Wow. A fast paced thriller that kept me riveted . This well written, fun action packed thriller was packed with toxic characters and I loved the palatial cruise ship setting. A totally addictive ride

When a traumatic past event pulls apart a friendship, can it ever be healed? Belle and Emily haven’t seen each other in years. They both live in different worlds now. Belle married a millionaire and Emily living with her Dad and little boy. What caused the great divide in their friendship? Why the invite out of the blue to join Belle and her new family on a luxury cruise?

When you look at the book communities on social media. My favourite is Instagram for sure. I often see posts saying “OMG I am in such a reading slump” or “Nothing is exciting me”. Well, now I have the perfect solution, Five Nights by Rachel Wolf is the medicine I will dish out to aid the slump. Because from page one until the end it it is non-stop. You just jump on the ride and hold on for dear life. You can’t trust anyone and no matter how hard you try to play to detective the book is too clever.

I loved my time with Emily and the Scarmado family. The tagline for the book says Agatha Christie mixes with Succession and that sums it up perfectly. With the Scamado kids all fanning over papà’s cash. Any of them could be a killer.

I read a previous title by this author called Under the Ice (Rachael Blok) and it was my book of the year. Five Nights would be a contender for this year’s pick.

Fast-paced with a fabulous cast of characters and an amazing plot. Bravo, Rachel Wolf, I can’t wait to see what is next.

I loved the premise of this, trapped on a ship out at sea, someone knows what you’ve done and danger lurks around every glamorous corner.

Unfortunately, for me it didn’t live up to the hype. I found the writing style jarring and the pacing off. I couldn’t get into it and read several books inbetween, I kept going back to it hoping it would grow on me but it wasn’t for me.

A glamorous, mysterious thriller with so many people out for revenge I didn’t know where to look next!

When Emily is contacted by her old friend to come and help her she jumps at the chance. It just so happens that Belle needs her to accompany her on the Scarmardo ships virgin voyage. A luxury cruise liner only for adults, she is holidaying with the Scarmardo’s Belle’s new family and one of the richest families in the country so she gets a taste of the multi millionaire world they live in.

This was a fast paced, full of action story. The characters aren’t particularly likable and even though I felt sorry for Emily and Belle at times their actions were questionable. I love the contained setting of the ship too, there’s no escape and no hiding so it just descended into chaos.

I really enjoy a locked room thriller but unfortunately Five Nights did not live up to my expectations. It wasn't as action packed and twisty as I had hoped and I found it a little predictable in places.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my ARC.

Five Nights is an addictive thriller, written by Rachel Wolf, and published by Head of Zeus; Emily has been invited to a luxury cruise ship by her friend Belle, three years since the last time they reunited (and due to a good reason). But Belle needs her support to deal with the Scamardo family and their machinations, an opportunity for Emily's redemption.

But if the Scamardo family and Emily share something, is their life being full of secrets; and after receiving some threatening messages, Emily decides to start investigating, all to see if she can help Belle. However, passing five nights will be proven as tricky, especially as things start to heat, and the actual personality of many of the Scamardo's siblings are revealed.

A plot that starts unraveling more questions than answers, combining three timelines in order to let the reader try to guess who is the assassin inside; all while dealing with the unlikeable personality of many of the characters. The pacing is fast, going from scene to scene without a single moment to breath, creating a great intrigue that only gets resolved a few pages before the gran finale.

A really interesting thriller, which is perfect if you like character-driven narratives with multiple timelines; an intriguing proposal that Wolf executes almost flawlessly. If you are looking for your next film, read Five Nights.

This book started out great and soon grabbed my attention,I did feel it dip in places but it always seemed to get back on track. There was a array of characters some of which I liked and some I didn't. I felt the book was well placed and chapters were not too long. A good read overall. Thanks to net gallery for a early copy to read.

Five Nights was one of those books I knew I was going to love as soon as I heard about it – give me a dysfunctional wealthy family (could I have loved Succession any more ….), a cruise liner setting and a locked room thriller with lots of twists and what more could I ask for?

Emily and Belle were once best friends but have become estranged following an incident three years previously and their lives have gone in very different directions. Emily is now a single mother, Belle has married an extremely wealthy older man. Out of the blue, Emily gets an invitation to join Belle on the maiden voyage of a ship owned by Belle’s husband Mattia Scarmado. Emily arrives on board to discover that Belle is less than popular with Mattia’s five grown up children – and she soon finds that being stuck on a ship with them all makes for an interesting journey. Everyone, including Emily, is harbouring secrets and things soon begin to unravel as confessions are made and truths come to light.

This is a book full of characters you’ll love to hate as you try to figure out who to trust and who not to. With flashbacks to what led to the breakdown of Emily and Belle’s relationships, as well as mystery surrounding the death of Mattia’s ex-wife, there is plenty to keep the reader guessing and there is no shortage of surprises as the twists keep coming. I for one couldn’t turn the pages quick enough! It is a wild ride but oh so much fun!

I personally found this one way too slow and predictable so I really struggled to stay focused on it.

Five Nights is an action-packed page turner of a book - you won't want to put it down.

Emily is invited to join her best friend Belle on a luxury cruise. Since they last met, Belle has married one of the richest men in the world, Mattia Scarmado, successful businessman and proud father of five adult children, who are all going to be on the cruise too.

Emily hasn't seen Belle since a mysterious incident three years previously, so is keen to make up for lost time, but also nervous at how their friendship may have changed. She's also anxious at how she is going to feel being around such a famous and powerful family, their stories put the Kardashians to shame, filling the tabloids with gossip and drunken stories.

Just before she leaves for her cruise, Emily gets an anonymous note 'we know what you did' - if she goes on the five day trip, is she risking everything she's worked so hard for? But if she doesn't go, she's abandoning Belle and jeopardizing their lifelong friendship

The action keeps coming and coming, the tension builds, and the twists are plentiful. 'Five Nights' will whisk you away from the rains and gloom of winter and make you wish you were living it up on a luxury cruise liner; maybe steer clear of the owner and his uber-rich spoilt family though.

This is the author’s debut novel, published on 29th February. Yet another novel set on a cruise ship, this seems to be quite a common setting for novels lately. When I looked at the cover I thought it was a tower block at first but on closer inspection realised it was meant to be the front of a cruise liner. 🙈

Funnily enough, the book follows Emily over five nights, as she is invited on a luxury VIP cruise by her former best friend, Belle. Belle has married into the wealthy Scarmado family and invites Emily along. Emily tentatively accepts, as she wants to atone for what happened three years ago, fracturing a once solid friendship. When Emily is onboard the ship, she receives notes claiming “I know what you did” and begins to wonder if the trip will be relaxing after all.

All the characters are awful and two dimensional and I didn’t like any of them. I was irrationally annoyed at Bean’s nickname. 😂 I thought the decisions made by some of them were questionable and generally the plot was a bit silly, cliche, and at times predictable. The book dragged on and on for me and I wasn’t keen to pick it up and read it. It took forever to reveal what happened three years before to spoil Emily and Belle’s friendship which was irritating. The ‘big reveal’ ended up being underwhelming The plot was too slow and boring and unfortunately I didn’t enjoy it at all.

This book wasn’t for me and I wouldn’t recommend it but others may enjoy it.

Thanks to Aries & Aries Publishers and NetGalley for an advance copy in exchange for a review.

Five Nights is a true locked room style thriller that takes place over "five nights" on a luxurious cruise liner.

Out of the blue, Emily receives an invite from her old friend Belle to join her and her new millionaire husband Mattia Scarmardo, along with his five children, on his new cruise ship's maiden voyage.
But Emily and Belle haven't spoken in 3 years!
As the plot develops, we learn about the two childhood friends' secret past, and as we get to know the Scarmardo family better, it seems that everyone is harbouring at least one secret.

The narrative alternates between the present and the past when we adopt Viola, Mattia Scarmardo's first wife, as our point of view.

I was gripped throughout, and with plot twist-a-plenty, I didn’t guess the final outcome until right at the very end of the book as I was reading it.

If you enjoy a locked room style thriller, packed with suspense and intrigue, then I highly recommend you read Five Nights.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for this arc.

I was really excited to read this book because I love travelling and mystery/thriller books and I really wanted to read one that was based on a cruise. I enjoyed the story but it was very slow and predictable.

Whenever I read a book like this, where suspicion falls on a group of irritating characters, I worry that the annoying personalities will cloud my enjoyment of the story. However, this was not the case here at all! Obviously with this super rich family and their ultra-modern cruise, there are going to be moments where you take a genuine dislike to one or two of them, but on the whole, there were enough endearing qualities dotted around to still care about the outcome.

The best thing about Five Nights is that you actually get three stories for the price of one. You have the present-day cruise and the dangerous things that are plaguing Emily and the Scarmardo family. Secondly, you get the flashbacks and backstory of what happened between Mattia Scarmardo and his first wife Viola. Finally, there is also the mystery of what actually happened between Belle and Emily three years ago during the kidnapping incident. Each of these storylines is just as engaging and you actually do need to understand what the truth is behind every one of these situations to be able to get to the full conclusion.

Breaking down the story into the five separate days and nights on the cruise was a really clever tactic. Knowing right from the start that somebody dies on the third night meant that I was constantly looking for clues, using that given countdown to try and work out who it would be, why they would be targeted and by whom.

I really enjoyed the suspense mixed in with all of these complicated relationships and of course, the difficult family dynamics. I'm always a fan of a closed-circle mystery and, in this case, the luxury cruise ship heading to New York gave a modern twist on a Death on the Nile vibe. This book is pure escapism, it's a fun and enjoyable murder mystery and would make an addictive holiday read.

Five Nights
Thriller
Rachel Wolf
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

• ᴛʀᴀᴜᴍᴀ • ꜱᴇᴄʀᴇᴛꜱ • ʀᴇᴠᴇɴɢᴇ •

I really enjoyed this book. From the very beginning there was a sense of tension, especially when it came to Emily and her past.

I really liked the flashbacks throughout the book from Violas POV. At first I wasn't sure of the timeline but it soon became clear.

The pacing was very good and I found myself trying to figure things out even when certain clues were still missing.

The characters themselves were developed well. They all had their own issues and troubles. I wish there were some POVs from each of them though.

There were some great plot twists that I didn't see coming and I liked how suspicious I was of everyone. The author did a good job of planting the seeds of doubt.

Overall this was a nice thriller that had me double guessing everyone's motives.

*Thank you to @Netgalley, the author, and the publishers for providing this ARC. This is my own opinion and an honest review, which I am leaving voluntarily*

Love the descriptions of the cruise but the story itself was too slow and predictable. Thank you netgalley for the advanced copy

A book about a family that is filthy rich and thus think themselves way better than other people. The Scarmado family are the kind of people I never ever hope to meet. So, it was easy to understand why Emily was rather reluctant to accept the invitation of Belle Scarmado, her erstwhile best friend, to join her on a 5 day cruise with this family. Belle married the head of the family and of course most people think she's a gold digger - especially Mattia's five children, of which there are a few only a couple of years younger than she is.
But, three years ago Emily and Belle went through a horrible experience together, and Emily still feels guilty over the way she handled the situation.

The book is set on board of one of those cruise ships that don't offer any interesting stops at faraway places; this one will travel to New York in five days. All the people on board have to do is enjoy themselves - mainly by eating and drinking too much.
Emily receives a threatening note just before she boards the ship and she's only a couple of hours on deck before the first of a series of disturbing accidents happen. Now how can she rekindle her friendship with Bella, help her out of her latest predicament and save herself from having to tell the whole truth?

Although there are a couple of interesting scenes, and there is a lot of tension going on between the family members, Belle, and Emily herself, it's rather slow paced until about three quarters of the story. It's then that the real secrets get spilled and all hell breaks loose.

I enjoyed it but I would have liked it to be more compact and with fewer time spoiled on just sitting, drinking and quarrelling.

3.5 stars

Five Nights is a closed-circle mystery and suspense novel. The author limits the setting to a luxury cruise ship, which does add to the suspense, since the wealthy family at the centre of this story seem only to keep within certain areas of the ship. The setting works well, and I do like a small footprint mystery.

If I were to break this down into sections, and the book does by splitting this into five days/nights, I would say that the last few days/nights are the most gripping. The setup of the story took a while to hook me, even with mysterious notes suggesting a mystery or a threat later in the story. Maybe it's the way the characters were introduced or described early on? I'm not sure. Whatever it was, I did find my attention waver during that first section, but the story does grab you more as the days/nights progress.

A huge theme of this story is secrets, big and small, and how those secrets often have dire consequences. The characters in this story also exude jealousy, greed, paranoia, arrogance, and hate. All ingredients that make you dislike them but, at times, find them engaging and compelling. Still, in a book such as this, characters that behave in those ways do make you wonder if they will be next. That becomes all part of the fun in a book like this.

One thing I found perplexing is the friendship between Emily and Belle. It reads like the most toxic friendship imaginable. I recently read another suspense/thriller that showed a similar friendship and I wondered about that to. Are toxic friendships common in thrillers? Despite the author being able to take those elements and use it to drive more suspense and doubt, I do hope it doesn't become a trend.

One the whole, this is a novel to just sit back and suspend belief. It's a bit of ride, it does pull you into the story, and it may make you think twice about taking a cruise.

Thanks to the author, the publisher, and Netgalley for providing a copy of this book for an honest review. All comments are my own.

Video link will be added soon.

A debut crime novel Five Nights (2024) by Rachel Wolf is a psychological thriller set aboard a luxury cruise liner. Emily and Bella were best friends growing up next door to each other. Yet for the past three years, they have had no contact due to some unknown event. Emily receives a surprise invitation to join Bella and her billionaire husband on the inaugural cruise of their cruise ship, sailing from Portsmouth to New York. Yet the wealthy family are caught up in secrets from their past, jealousy and a fight over their share of the inheritance. Emily is supposed to be looking out for Bella, yet she too has secrets and a past she doesn’t want revealed. Its building tension, numerous surprise revelations and misdeeds make this a three stars read rating. With thanks to Aria & Aries and the author, for an uncorrected advanced review copy for review purposes. As always, the opinions herein are totally my own, freely given and without inducement.

3.5*

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC.

Wow I flew through this book, the story was addictive and I couldn't stop reading. The pacing of the writing was spot on for the story.

This book has so many interesting characters and a plot that keeps you guessing as we learn more and the days move on. I would have liked a little bit more time on the ending of the cruise itself but otherwise I really enjoyed this book. Will be a great holiday read!