Our Holiday | Louise Candlish
REVIEWED BY LINDA HILL
In this psychological thriller, the permanent young residents of Pine Ridge on England’s south coast, led by Robbie, are waging a campaign against second-home owners. A brilliant summer holiday read!
Our Holiday: book review & synopsis
Charlotte and Perry have owned a clifftop holiday home for years, but when their city friends Amy and Linus buy a property next door, rivalries are uncovered, tensions are heightened and not everyone gets out alive!
Our Holiday is a thrilling and nasty book. It’s rammed with unpleasant, self-serving people, many of whom will stop at nothing to get what they want. As a result, it is mesmerising, filling the reader with contempt, fear and a fascination to know what is going to happen.
It is Louise Candlish at her absolute best, as she reveals just what lies beneath the middle-class veneer of the privileged. Watching the implosion of the lives of these entitled individuals feels both voyeuristic, incredibly unnervingly and satisfying. It makes the reader question their own morality as they take pleasure in watching the downfall of these unpleasant people. It’s so difficult not to completely enjoy their suffering.
Initially I found the characters took a while to become clear in my head, partly because of the dual timescale and different viewpoints in the book’s structure. However, each individual soon became distinct and shimmering with menace, threat and deception.
I loved the multi-generational age range because it illustrated how money can’t buy happiness and how real communication within seemingly ideal families is often an illusion in our Instagram world. Our Holiday felt like real societal truths were being told. It’s sophisticated and intelligent.
The plot is brilliant…
There’s a pitch-perfect balance between ordinary life and extraordinary events. The story opens with a building crashing from the cliff into the sea and then swirls and eddies like the tide as we discover exactly what has taken place.
Just like real life, not everything is perfectly resolved at the end, leaving readers to wonder what is happening to the characters as they reverberate in the mind long after this story is finished.
Filled with toxic duplicity and searing tension, Our Holiday is one of THE thrillers of the summer – even if it does make you want to stay safely at home!
Our Holiday by Louise Candlish is out now (HQ, PB, £9.99) and available from Amazon.
Read more fiction reviews by Linda Hill including The Unforgettable Loretta, Darling by Katherine Blake, My Favourite Mistake by Marian Keyes, The Intruders by Louise Jensen, A Lesson In Cruelty by Harriet Tyce, Every Move You Make by C.L. Taylor and Every Smile You Fake by Dorothy Koomson.
