The Last Holiday
by Amy Sheppard

A decent, summer holiday themed whodunnit, loaded with suspense. With reveals occurring throughout the pace is fast and plenty of twists to keep the pages turning.

There are quite a few well used tropes, but happily for me I can read about college friend reunions all day, and camping holidays in Cornwall are my catnip. Throw in some baggage; ex drama, secrets and cover ups, resentments and jealousies and we have the ingredients for a hotbed of disharmony. When the body of one of them turns up dead, police realise that the murderer could only have been one of this group, and it looks like everyone has a motive. There are reasons to suspect any one of these unlikeable characters and it is fun to try and work out who the murderer is. I fell for all the red herrings and didn't see the final twist coming.

Although this is told through the first person points of view of four of the characters, the narrator doesn't change her voice for each, which seems unusual The person is named at the start of each chapter, but I missed that from time to time and struggled with some mild confusion.

The setting is done very well. Although all the place names are fictional, they have enough descriptive elements to represent the authentic Cornwall experience. I flew through this in no time, setting all other reading aside, which is unusual for me. I highly recommend this for summer reading.


Publication date: 30th May 2023
With thanks to #netgalley and #bookouture for the ALC

This was a great book! A group of friends get together for a camping trip and one of them ends up dead. All of them have motive. Secrets are revealed and the end held a few twists that I didn't see coming. This is a great summer beach read. Quick paced, attention holding and a wild ride!

THIS BOOK HAS EVERYTHING, secrets, lies, affairs, betrayal, murder, mystery, jaw dropping twists and turns! Before I start with my actual thoughts I must say I listened to the audiobook and being from America I will say the narrator reminded me ALOT of Peppa pig 🐷
*Cue the uncultured American jokes lol*
That being said, I truly loved this book! I found the writing to be very detailed making it easy to picture everything going on and immerse yourself in the story. At the beginning of the book I did have a difficult time keeping track of the characters because there are multiple couples with children so I started keeping a notes in my phone. However, the story had me hooked and after a few chapters once you learn the characters you are good.
This is the first book I’ve read from this author and not only do I intend on reading more but I will be buying a hard copy of this book when it is released May 30th! I highly recommend it!
A big thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for a copy of the audiobook ARC, in return for an honest review! 🖤

This crime thriller by Amy Sheppard follows a group of friends that have known each other since their university days. Their friendships are dysfunctional and toxic, which results in the murder of one person during a camping holiday. The ending of this story was such a shock and it left me completely wrecked. I cannot recommend this audiobook enough!

Thank you @bookouture and @netgalley for allowing me to listen to this book ahead of publication in exchange for my honest review.

This the first book I've read (listened to) by Amy Sheppard and will not be the last; I thoroughly enjoyed this book for many reasons. Great characters, twisting storylines and surprises until the end. Thank you for sharing an early copy through NetGalley and Bookouture in exchange for an honest revIew.

Preferred listening speed: 1.25x
Narration: Single narrator, excellent storytelling by Naomi Frederick
Character Development & Reliability: Excellent, many characters and connections made
Plot: Easy-to-follow, switches POV and present/past, surprising elements from beginning to end
Entertainment Value: Excellent, I was captivated and wanted to know what was coming next throughout
Recommend? YES

*honest review in exchange for an early release copy* I really enjoyed this thriller! The complex dynamics and twisted strings of friendships that keeps you guessing made this book a page turner for me. Though it is a bit of a slow burn at first- the author drops just enough bits of information that you want to find out more about. Looking forward to more by this author!

When I first started listening I thought this was going to follow along similar lines to lots of other group of friends get together for one last party/holiday/ reunion type I’ve tried before. It proved however to have a much more original plot and I did enjoy it. Took me a little while to keep remembering who was who and who was married to whom etc but on the whole an easy book to follow.
I really wasn’t ready for the ending which is, without giving any plot away, a shocker and not what I was hoping for. That’s all to the good though or it would have been too predictable. If I have a complaint it is that I simply cannot understand why Annie was so loved! I was surprised they all put up with her never mind love and as it is quite key to the plot I can only give four stars but see what you think.

Loved this - keeps you guessing right up until the end. The time jumping and switching of POV works well once you have a firm grip of who is who (tricky in the beginning since they are all pretty generic white middle class ass-hats). An enjoyable murder mystery and character-driven-analysis, perfect for lazy weekend reading

I didn’t really like any of these characters. There were so many characters, and not connecting or caring about any of them made the book hard to follow at times. Because of this, I was constantly forgetting who people were.

The timeline kept switching from +/- a few days from the murder to about ten years in the past. I don’t normally mind this, but it’s even more confusing when you don’t know who people are! The POV also changes alternates between the detective and a few of the friends.

I don’t know why this book just didn’t connect with me. It was interesting enough for me to want to know what happened, but I did get pretty close to DNFing a few times. I hate to DNF an ARC, so I did eventually pull through. Overall, this one just wasn’t for me. Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

I did not see that coming.

Best words I can give to describe a book.

Amy Sheppard created a LARGE cast of characters, then and now, adults with a collegial past who meet again for a reunion at a campground. None of the folks was particularly likeable, but the story told itself and kept me listening.

Great audio narration and at just over 10 hours was a good investment of time. On a personal note, as a lifelong reader of thrillers, I've noticed in the last few years a ton of college friends meet-up later in life and voila, a murrrderrrr.

Makes me glad I have only a few "friends" from my school days and we only converse via Facebook. Glad to have dodged the friends-kill-friends scenario. Pfew.

This one releases on May 30, 2023 just in time for a perfect beach read.

A group of lifelong friends are getting together for a camping trip to celebrate the 18th birthday of Rose, Annie’s daughter. While they’ve all remained superficially close over the years, everyone in the group has accumulated secrets and it’s not always so fun being around each other anymore. Saturday night around the campfire brings a saucy drinking game that gets out of hand and everyone says things they wish they could take back.
Later, Annie’s body is found nearby and everyone is a suspect because all of them have a motive and the detectives have to figure out who the killer is amongst them. It was quite obvious quite early on who the killer was, but it was fun to go on the journey to see how it was going to go. Typical popcorn thriller. It was told from the POV of 3 of the different women in the friend group and and dual timelines. It could have been a bit shorter but overall definitely a decent listen.
Thanks to NetGalley for this audiobook arc in exchange for my review.

3.5 stars rounded up...a little bit of a slow burn, but a solid story and an excellent narrator. More narrators for each POV would have been helpful, but the one did an amazing job.

This book was awesome, I have never met a more toxic group of people in one sitting ever. These friends are on holiday to celebrate Annie’s daughter’s 18th birthday. But from the beginning there is this mystery between every single character, I was hooked. There are multiple POV’s which was a little confusing via audio at times. But these group of friends all have secrets, and Annie is in the center of all these secrets, she knows them all. And I am telling YA’LL the way the secrets come out??? I would’ve never expected that at all.

Thanks Netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

A group of old friends gets together to celebrate the 18th birthday of Annie’s daughter, Rose. But the little get-together quickly when a game of Never Have I Ever, exposes bitter rivalries, infidelities and a host of ugly secrets. Secrets that were well known by Annie, who seems to be at the center of the dissension. The next morning, Annie is dead and there is no shortage of suspects. Told from alternating view points and some unreliable narrators, this was a dark and delicious domestic thriller

While this book was very well written and beautifully narrated, unfortunately, I found that I could not become invested in the plot and the characters.

I personally did not enjoy the multiple points of view in this book. Especially as an audiobook, it made it very difficult to keep track of what was going on.

I also felt the story was rather slow-paced and I guessed the twist at the end, which was a shame.

I do think, while others would enjoy this book, it was not the one for me.

3.5⭐️ Rounded up.

A group of friends come together for their annual gathering, but then one of them ends up dead.

The story jumps back and forth in time between the present, the events of the past few days, and glimpses further into their shared pasts. Throughout, numerous dark secrets are uncovered, and eventually the killer is revealed.

This took awhile to get into, and at first it was difficult to keep track of everyone, but their differences became more pronounced (and the story more interesting) as it all unfolded.

* I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

A group of friends from uni meet up for a camping trip with partners and children in tow to celebrate an 18th birthday. But this group has a lot of shared history and sooooo many secrets that you can't move without tripping over one of them. Everyone is desperate to keep their secrets from being discovered and to reverse the mess that they've made of their lives. The tangled web of mistakes and secrets has everyone connected to everyone else is dangerous ways, so it's not surprising when Annie turns up dead when some of those secrets start to be shared. What is surprising is who killed her and why....

I highly enjoyed this audiobook!! I was intrigued the whole time. I did have to take notes because of all the characters but that didn’t make me like it less. Had plenty of suspense and twists. I didn’t see the ending coming!

I loved the twist at the end of this book. Four POVs was a lot for me, but I did enjoy the backstories for each character. The funeral at the end had me close to tears too.

The Last Holiday was a book that kept equally confusing as it was boring but for some reason, I felt intrigued to keep going on and find out what happened.

The story follows a group of friends who are on a camping vacation together and one of them dies. It’s ruled a murder and a lot of the friends have a motive. The only problem was I could not remember who was who. The book is written from multiple points of view but for some reason this one was not always clear. I often found myself mid-chapter not remembering which character we were following.

The book also was going across multiple timelines which did not help with my confusion. We had a few timelines in the present day and then we had a timeline from when the group was younger.

Most of the friends did not seem like good people. There were a lot of secrets and betrayals that left me wondering how they all remained friends for so long.

By the time I got to the end I was not surprised with who the killer was but some of the events leading up to it I was not expecting.

This is a very light spoiler and I will not use any names. There is a death towards the end that I felt was so unnecessary. It seemed it was there for shock value alone and it did not hit for me.

This is a book that I don’t regret my time with but I also don’t recommend.