to Jenna. She’s been booked to participate in a retreat in Wales.

Her Last Holiday is told in three distinct points of view. Fran is the leading character and we learn a lot about her and her relationships with Jenna and her family as we go along. Jenna’s voice comes from just before her disappearance; we meet her as she and her fellow travellers-in-life land in Malta. Kate is the last PoV. Her story is complex, and we see her working through her post-trial anxiety, welcoming her husband back home, and then immediately kickstarting the organisation once more. Her story within Her Last Holiday is, for me, the one I found the most engrossing. Overall, though, the different perspectives and changes of tense worked throughout.

The twists (for there are always twists), when they come, are earned. Some you’ll see coming; others you won’t. But my favourite parts of the book were the one-to-one therapy sessions. Despite lying about herself to get there, Fran opens up to Tom about her life, and we learn about the dominant and oftentimes abusive figure of her and Jenna’s mother Geraldine. The supporting characters are decently fleshed out, and more than a few of them are relevant to the plot. I enjoyed reading about Phoenix, Joy, Renata, and Damian. If I take one thing from reading C.L. Taylor’s book, it’s that while we’re all a little messed up, we are so mainly because of family.

I received a free copy of Her Last Holiday from NetGalley and the publishers, in return for an honest review.

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Tom Wade is the face of SoulShrink – a self-help counselling programme that aims to help people work through their anxieties and worries on luxurious spiritual retreats. Or he was until two years ago, when on a SoulShrink retreat in Gozo, two guests were killed and one vanished, ultimately ruled a suicide. Tom was arrested and sent to prison, leaving a decimated company in his wake. Now, two years later, Tom has been released from prison, and his wife, Kate, is determined to help him rebuild his empire.

Fran Fitzgerald is the sister of the woman who disappeared on the SoulShrink retreat two years previously. She harbours feelings of guilt about how she treated Jenna in her final interactions with her, and Fran wonders whether things would have been different if she had just listened to Jenna more. Tom Wade’s release from prison and the subsequent announcement of a new SoulShrink retreat sends Fran’s mother, Geraldine, into overdrive: she has never forgiven Tom for the role he and his company played in her daughter’s death, and she wants to get to the bottom of it all. Geraldine convinces Fran to go on this retreat to discover what happened to Jenna, and to bring the person responsible to account. When Fran starts to investigate, though, she realizes that there was much more to Jenna’s death than she ever believed possible.

Her Last Holiday is my first book by C.L. Taylor, although somehow I have been following her on Twitter for ages. So, when I was given an ARC for this book, I was extremely excited. I had seen the marketing for this book, and when I read the back-cover blurb, I was fairly excited to see how this book played out. Suffice to say, I was not disappointed.

Taylor has crafted a compelling mystery told from the points of view of three equally intriguing women: two from the present day, and one from two years previously. The characters were each developed enough to have their own voices and outlooks, and I thought they had been well fleshed-out for the purposes of the story. The multiple points of view were used effectively to build tension in the mystery, and I thought that the dual timeline aspect of the book worked well.

What I will say, though, is that I thought the book was a little bit unbelievable. I acknowledge that a book is generally meant to be escapism, but I found some of the twists that this book took to be slightly eyebrow-raising, and I didn’t buy into all of them. Weirdly, I saw the final twist coming a while away as the “wouldn’t it be ridiculous if …” twist I imagined for the book. Turns out, it was right! This being said, though, I think the plot moved along at a good pace, and as much as the plot points might have needed you to suspend belief in reality for a moment or two, I think the storytelling was compelling enough for me to overlook these and just get swept away with the story.

The writing style was easy to read and follow, and the storytelling was tight and compact. There were maybe parts of the book where it could have been cut slightly shorter, but all in all, I thought that the book stood well on its own and I could clearly see why C.L. Taylor is popular as an author. The characters were multi-faceted, the mystery was compelling, and I thought the structure of the book was great. I raced through the book, both desperate to find out how it ended as well as not really wanting it to end.

I will absolutely be looking out for more C.L. Taylor books in the future, and am glad there is a fairly good backlist for me to work my way through. I really enjoyed this book and will definitely be picking up more of what Taylor writes in the future.

Thanks to NetGalley and Avon Books UK for the ARC in exchange for a review.

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Enough to put you off self-help retreats for LIFE. Brilliant, confusing at times - so many double up names - this is a really smart and exciting thriller which illustrates the importance of sister-love. No retreats for me thank you, keep your sweat boxes and trust falls, I’ll stay emotional and safe!

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This was a fairly intriguing thriller but it fell a little flat in some places. The characters didn’t feel fully developed. I also couldn’t believe that after just a few meetings, Jenna and Tom were ready to run away together. I didn’t see the twist coming so it kept me on my toes but the plot as a whole could have been more developed.

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I've read a few of CL Taylor's books & really enjoyed them, but sadly this one wasn't really for me. The story was good but I found it difficult to like any of the characters so didn't feel as invested in the outcome. I liked the build up to the reveal but personally I wasn't a fan of the ending.

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This is the first C L Taylor book I’ve read and I’ve heard a lot about her work.

Fran’s sister, Jenna, went on a retreat two years ago and disappeared. The person running the retreat was imprisoned for negligence due to the death of two guests on the same retreat. Wanting to find out more about what happened to her sister, Fran signs up to a retreat run by the same man, who has been released from prison.

Her writing is super easy to read (and as somebody writing her own book, it is not easy to make a book easy to read). I got through this in two days. It would make a great holiday read for sure.

The book is told from the perspective of Fran (current), Jenna (past) and Kate (current). The book flips between all three perspectives pretty seamlessly and there’s no confusion.

I didn’t see the ending coming and it was a good twist. I’m not sure how realistic the ending was and so that stops it being a 5 star read for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Her Last Holiday is out on 29 April 2021.

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A slow burning, and well-constructed psychological thriller, “Her Last Holiday” was my first CL Taylor novel, and I admit it won’t be my last. At times frustrating, gripping and horrifying, it certainly turned out to be a page-turner.

Two years ago, Fran’s sister Jenna went missing while on a wellness retreat, the third victim of unexplained disappearances. Soon after, the retreat closed and the owner was sent to prison. Now, following his release, and still without closure, her parents desperately want to find out what happened, so Fran agrees to visit his new retreat in Wales to find out what actually happened.

What follows is a tense, somewhat drawn out tale, told largely from the viewpoint of Jenna, in the past and Fran, in the present. We meet a collection of strange and flawed characters, most of whom are using the retreat to help recover from various traumas they have experienced. I thoroughly enjoyed how these characters were drawn and used to explore a number of issues arising from self-help groups. The fact they in turn made me angry, sad, frustrated and despairing shows how well Taylor developed them.

The couple running the retreat are nasty, we suspect purely in it for the money, and clearly exploit the visitors. We share some of the counselling sessions they run, which are fascinating. The wife, Kate, is a classic baddie and we also get some of the story from her perspective, which adds a third element to the narrative.

There are flavours of an Agatha Christie whodunit here, with red herrings, dysfunctional families, and a mix of characters any one of which could be the baddie. There’s enough twists and turn to satisfy the most jaded fan. I have to admit to becoming slightly tired of the multiple timeline format that many authors now adopt, but in this case, it didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the book.

I’m sure CL Taylor fans will lap this book up, and new readers who pick it up will not be disappointed either.

A few continuity errors crept into my NetGalley ARC, and hopefully these will be corrected by the time the book is published.

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This was a brilliantly plotted, gripping book and typical Cally Taylor quality. I loved the premise of the book and the main character Fran and I read it in two sittings. I found the twists and turns really good and the description and imagery in the book were brilliantly done. I'm a real fan of Cally's work and I wasn't disappointed with this latest offering.
Believable well drawn characters, interesting themes, twists I didn't guess with a sprinkling of Cally Taylor's magic storytelling! What more could you want?
I would highly recommend this.
Thank you to the publisher, the author and NetGalley for my early copy.

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What I most enjoyed about this book was the different female perspectives from which the story was written, The book had a good premise and a great setting.

There were a lot of characters to keep track of and two different time frames. The book kept me guessing and at numerous times, I blamed two or three different characters for the main character's disappearance. The heart of the book.

The ending was quite drawn out, but the book same to a satisfying conclusion. I would recommened this novel to someone who likes thrillers and books told from different perspectives. I will read another book by this author.

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I loved the concept and was quickly pulled in by the suspicious characters, unsettling atmosphere and the mystery of what had happened to Jenna. Outspoken and determined Fran was a refreshing protagonist and perfectly suited to the challenge. While I did anticipate the big twist, I admired the way it was done and there were plenty of other things that kept me guessing. A compelling read!

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I think this is CL Taylor’s best book yet. It is a gripping read from start to finish. The story of Tom, leading a self help group, and Jenna, who went missing at the last retreat he ran on the island of Gozo. I really enjoyed it. The people on the retreat are a diverse group with interesting back stories.

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