Was kind of eye rolling in the beginning but as the twists started being revealed I liked it more and more. Surprising thriller!

At first, I thought it was kind of a silly, basic thriller setup. Three couples are supposed to go to a remote, isolated location for a weekend away. The husbands all have things come up so they send the three wives ahead with the promise to catch up with them the next day. When the women arrive, there is a note from another woman--Edie--who was part of the fourth couple in the group, but her husband has died. She tells them in the note that she has killed at least one of their husbands. Then a storm hits, so they can't leave and they have no phone service.

I have read several of Gilly Macmillan books but this one just did not hit the mark at all for me. The characters were boring and really badly written. I could not get through this book and did not feel suspense.

A fun read if slightly predictable at times. I thought the entire book would take place in one setting so I was pleasantly surprised to have it switch up, as it moved the plot along nicely. I enjoy books where the characters aren’t always likeable and found this group to be very believable, flaws and all.

The Long Weekend is only my second read of Gilly Macmillan's, and so far both have been mediocre. I'd seen a few mixed reviews for this book, so I decided audio was the way to go just in case I couldn't get into the print version. I find thrillers are usually better on audio for me, because I can binge them faster and don't roll my eyes as much - which is a good thing these days. I will say I didn't find myself with tooooo many eye rolls listening to this one, but it definitely wasn't a memorable, stellar read for me.

This book packs a lot of everything into one weekend. There's a lot of characters and a lot of storylines to follow - it seemed like each character had their own story line going on, which was pretty hard to follow and keep track of. It was very interesting and kept me guessing and wanting to know more, but I couldn't get fully invested into any one character or their issues because there was too much going on. It was fast paced and kept my interest however, so I won't say it was a dud by any means, but definitely pay attention when you dive into this one. Not my favourite, not very memorable, but I'm glad I read it.

I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Gilly Macmillan is usually one of my go-to authors for a quick paced, suspenseful read. That being said, this one fell short for me. I couldn’t really identify with the characters, they didn’t seem to be all that likable. The story just had a lot of different things going on which made it hard to follow at times. The premise of the story was good, but I just don’t think it was well executed. It just seemed really improbable.

I don't usually like or read mystery/thrillers but this one was good and I will definitely be reading more of Macmillan in the future.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early read of the new book by GIlly Macmillan. I have liked her books in the past, and the main story in this one was good as well. Three friends head off for a mini-vacation, a retreat from their everyday lives, expecting their husbands to follow them the next day. When they arrive, they are welcomed with a surprise - a note from a fourth friend stating that one of their husbands is soon to be murdered. Being off the grid, which sounded so good on the drive over, is now a big problem. With a storm rolling in and no way to contact their husbands, panic sets in and secrets start to come out. The story was a good combination of locked room mystery and unreliable narrator. I did have a problem following the story at times, as the formatting of the narrative, with no identifying breaks, was often frustrating. Otherwise, if you liked her books in the past, you will likely enjoy this one as well.

Jayne, Ruth and Emily are off to an isolated barn for a weekend getaway when things turn crazy. Their husbands are all running late, their other friend Edie isn't coming due to the recent death of her husband and when they arrive there's a mysterious package waiting for them.

I liked the set up. I was intrigued and ready for an adventure. But this quickly turned on me into a little bit too crazy. There was so much going on that I just couldn't keep up. I also felt the structure was confusing and I didn't know who was talking all the time. This book just didn't work for me.

Thanks @netgalley for the ARC!

What was supposed to be a couples weekend goes seriously wrong. The women arrive a day before their husbands to find a threatening note and it goes downhill from there. There are enough twists here to keep you on the hook right along with the characters.

The Long Weekend is the kind of book I love to read. It is a creepy book that twists and turns. I could't put it down and read long into the night. Gilly Macmillan has again created a amazing suspenseful novel. I read as many of her books that I can get my hands on!

Gilly Macmillan's The Long Weekend, is a tense psychological mystery, with a deep vein of horror running through it.

Three women (each vulnerable in her own way) have booked a retreat weekend at the very isolated off-grid Dark Fell Barn - on their arrival they find a note saying that one of their husbands will die before they return home.

They're unable to make contact. Over the course of the evening, readers see them devolve in a way that reminded me of Lord of the Flies.

Violence escalates to a shocking conclusion.

Twisty, dark and very thrilling, this book was so much fun to read. If you're looking for a really fun thriller novel this is a great book to pick up.

A group of 3 women travel to the most remote place in England for a weekend escape, they expect their husbands to arrive the next morning, giving them a girl's night alone. When they arrive they discover a carefully placed gift and a note. The note is an ominous note from one of their friends, the 4th of this usual group of couples, telling them that by the weekend's end, one of their husbands will die.

And here the rollercoaster of emotions begins. Each woman has their own secrets as do the missing husbands. And each harbors a fear that their husbands would cheat on them and leave them for their age-old crush, the missing 4th of this party.

The writing is superb. The tension starts almost immediately and Gilly Macmillan keeps you bouncing back and forth about who you think is doing this with the ease of a seasoned pro.

There are twists and dark turns everywhere you look and you can't put this down without finding out who lives, who dies, and why.

Highly recommended!

Thanks to @netgalley, William Morrow and Custom House, William Morrow, and Gilly Macmillan, for the opportunity to read this eArc in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion

Loved this book! Gilly Macmillan never disappoints with her work. A quick moving thriller that kept me engaged until the very end😬

A fun and twisty thriller that will keep you guessing.

It’s autumn at Dark Fell Barn when three women arrive for a long weekend. Though not really friends, they are bound together by their husbands who’ve been best buds for ages. When they finally get to the isolated farmhouse, they are still a little miffed about the fact that their husbands have conveniently stayed behind for the first night of their annual couples getaway. Deciding to make the best of it, they make their way up the barely there road to the barn they’ve rented for the retreat. Things seem to be looking a little brighter when they arrive to find a note and a lovely wrapped gift. Suddenly everything gets really dark, fast. Not only is a storm moving into the off-the-grid moor, but the note, written by another friend who was recently widowed and decided not to come this year, claims that she has killed one of their husbands!

This book starts off a little slow but soon gets all kinds of crazy — in a good way. I was completely surprised by the direction the story took and was making all kinds of wild guesses. The narrative is told from several points of view and so deftly woven together that I became impatient to get the answers to all my speculation. It was a quick and entertaining read especially because I was expecting more of the same old “girls trip locked in” novel and this was definitely not that.

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow & Company for this e-book ARC to read, review, and recommend.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC!
I am so incredibly tired. I knew I should shut the book and go to bed but I kept saying “one more page”. The twists! The emotions! I can’t wait for this book to be released so I can send it to friends
Thank your for the advanced opportunity to read this book

Whew! This book took me on a RIDE! I couldn’t put it down. I only took breaks in reading because we’re on vacation and actually had to go out and do things. I LOVED the twistiness of it, and the way the layers of the mystery were slowly pulled back, and revealed piece by piece. I also thought the switching of the third person to first person narration was brilliant and put the reader in the mind of the killer right away, even though we didn’t know who the killer was, or even fully what he/she had done. I thought the characters were well developed, each with his or her own flaws, and the setting was beautifully described. It contributed nicely to the ominous feel of the narration and served to heighten the suspense surrounding the action. I will likely be seeking out other books by this author, and I highly recommend this one for fans of twisty, layered mysteries.

Regardless of my ultimate feelings about The Long Weekend, I have to hand it to author Gilly Macmillan: she clearly set out to do the absolute f*cking most when it came to this twisty, unpredictable thriller, and she succeeded. Really, really, really succeeded. Like, she must’ve sat down before writing this and said to herself, “how many truly unhinged characters I can conceivably squeeze into one novel?” and then made sure to fit every last one of them into her narrative. Whew, boy.

Before I break down my biggest takeaways, I might as well just dump the book’s entire plot summary here so you have a sense of the wild ride we’re about to dig into. Per the publisher:

“Dark Fell Barn is a ‘perfectly isolated’ retreat, or so says its website when Jayne books a reservation for her friends. A quiet place, far removed from the rest of the world, is exactly what they need. The women arrive for a girls’ night ahead of their husbands. There’s ex-Army Jayne, hardened and serious, but also damaged. Ruth, the driven doctor and new mother who is battling demons of her own. Young Emily, just wed and insecure, the newest addition of this tight-knit band. Missing this year is Edie, who was the glue holding them together until her husband died suddenly.

But what they hoped would be a relaxing break soon turns to horror. Upon arrival at Dark Fell Barn, the women find a devastating note claiming one of their husbands will be murdered. There are no phones, no cell service to check on their men. Friendships fracture as the situation spins wildly out of control. Betrayal can come in many forms. This group has kept each other’s secrets for far too long.”

A greater example of ‘toxic friendship’ has never been written. (Or if not ‘greater,’ than ‘batshit crazy.’) Macmillan’s novel is a lengthy rollercoaster, with each twist and turn coming more and more out of left field. It’s absolutely entertaining, I can say that definitively! I couldn’t wait to see where things were going. But for me the main problem is that there was simply too much happening, period.

As noted in the plot summary, the book begins with three wives of a longtime group of male friends — and their one female friend, Edie, whose husband Rob recently died — venturing into the wifi and cell reception-free wilderness for a remote getaway so everyone can reconnect. This retreat comes complete with a creaky, creepy barn; a reluctant caretaker suffering from the early effects of dementia; and a storm that ravages everyone and everything in its path. Oh and a nice little note on the table saying that one of the husbands will be dead by the time everyone returns home. 5/5 stars on TripAdvisor, am I right?!?

And while you’d think that would be enough to sustain a story — and in my opinion, should’ve/would’ve been enough — Macmillan continues to take the story into what feels like a million different directions. I can understand wanting to throw a reader off your scent, but there’s also an argument to be made for letting ideas and characters breathe by not overloading the reader. This felt like two novels about equally disturbed friend groups that got smushed together at the last minute. The decision not to tell the story from one or two dedicated POVs might’ve helped things, but the omniscient(ish) narrator flitting between the different stories, locations, and timelines muddied the waters exponentially.

Crafting a genuinely surprising thriller is no doubt a delicate tightrope walk, one that I can scarcely imagine as a reader vs. the writer creating it (especially given the way the way mind-blowing twists have become an expectation in the genre). But The Long Weekend couldn’t decide when to pump the brakes. It was something I couldn’t get past, in the end.

HOWEVER, for whatever it’s worth at this point in the review, I did enjoy this book in the sense that it’s an entertaining thriller that embraces — and commits to — going totally off the rails! (I seem to be encountering a lot of those lately.) The mystery at the center (which expands into a few other mysteries the deeper in you go) is compelling. Definitely filing this under the category of: Can’t Put Down Even When It’s 3 AM and Your Eyes Are Starting to Blur and You Know You’re Not Gonna Wake Up in Time For That Early Spin Class.

Thanks to HarperCollins and NetGalley for this eARC in exchange for my honest review!

“By the time you read this, I’ll have killed one of your husbands.”

The Long Weekend started off strong with a great opening chapter. We meet these three women who only know each other because their husbands are friends, off on a weekend retreat. Oddly, all of their husbands decided at the last minute that they’d have to show up a little late, but that the women should go on ahead. I would really hate to spend even one night on a vacation with people I don’t really know without my boyfriend there as a social buffer, so this first chapter did a great job of establishing a tense setting.

The middle portion of the book was somewhat unmemorable, but the ending was great. All the twists came out at a satisfying pace.

I’ve been a Gilly MacMillan fan for a long time, and this book certainly lived up to my expectations for her!

Audio Review: I think I’d recommend reading a physical copy of this one. It was definitely hard to follow the plot on audio without chapter/character breaks, and I frequently had to rewind to figure out that the POV had changed.

If you liked The Long Weekend, check out The Last Party next.

This was a very thrilling atmospheric book that gave me chills, thinking about being trapped in the middle of nowhere. I kept thinking that I knew who was the villain, and I was wrong several times. I quite enjoyed this.

I received an ARC, but my opinions are all mine.