Fran’s sister is missing presumed dead. Jenna disappeared three years ago following a retreat in Malta. Fran has felt guilt since about not being there when her sister needed her. When their domineering mother sees a retreat run by the same organisation, she forces Fran to go with a view to finding out what she can about the disappearance.
And so, the madness begins. Kate and Tom, who run the company have their issues with each other and everyone else. This is the first retreat in three years, and she needs it to go well. Fran soon realises the dangers involved in the outdoor trust exercises and is struggling to get any of the information she came for.
There is never a dull moment in Her Last Holiday. If you need to wonder if any of this story is likely, then you are reading the wrong book. That said, it is well written and well researched, just in the event that this series of events could actually occur. I enjoyed the ride and am grateful to Netgalley UK and Avon Books UK

What a great read! I've come to expect solid storylines and well woven threads throughout from C.L. Taylor and this book did not disappoint. The right amount of mystery, thriller and intrigue to create a very enjoyable 4 star read.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

I've read a few of this author's books now and always enjoy them. Good plots and a fast pace are standard and this is no exception but I found the ending a bit rushed and unsatisfactory this time. Too many loose ends that I wanted answered, in particular what happened to two of the main characters.
Not my favourite but still a good read.

During a spiritual retreat hosted by the enigmatic SoulShrink Tom Wade, two people die and one goes missing. This terrible tragedy lands Tom in jail.
Fran's sister, Jenna, is the one who went missing, and Fran blames herself for not being there for her emotionally fragile sister. Maybe if she had been, Jenna wouldn't have went on the retreat.

Two years later, Tom is released from prison and hosting another spiritual retreat.
Due to her mother's insistence and the weight of her own guilt, Fran decides to join the retreat and find out exactly what happened to Jenna all those years ago.

This story is more than meets the eye!
I thought it'd be a fast-paced psychological thriller about a charismatic cult leader. And while it is, it's so much more meaningful than that. It was also a poignant exploration of emotional manipulation, toxic family relationships and acceptance.

But perhaps the most captivating aspect of this story is the rich and complex characterization. All the characters (including side characters) are well displayed with strong emotional depth and character growth.

This is the most well-written and engaging book I've read in awhile.
Highly recommend for fans of psychological thrillers.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoy C.L Taylor books and yet to read one I didn’t enjoy so I was eagerly looking forward to this one. Another excellent gripping novel that will have you racing through the pages to find out what is going to happen.

Fran’s sister Jenna disappeared two years ago on a wellness retreat in Gozo that went terribly wrong. The man behind the retreats, Tom Wade was recently released from prison after serving his sentence for the deaths of two people. But he has never let on what happened to the third victim, Jenna.

Fran is desperate to uncover the truth and books herself onto the retreat under a pseudonym so that she can come face to face with Tom Wade and find out what really happened to her sister. There is a lot of emotion surrounding the events of two years ago and a desire for the truth to remain hidden.

The only question is, will she escape the retreat alive? Or does someone out there want Jenna’s secrets to stay hidden?

The 400 pages in this book go so quickly due to the fact you will be unable to put the book down. Fascinating characters, good twists and a suspenseful finale.

I would like to thank both Netgalley and Avon Books UK for supplying a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

This is my very first waltz with the author! Suspicious deaths, missing sister at a wellness retreat, mental gurus or charlatans with deep secrets, dysfunctional family members who are obsessed to know what really happened the daughter/ sister, narrated by three different vivid women characters, alternating between past and present: this formula truly worked for me!

Here are our three POVs: middle aged Fran is still haunted from her sister’s memory who has been missing for two years. She attended to wellness retreat in Gozo but so many things went dangerously wrong! Thanks to the pressure and guilt tripping of her miserable parents who lost rest of their sanities after sudden disappearance of their young daughter, Fran attends to the same retreat because the same health guru couple Tom and Kate reopen the place after Tom has been set free from two years long prison time.

As she digs more about the past, she gets more tangle into web of lies. ( did I tell you there were so many spooky supporting characters in this book act like innocent but keeping their own secret agendas to themselves?)

Jenna is the sweet sister who attended the retreat where so many strange and unexplainable things started to occur incessantly as like she’s been trapped into a classic claustrophobic Christie story!

And Kate is the wife and resilient assistant of Tom who tries to keep together after murder accusations ruined their lives financially and mentally. She works hard to manage their ruined reputation but it’s not gonna be so easy and her lovely husband is not such a good help when he’s still stuck with the memories of Jenna.

You keep asking yourself as you observe several counseling sessions of these health gurus: are they conmen or are they really talented soul shakers who help the people get through their mental problems?

Both of the characters keep secrets and as they discover more lies of each other’s, they never hesitate to use them as leverage. It was a truly entertaining to be witnessed of their power game as if watching a challenging tennis game !

Overall: it was one of my quickest read with very unique and well developed characters! I think I enjoyed spending my time in their heads more than reading the mystery part of the story!

I’m giving four mysterious, dangerous retreat, lies, games, hidden agendas, delicious twist stars!

I’m so happy this book put this brilliant author on my radar. I cannot wait to read the lord works of her.

Special thanks to NetGalley and Avon Books UK for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest opinions.

This book was really good. Lots of misdirection and suspense. I’m a recent reader of this author and I am going to read all the books in the back catalogue. This author is quickly becoming one of my favourites.

After Fran’s sister Jenna disappeared on a retreat in a foreign country she tried to find out what really happened. Two years later, Fran has the opportunity to go on the same retreat. Her Last Holiday is the story of how Fran tries to dig deeper into what really happened to her sister. The police said it was suicide but the actions of the retreat leaders Tom and Kate suggest they have something to hide. As Fran pieces together what happened she finds herself in a twisted web of lies and betrayals. I would recommend this book to other readers.

I received an advance copy of, Her Last Holiday, by C.L. Taylor. I did not care for this book, the subject or the characters, or the language.

Amazing story. Well developed characters that are in a twisted engrossing thriller. Highly recommended. Super suspense that comes to a satisfying end! Highly recommended . A true roller coaster thrill ride

As always, this author totally brings the atmospheric thriller to its peak! The heroine is trying to solve the mystery of what had happened to her sister while on a retreat, and is not afraid of the dangers in her path...

Thanks Netgalley for allowing me to read this book. Fran's sister Jenna disappeared mire than two years ago after attending a retreat. T om who was recently released from jail is a person of interest in her disappearance. The list of suspects keeps growing. This book kept me guessing from the beginning.

This book is told through the perspectives of three pivotal women in the story and moves back and forth between the past and present. There are a handful of good twists and turns, although not necessarily a "keep reading even though your eyes are shutting" type of book. Overall, a good easy read.

This was my first book of Taylor and won’t be the last one. This is a slow burn mystery, hooked me from the first page. Secrets were revealed at appropriate moments and nothing prepared me for the innumerable twists in the last quarter.

Fran’s sister Jenna has gone on a wellness retreat in Gozo island run by self-help guru Tom and his assistant/wife Kate. Jenna along with the other two guests died there; their deaths have been ruled as unfortunate accidents, and Tom has been sentenced two years.

Present story starts two years after aforementioned events, Fran books herself for the retreat organized by the same people. Fran is on a mission to uncover what happened to Jenna. Three of the original guests also come to the retreat.

Told in Kate, Jenna and Fran’s perspective in short chapters alternating between present and past times at the retreats.

The motley crew of characters are the best feature of this book. They step on each other’s toes all the time, each one considers other as stupid, tries to exploit and falls flat on their face and this had me burst into cackles of laughter. Some characters come under false pretenses and hidden motives, always check their backs in order to avoid their covers being blown.

Loved how the main characters indulge in competition to unravel each other’s secrets. Watching this mad cap unfolding is so much fun. Enjoyed reading Fran’s POV for her no-nonsense approach. Kate is also strong and resilient.

Taylor’s writing is fluid and effortlessly deters confusion despite having quite a few characters in different timelines. I’ve pinned my suspicions on one particular character but was gob-smacked when Taylor wickedly unveiled the offenders.

The retreats at the beautiful isolated locations added a mysterious atmosphere.

Overall, a compelling mystery with well-developed characters. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed every second spent on it.

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

Thank you Net galley and Avon Books for the eARC.
Two years ago, in Gozo, at a wellness retreat, Fran's sister Jenna went missing.
Her parents are still devastated and want Fran to find out what happened. Not really sure she wants to, she gives in to her mother's pleas and goes to the new retreat in Wales. There she meets the motley group of the other retreaters and the couple who run it. Over the length of the book, we follow Fran in the present and Jenna two years ago.
It gets more and more intense as the story unfolds and the characters are fascinating, some appealing, but most of them are quite creepy.
When we finally find out what really happened, it's quite shocking with a great ending. Highly recommended!

I have read most books by this author and loved them all, unfortunately, I found this book underwhelming and struggled through 75% of it. It did all come together in the last 25% but still left me feeling disappointed.

Two years ago Fran's younger sister Jenna went to a wellness retreat in Gozo... but she never came home. Determined to find out the truth about what happened to her sister, Fran joins Tom Wade's latest retreat. Can she find out the truth from Tom or one of the others who attended the previous retreat? Or could her search for the truth cost Fran her life?

Another fantastic book from C.L. Taylor. The plot was thrilling and tense, the characters interesting, and the twists and turns brilliant. A really gripping read - recommended!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of the book in return for my honest feedback.

I love CL Taylor books so was extremely excited to get my hands on this courtesy of NetGalley this week!
The story is set at a retreat attended by Fran who is determined to find out how and why her sister Jenna disappeared from a previous retreat led by the same hosts. Jenna’s story is told alongside Fran’s and one of the hosts, Kate, and the reader has to piece together what happened to a Jenna, whilst Fran does the same.
This book kept me gripped and I loved the way it had a number of red herrings as well as twists along the way. Would recommend.

C L Taylor takes us into a world of needy people in this tale of discovery and self-discovery, as a woman (Fran) sets out to discover what happened to her much younger sister who went on a holiday/extended therapy session two years earlier but never returned. The official verdict was suicide but with no body discovered and the fact that the organiser of the event, Tom Wade, was imprisoned for the manslaughter of two others at the same event, there is every reason to suspect that the full story has not been told. When Wade is released and organises a new retreat, Fran attends under an assumed name, determined to find out more.

The novel is billed as a psychological thriller, the tension builds as strange and scary things occur on the retreat and you cannot figure out who is really responsible. It reminded me of one of those Agatha Christie stories where a bunch of people are all in a lovely house together, with surface politeness but all sorts of friction and emotion underneath. The desire to know more kept me turning the pages. The story is told through the eyes of three women: Fran, her missing sister Jenna, and Tom’s wife Kate. We jump back in time for the Jenna sections, with helpful chapter sub-heads saying “two years ago”. Several people on the current retreat were also at the previous one, so we gradually learn more about them from these different perspectives.

Tom and Kate pitch their holiday retreats as “soulshrink”, events for hurt people to give them a new start. We join some of the counselling sessions, and in describing these the author shows deep knowledge of the subject; they are convincingly told and make the book though-provoking in terms of the ways people damage one another (and themselves) and the somewhat dysfunctional families they belong to. There is ambiguity in the telling: are Tom and Kate charlatans making promises to their vulnerable guests that cannot be fulfilled? Or are they doing good work (manslaughter and missing person incidents aside) that really does improve the lives of others? This is deliberate and even at the close of the book, when the facts of the matter are revealed, the reader is, I believe, meant still to have questions about what is sincere and what is fake.

I love books that challenge me to do some thinking, and this is one of them. Part of me though would have liked the loose ends to be more firmly tied up; there is also an incident described in the first chapter for which we never get full resolution.

Great read though, exciting, well-written, thought-provoking and insightful.

The Lie is one of my favourite books ever and this one sounded quite similar so I was really excited to read it. I'm happy to report that it definitely lived up to expectations and is now firmly in 2nd place on my list of favourite C L Taylor novels.

I really loved the idea of the retreats being run by people out to make money by exploiting vulnerable people (I hope that after the events of the book they all sought professional help instead!). The inclusion of psychosomatic illness was something I really enjoyed. Having studied psychology at university I find the subject so fascinating.

The main characters were all very well described, even if I didn't particularly like them (Kate!!) and the side characters were fantastic as well. I particularly enjoyed reading about Phoenix and Tom, and even after the novel is over I still can't quite decide how I feel about Tom.

I really enjoyed the plot and whilst I did guess parts of it, other parts came as a complete surprise. I found the ending satisfying.

There's nothing about the novel I disliked. Sometimes Geri was referred to as Fran and Renata as Erica by people who weren't supposed to know yet but I'll put that down to this being an ARC.

Overall I would absolutely recommend this book, I loved it.