Finlay immediately grabs your attention in this book and holds it throughout. The prologue is intense and attention grabbing and sets the tone for the book. However, I did find the beginning a bit confusing with all the characters and their families. And with such a large cast, it felt like many of the characters were surface level developed and it was difficult to become truly invested in their outcomes. It did start to come together a bit around the 25% mark and the confusion cleared up. I will say, every character in this book has a dirty little secret, and it was so fun to learn them all. The parents chapters were interesting to read and compelling, but the kids chapters felt a little YA and less developed. I honestly had no idea that this book was an installment in Finlay’s continuing series, and it does work very well as a standalone. From the beginning, I had a good idea of what was going on, and ended up being correct, but Finlay did throw a few good twists in. Overall this was a gripping, fast paced, and engaging read that kept me turning pages until the end. 4/5 ⭐️

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this eARC!!

I've read multiple books by this author, and he consistently delivers engaging stories. This one is no exception! Set during parents' weekend at Santa Clara University, it follows a small group of freshmen and their families. The plot is filled with suspense and unexpected twists. I highly recommend it!

Holy molly Alex did it AGAIN 🤯
That was the most intense & edge of my seat thriller reads of 2025!! by far this book will be a huge hit this year 👏, It was truly captivating. This
was beautifully written and put together in multiple POVs with the past & present touches really brought each character and their own stories together. I loved the return of FBI Agent Sarah Keller from The Night Shift and the glimpse into her family.
Highly recommend you preorder Parents Weekend out on May 6,2025 l promise it won't disappoint it's so twisty and addictive.

I really loved the first half, but the ending was much slower. I wasn't a fan of the specific ending, although I certainly did not guess it

There are a lot of characters in this book and a lot of flipping around. Which for me made things confusing. What kept me hooked was it was based near me at Santa Clara University so some of the places/areas referenced I knew. There was some good banter which I appreciate but as a thriller it felt all over. I plan to maybe read again once released to just see if maybe it’s just a miss right now. Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy.

Alex Finlay's Parents Weekend hits every parent's deepest fears right where it hurts. Set at a small Northern California college, this thriller takes a seemingly innocent parents' weekend celebration and turns it into pure nightmare fuel when five students vanish without a trace.

The genius of Finlay's storytelling lies in how he makes you care about these families before he tears their world apart. Through multiple perspectives, including the sharp-eyed FBI Special Agent Sarah Keller (a familiar face for Finlay's fans), we watch as a simple dinner and cocktails spiral into a desperate search for answers.

What makes this book stick with you isn't just the wild twists – though trust me, there are plenty. It's how Finlay nails those awkward, tender moments between parents and their almost-adult kids. Anyone who's ever dropped a child off at college will feel this story in their bones. The way he weaves these universal growing pains into a high-stakes thriller is nothing short of masterful.

Sure, keeping track of all the characters can feel like herding cats sometimes, and Finlay loves throwing red herrings at you like confetti. But these minor quirks barely dent the impact of this emotionally charged page-turner. The story grabs you by the throat and doesn't let go until the final page.

As First Clue Reviews says, "Plan a weekend to devour this terrific thriller." They're not wrong – this is a one-sitting kind of book that'll have you checking on your college kids more often than usual.

I give it 3.5 out of 5 stars for a thriller that proves that sometimes the scariest stories are the ones that hit closest to home.

Thanks to NetGalley for a preview of this book. It follows five families' experiences around the disappearance of a group of college students. The chapters bounce around the perspectives of the various families. For me, it was a lot of characters to keep straight. I tend to read books over two to three days, so it was ok, but I think the longer it takes to read the harder it is to stay engaged with all of these different points of view. While the story was engaging, it was somewhat predictable. My rating falls between 3 and 4 but more leaning towards 3.

3.5 stars

I must say I loved the way the chapters were laid out, yes there were a ton of characters, but I liked that each chapter was a different family or single character and we get to know a little more in each one of the students/families/cops in every chapter. I'm not sure its much of a thriller but definitely a mystery. A quick, fun read that flows well, always a good time.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for access to an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Parents weekend centers around 5 college students who are discovered to go missing as they are to meet their parents for dinner during parents weekend. Each chapter discerns one of the five families background stories in conjunction with what they are experiencing in the present day. Chapters are also dedicated to the lead FBI agent Keller, who has a story of her own to tell as we move through the the weekend and the mysterious disappearance of the students.
Overall, I enjoyed this book on vacation over two days. It was not page turner nor was it filled with twisted and turns like I had hoped. There was so much attention paid to the specific families and the issues they needed to overcome that I thought that would somehow tie into the solving of these missing students but it really never converged when it could have done so with more plotting by the author. I was just waiting for something to strike me in a how-could-I-have-missed-that type of way and it never really came. It was a solid beach read and held my interest and I would recommend it as an interesting mystery with a few oohs and ahhs.

I love the way Finley write a thriller. The plot keeps moving & keeps me engaged. The characters are enjoyable. The mystery is entertaining. The way this book was put together with the clues was fun. Def recommend for a fun thriller!

WOW! This is the third book I have read by this author. He certainly knows how to set the stage, giving the book amazingly realistic settings that it times are also grim.

There is a lot to take in here. Many of the characters are flawed with somewhat dysfunctional home lives. The students seem to be typical college students, until lots of things change in everyone's life. The characterization, to pull everything together is extremely well done, and it was easy to get wrapped up in this story.

The suspenseful events kept me glued to the story. It's one of those books that are hard to put down. Things are going south, but I didn't know why,, just that they are, and this one kept me up at night.

Well done!

Alex Finlay has mastered the short-chapters that keep you guessing from minute to minute as you fly through trying to figure out what is happening and who is to blame. I found this one to be a little more obvious, but I still enjoyed the ride of getting there. It was wild reading some very modern and up-to-date references (Rizz? X?) in a novel already, but I'm here for it. Thank you to Minotaur Books and NetGalley for my ARC!

The plot of the book was exciting and the multiple points of view gave great insight into the family dynamic of each of "The Five." However, I thought the book was lacking excitement. I did keep reading because I was interested in learning what happened, but I wasn't on the edge of my seat. Finlay did a great job of bringing Agent Keller into this novel, and I enjoyed the callbacks to previous books of his. The major twist in the end was predictable and the book in general was a bit lackluster.

I was given a copy of this ARC in exchange for an honest review

I loved this. Popcorn thriller vibes. It was fast paced, easy to read and the multiple POVs held my interest.
The twist was a bit predictable, but I enjoyed following along through the different perspectives enough that it didn't really impede my enjoyment.
I would read more from this author

Drama, secrets and murder! Oh my!! This was a good one, but I expect no less from Alex Finlay! The story begins with five families meeting for dinner at Parents Weekend at their kids' college. Problem is that none of the five kids show up. After 12 hours, they are declared missing. Oh yeah, and another student has turned up dead. Uh oh. We also find out that none of these families are normal and all have issues. Are any of these issues part of the reason for the disappearances? We have a lot of POV's here, all of the parents, missing students and there are also all of the podcasters and true-crimers in the mix. It did get to be a bit to keep up with at times, but overall, a quick, suspenseful read that came together nicely. I look forward to more from Mr. Finlay!

Thank you to #NetGalley, Alex Finlay and St. Martin's Press | Minotaur Books for this ARC. All opinions are my own.

I will post my review to Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Facebook and other retail and social media sites upon publication day of May 06, 2025.

I was drawn to Parents Weekend because I've taken part in two parent weekend events with our college daughter, and the premise felt intriguing.

The story follows five families who gather for a fun night of dinner and drinks, celebrating their kids' first year of college. But when their children - dubbed "The Five" by the media - never show up and go completely silent, worry turns to panic. As the search unfolds, secrets about the students and their families start to emerge, making everyone wonder what really happened that night.

Told from multiple POV's and shifting between past and present, the book kept me engaged with its twists and suspense. I liked the mix of family drama, mystery, and social media speculation. At times, the story felt a little drawn out, but overall it was an exciting read. And most importantly, it felt a little too far-fetched and nothing at all like the parents' weekends we experience with our own kid, so my anxious mama heart wasn't thrown into any major tailspins.

This book was such a fun read as a Bay Area local with a family member that has attended Santa Clara. I love the way this thriller referenced recent current events and the way it was handled by the media. Overall, this book was a really easy read and kept me hooked throughout. I didn’t quite understand the organization, for each family story, but it came out to be cohesive in the end. It had a heartwarming ending with graduation for each character, and I really appreciated ending on a high note.

I always enjoy reading Alex Finlay books and was so excited to be approved for an early copy of Parents Weekend. It was a super fat, twisty and suspenseful read that I powered through in 2 days. Lot is characters to remember and relationships to keep track of but they were all pretty unique so that was not a drama.

I loved the appearance of FBI agent Sarah Keller, who has temporarily moved to California with her husband and the twins she was carrying in The Night Shift. She is called in when 5 students from Santa Clara University all disappear on the same night, the night of the parents weekend dinner.

Now all these parents were hiding secrets, and some were in quite big profile jobs. The kids were equally keeping secrets. This gave plenty of suspects and reasons for the kids to go missing. It was a wild ride as always with this author and so fun to read.

Thanks so much to St Martin’s Press on NetGalley for my advanced copy of this book to read. Publishes on May 6th.

Alex Finlay has become a bit of a fave for me. I've read most of their books and was excited for this one. This is probably sitting around a 3.5, but I rounded down.

It was super fast paced, which I always love in a thriller. It was about five college kids who mysteriously go missing the weekend their parents come to visit. Lots of things seem to be related and everything seems really suspicious. I thought the plot was pretty clever, but there were ALOT of characters to keep track of. At times, it got a little confusing and I found myself not remembering who was who, or how things were connected. This is pretty much my only reason for a bit of a lower rating. Overall, it was entertaining. But I needed a better way to keep track of the characters for me to give it a higher rating.

Title: Parents Weekend
Author: Alex Finlay
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press ~ Minotaur Books
Genre: Mystery Thriller
Pub Date: May 6, 2025
My Rating: 3.5 Stars!
Pages: 320

Libby Akanas, Blane Roosevelt, Mark Wong Felix Goffman, and Stella Maldonado are all freshmen at Santa Clara University living at Campus Hall. It is Parents Weekend and their parents are on campus.
Friday night starts with opening festivities of dinner and cocktails. The five sets of parents are waiting for their students to join them however they never show up.

The Parents; Ken and Amy Akanas, Cynthia and Hank Roosevelt, Andrew Wong, Alice Goffman and David and Nina Maldonado,

I always enjoy stories on a college campus. I have been to Santa Clara University and pleased to say it is a top –rated university however near Stanford so seems to get lost in a Bay area fog! I was sooo disappointing with these students and their nasty attitudes and foul language, however after meeting the parents I wasn’t surprised.

However, once the students had been taken I was interesting ~ Whodunit!
The end was good so I was glad I hung in there.

This was my fifth novel by[author, Alex Finlay. Since I liked the others I read, I went into this story with high expectations - I didn’t know anything about the story. I often do that when I like an author! I liked FBI Special Agent Sarah Keller from "Every Last Fear and The Night Shift" so was pleased she was in this story. Additionally loved that we readers got introduction of her twins Heather and Michael.

However, I felt like ~ Oops - typically I am not disappointed- however I struggled with this one with so many unlikeable characters.

Awww Alex Finlay saved this from a 2 rating in his ‘Reader’s Note’~ He tells us his son is attending Santa Clara University and his story in no way bears resemblance to reality. It was meant to be a thriller on a beautiful campus. He personally attended Parents Weekend and got this bright idea1

Want to thank NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press ~Minotaur Books for this early eGalley.
Publishing Release Date scheduled for May 6, 2025.