A locked room thriller taking place on a deserted island that will keep you guessing right until the end. Six friends are meant to have an enjoyable weekend away on an island but things quickly turn very wrong.

It was quite fast paced at the beginning but I felt it drop in the middle to pick up again by the end. I did struggle to like any of the six women on the island but that probably was the author's point.

Would recommend for fans of thrillers and who did its. Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for an ARC of this book.

Possibly the most atmospheric book I've read this year, I was almost glad I was tucked up on the sofa in a blanket or I would have felt the cold and rain coming off the pages.
Beautifully written, this is one of those novels that you look forward to coming back to.
However, about 3/4 of the way through. just when I was hoping it would escalate into a great ending, it seemed to slow down. Although the culprit is revealed, seeing the words 'The End' made me think 'Eh? how did this finish?'
Enjoyable read for a wet, rainy afternoon.

The weekend escape is an excellent thriller that will keep you guessing. I loved the characters and there was a point where I kept going back and forth and suspecting multiple people... it was crazy.. Rackie Bennett is definitely an author I want to read more books from.

Thanks a lot to NetGalley, the author and publisher for the opportunity to review this great novel.

The Weekend Escape is a locked room thriller about six women who were friends at school and now reunite for a girls weekend of climbing on a remote Island. Unfortunately, one climber gets injured on Day 1, a storm rolls in, the bunkhouse loses power, and then things really take a turn for the worse when someone ends up dead. What starts out as an adventure turns into a fight for survival.

The women don't know who is sabotaging their trip. Is it an unknown stranger, or someone in their own group? Do they band together for safety, or turn on each other because no one can be trusted?

I was drawn to this book because I love a locked room thriller, and I was pleased with how well-written the characters are. The main character, Lyndsey, is remarkably strong in her own way, despite the struggles she faces in her daily life. She is smart and fierce and knows right from wrong. I really enjoyed her character. The other characters, if not as likeable as Lyndsey, are relatable and nicely fleshed out.

My one wish is that the ending had been more certain. Otherwise, the story is well-paced and captivating. The setting is perfectly atmospheric; the descriptions allowed me to picture the scenery and almost feel the chill of the storm.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Collins for an opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest review.

A thriller about 6 friends who reunite after 10 years for a weekend of climbing and rappelling on a deserted island. What could go wrong? Well, add in a brewing storm, an immediate injury, and a murder and it sounds like you have the makings for a weekend of doubt and fear. How well do these friends really know each other? Especially after all these years?

Lyndsey, Bobbie, Val, Sonia, Amanda and Juliet met and became friends in high school. They bonded through their shared love of outdoor activities. They frequently took camping trips and were joined by Amanda's older sister Cherry, who taught the girls the ins and outs of climbing. Devastatingly, Cherry passed away one night when thy were out drinking together. After that incident, the girls seemed to drift apart. Juliet (maximum Type A personality) tried unsuccessfully to plan several reunions prior to this one - but due to everyone's differing schedules, it never worked out. She was keen on them all visiting the deserted island that her family had camped at when she was younger. The only way on the island is by boat, and even that has to be planned just right. Several of the girls are only on this trip now because they feel guilty about not staying close with the group. To say that they are less than thrilled to be attempting the same activities they did when they were much younger and more agile would be accurate. Once they get to the island and see their rustic lodging, they are even more dismayed to be on this trip.

Each of the women has her own challenges to deal with; one is in the middle of a breakup, one suspects she is pregnant with a man she was having an affair with, one is in a dire financial situation, one struggles with mounting health issues and one is still dealing with the devastating loss of her sister. They are each hoping to have a weekend away from thinking about their troubles. Some of these hardships are known, and others have been hidden among the friends. What the friends expect to be a weekend of girl time away from their normal lives, quickly turns into a nightmare that they are unable to escape from.

I pretty quickly was able to assess who was to blame, but wasn't 100% sure I was right. The author kept the story intriguing with her ability to paint the scenes vividly. I could feel the pelting rain, the extreme cold, and the fear of the darkness. I enjoyed the story and the shifting blame. It was difficult at first to keep the women straight in my mind, but soon enough their personalities were recognizable and it was much easier to picture each one. It was a quick read as the circumstances kept me captivated and turning pages.

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK, One More Chapter for the advance copy to read and review.

Rating 3

This book was okay. I really wanted to use this book to escape for the weekend but I just struggled to get into it. While the synopsis sounded promising this book just felt dull to me. This type of story has been done so many times before and I was hoping for the author to put their own twist or uniqueness into it. Sadly, that didn’t happen. None of the characters were particularly likable and this added to the struggle. I found myself not caring who died or how they died. To be fair, I don’t think it helped that I read a great stranded whodunnit earlier this month. I found myself comparing the two books and that is never a good thing! Even though I didn’t enjoy it, I do recommend people give it a try for themselves.

*Received a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review. In no way does this affect my opinion.*

The Weekend Escape is a classic "locked room" mystery. Six friends who used to have an adventure club meet up again for a weekend on deserted Shell Island. It is within sight of the mainland. What could go wrong?

Well things do go wrong pretty quickly. Their first adventure event is abseiling down an old lighthouse, and this is where the trouble starts when one of their party is injured. The atmosphere becomes even more dark and brooding as a storm moves in, their basic cabin accommodation looses electricity, and then the first death happens.

What will ensue is a terrifying 48 hours where no one's survival is certain. Lindsay is our narrator, and out of all the group of friends, her life seems stalled. She has never found a career and may be about to lose her home. In contrast, her friend's lives seem more together.

What I liked about this book was the non stop menacing aura and action. It was relentless. I love "locked room" mysteries, and this one was great. The various friend's personalities were well drawn, and as the story proceeds we begin to learn about an event in their past which still hangs over them today. There was a "you're there" type of action to the story, and the hardships they faced were well described and easy to imagine. I was eager to get back and read more, each time I put the book down.

What I didn't like -- the ending, like the last page, was very ambiguous and left me wondering if I knew what had happened. I am sure that was the writer's intent, but I like a solid ending myself.

Thank you to NetGalley, Harper Collins UK, and author Rakie Bennett for allowing me to ready this ARC in exchange for an honest review. I am giving it 4 stars because throughout almost the whole book, I liked it. But in reality the confusion at the ending makes me lower it to 3.5.

Action packed thriller. Can you trust your friends and any secrets they may hold?
This will keep you on your toes until the end. Thank you NetGalley!

Fast paced thriller that I tore through in a few hours. The characters were very intriguing, I wasn't overly enamoured by the women characters on the island but likes the way they featured in the story.

I did predict the who and the why but it didn't detract from the enjoyment of the story for me.

What’s your idea of the perfect weekend getaway? Mine certainly wouldn’t be going climbing and rappelling on a desolate island with a bad storm rolling in!

The Weekend Escape by Rakie Bennett was an eerie, atmospheric, pulse pounding read!

Six friends reunited for a weekend island adventure, but they weren’t expecting freezing cold weather in August, a tumultuous storm, or a murderer among them.

Things started going very wrong right away, but the friends had no way to communicate with the mainland. There was no cell service and the only other way to call for help was through a radio, which conveniently broke. The harder they tried to find a way off the island, the more they realized that none of them could be trusted.

Even though I figured out the who and the why early on (or did I?), I kept wondering which characters would make it out unscathed, and the ending left me questioning everything I had read! I even reread the final chapter to make sure I didn’t miss anything because it definitely threw me for a loop. This was a very enjoyable locked room type of mystery full of secrets and lies!

If you’re looking for a fast-paced, atmospheric, nail biting thriller, then read The Weekend Escape!

*Thank you so much HarperCollins UK and OneMoreChapter for gifting me with an eARC
through NetGalley!

The Weekend Escape by Rakie Bennett

Time to renew friendships on an isolated island should sound like fun but all six in the group have misgivings that prove valid as the weekend progresses. There is definitely one person on the island motivated to kill but which one is it and why are they moved by deadly intent?

What I liked:
* The location
* Building of atmosphere through weather and unfolding events
* Back story hints about the characters and their past together
* Considering who the murderer might be
* Feeling this was a book best geared to YA//NA readers
* The building of tension as the story progressed
* The ending…I think?

What I didn’t like:
* All six of the women on the island – hard to relate to any of them
* The rather enigmatic ending that left me wondering what was and was not true

Did I enjoy this book? It was okay – I tend to avoid YA/NA books and this story had that feel
Would I read more by this author? Maybe

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Collins for the ARC – This is my honest review.

3-4 Stars

3 couples are supposed to enjoy a weekend retreat. The men are delayed, but the 3 women arrive at the cottage to find a note. The note declare one of the husbands will be murdered. With no phone signal the woman are concerned for their safety. Events escalate dramatically and soon there is another body.
An enjoyable book with lots of twists, but found the monologue quite confusing at times with who was talking as switched location and person frequently.

Extreme, different, and intense is how I would describe this novel because there was a lot going on and I was not expecting all the events the characters went through. This novel follows a group of six friends meeting to reconnect and have one last adventure together before life continued to get in the way. The group started separating after the death of Cherry and the seventh girl in their group who died after a night of drinking. Every person in the group ends up having a secret that they do not want everyone else to know and that causes the group to have a hard time to trust one another.

This lack of trust leads to the friends turning against one another when everything on the trip starts to go wrong and one of their friends dies. This novel was intense in the lead up, but the secrets were not all serious and pivotal to hide, which made it a little boring in the long run. I was also able to guess who the murderer was and know what the motive was about halfway through the novel. It would have been a four star if I was not able to guess the motive and murderer so easily.

There were also moments where it was supposed to feel extremely important to figure out how to get off the island as soon as possible, but a lot of the time I did not feel like it was all that important and eventually everything would work out the way it was meant to.

The motive behind the story was cliché and easy to figure out the more you got to know about the characters and each individual story built on the knowledge that the reader gets to understand. I expected a little more than what I got from the novel, but I still enjoyed the mystery and lead up to the ending.

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK, One More Chapter for the E-ARC in exchange for an honest review of the novel.

I want to first say thank you to NetGalley and One More Chapter for this mystery thriller.

In 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐞𝐞𝐤𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐄𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐩𝐞, we follow a group of six friends who reunite after many years apart. As their reunion goes from awkward and forced to tragic and nerve inducing we see them turn on each other, unsure of who is telling the truth or if they are truly the only ones on the island.

The first half of the book had a more mellow pace, giving us enough time to meet each character. It began to plateau in the second act for me and it wasn’t until the last quarter that the urgency really started. The author did a great job at creating this atmospheric read, making you feel as though you’re stuck on the same storm battered island as these characters. While in the end I was able to correctly guess who the culprit was, this made for a nice and light read (or as light a read as a thriller can be 😂) that I enjoyed.

If you want to check it out, 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐞𝐞𝐤𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐄𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐩𝐞 drops this Friday!

The Weekend Escape is about six old friends reconnecting on a weekend trip to an isolated island. Their trip is supposed to be full of fun abseiling and outdoor activities, but almost immediately tragedy strikes with injury.

From there, paranoia abounds and everyone is immediately suspicious of the others. The pacing felt a little slow, but the interactions within the group were done well.

A little predictable with an abrupt ending, The Weekend Escape was good but not great.

Six friends from high school plan a weekend adventure after drifting apart over the years. Their destination, Shell Island, just a few miles away from the English coast. Before they even head to their lodge, they rappel down a lighthouse. But when the rope breaks, one of them is seriously injured, and they soon find out what it means to be isolated. With no cell reception, a brewing storm, and the only inhabitant, the caretaker, Marne missing, they are truly trapped.
When more accidents occur, they have no one to rely on but each other. Marne returned, but her radio is broken, and they can only wait for the boat to return. Time isn't the only thing that has separated these friends. The seventh member of their group died under tragic circumstances, and one of them might be seeing the others through vengeful eyes.
The story is told from Lyndsey's perspective and as details of her life emerge, it was hard to know if she was an unreliable narrator or just someone whose life hadn't really worked out well. Are there just the six of them and Marne or is someone else on the island?
A brutal storm, a decrepit bunkhouse, very little heat or electricity lead to accusations and possibly murder. It is so hard not to reveal any spoilers, but I will say that while I guessed the whodunnit, the ending was jaw-dropping.

A deserted island, 6 friends, and a weekend escape … sounds like a recipe for disaster, doesn’t it?!

This book was so much fun to read! There are six characters, which can get confusing, but they all had distinctive personalities and agendas that made them easy to distinguish. And they all had motives, which made it interesting in trying to determine which one was the murderer.

This is a first for me by the author and one I enjoyed and would read more of their work. The book cover is eye-catching and appealing and would spark my interest if in a bookshop. Thank you very much to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

I loved this book it was intriguing and very atmospheric. I’m certainly glad I don’t have friends like these in this story. An island off Scotland in the winter, cut off from the mainland and a murder amongst the group. Was a thrilling read. My thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book in return for an honest review.

Really enjoyed this domestic drama. Very well written with so many twists and turns. Did not see that ending coming! Very real characters that were easy to relate to. Highly recommend this one!
Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book

This is a story of a group of female friends who find themselves stranded on an island. Then, accidents start to happen.

It's not a bad read; I just really struggled to get into it. The characters are a bit one dimensional and the storyline, obvious. Having said that, there are some good parts to it and it's certainly atmospheric; just, not for me.

Thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins UK for the opportunity to preview.