I couldn't put this book down as the author captured my imagination from the get do with the who did who with what and for how long. Everyone seemed to be suspicious and it kept me guessing as to who was the guilty party. I was slightly disappointed with the ending as if felt the book finished without the closure I wanted.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Pacmillan for giving me this copy.

3 couples travel from London to the coast of Portugal for the wedding of one of the couples. Problems arise when the infidelity is suspected between various participants in the trip.

This was a quick read. I found myself interested in how things would turn out and the end was surprising. Another pretty good read from this author.

Rachel and Noah have been best friends for over 20 years since meeting at university and for many people appeared to be the perfect couple. Fate conspired however to keep them apart in a romantic sense and both are now happily married to other people - Rachel to Jack and Noah to Paige - and the foursome enjoy a long standing and close friendship. Jack's brother Will is finally settling down to marry the beautiful and seemingly high maintenance Ali after many years travelling the world and the wedding is taking place over a weekend in a glorious Portugal setting.
We join the story as Rachel and Jack, Noah and Paige and Ali are about to depart for Portugal to join Will and begin the wedding celebrations and from the outset it is clear that there is tension within the group and no one seems overly fond of the dramatic and attention-seeking Ali.
Despite previously working for Jack and meeting Will through his brother it seems that most of the tension is between Jack and Ali - in fact Jack seems openly hostile towards Ali and when questioned by Rachel claims that he knows that Ali was unfaithful to Will with another colleague. Ali meanwhile appears to be toying with Jack's feelings towards her by being openly flirtatious and seeking out his attention at any opportunity despite his obvious discomfort around her.
The wedding finally takes place but secrets have a habit of coming out and during the course of a tense reception the lies, infidelities and suspicions of the entire group explode culminating in a shocking act of violence.
I am becoming a huge fan of Sandie Jones and this latest book is my favourite to date. I particularly enjoy the easy flow of the writing and the complicated but realistic characters and the only negative for me was a slightly rushed ending where the full extent of deceit and lies was revealed over the final couple of pages. I felt that this could possibly have been expanded slightly. A very minor issue and did not really detract from my overall enjoyment.
4 stars and huge thanks to Netgalley UK and publishers for the ARC.

Having read and thoroughly enjoyed all of Sandie Jones' previous books, I went into this with high expectations. I have to be really honest and say that this just didn't hit the spot for me. It's presented as a thriller, but it falls short of this category by a long shot in my opinion. It's more a case of low level drama and betrayal.
The book ambles along at a medium pace, until the final few chapters where it really ramps up. For me, the ending is unbelievable and comes out of the blue. I didn't particularly like any of the characters, and found it a bit implausible that this foursome would be such a good, close group of friends, given what was going on between them.
That being said, it is still written in Jones' typical engaging way and did leave me wanting to finish the book to answer my questions. I would recommend as a quick, easy and mildly gripping read, but I felt it lacked Jones' usual punchy style.

Thank you to Pan Macmillan and Netgalley for an eARC of this book to read and review.

I persevered with this book to see how it would end but I didn’t really find it engaging. The characters didn’t really have any depth and I found that I didn’t really grow to care about any of them! There was some promise in the overall plot where a number of people gathered in a beautiful location for a wedding with all sorts of secrets coming to light over the course of a few days. But sadly it didn’t live up to the potential.

Sandie Jones just keeps getting better. Another clever domestic thriller with enough twists and turns to keep the reader turning the page quickly to find out just what is behind the secrets these three couples keep. The ending is not at all what you expect!

Sandie Jones has come up with a great thriller set in Portugal,5 friends travel out to a villa for a wedding of Jacks brother Will who they meet out there.bu.t all is not what it seems on the surface because they are all hiding secrets which when they come out will blow their friendships apart,it is a well written thriller as are all Sandie Jones's books and this one once again doesn't disappoint,it kept me gripped from the first page and is a surefire winner in my book.A 5 star read which i can highly recommend.

Ooh I enjoyed this so much.
It’s full of drama, suspense, red herring clues, twists and revelations. Great read.

I’ve always loved Sandie Jones books, however this one didn’t quite hit the mark for me.
I struggled with the different relationships and to differentiate between the characters and couples.
That being said, the ending was excellent and did pull together the story.
Overall, it’s a good psychological thriller but not my favourite read by this author.

Having enjoyed previous books by the author, I was excited to read The Guild Trip, especially given the intriguing blurb. Although easy to read with enough going on to keep me interested, it felt really obvious to me where the book was going, something I feel is always the problem when a book has a small amount of characters such as this one. As a result, this unfortunately left me disappointed when I was proved correct. I also found it hard not to be sceptical of the friendship group as a whole, constantly feeling that it was unrealistic that such people could be friends, especially as there was clearly a lot of animosity amongst them all for one reason or another.

A straight forward enough read with some plenty of red herrings but overall a book that sadly felt a bit flat for my liking.

When Jack and Rachel go to Portugal with Paige and Noah for the wedding of Jack’s brother, Will to the live wire that is Ali, no one could expect what is a happy occasion to be overshadowed with deceit and lies.
I’m a massive fan of Sandie’s books and this was no exception. Sandie created a web of lies and you end up caring about what happens to the characters. Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for this arc in exchange for my honest review.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for this arc. Wedding/holiday destination thrillers seem to be all the rage at the moment; possibly due to the pandemic and lockdown, readers are seeking escapist reads. I certainly am! That’s why I requested The Guilt Trip. A sun-soaked thriller read to Portugal? Count me in! This was a satisfying read. What Crimebythebook would call a popcorn read 🍿 and it was a sweet and salty snack alright. Although a bit light on the thriller aspect this was a page/turner.
This is narrated in close third-person and follows Rachel, a woman in her early 40s, who is travelling to Portugal for her brother-in-law’s wedding to the high maintenance, Ali, with her husband, Jack, and her university best friend Noah and his wife Paige, who over the years has become Rachel’s close friend too. A sea-facing villa has been booked for these six. Over booze-soaked starry nights secrets are disclosed and tensions fly high as decades bound locked secrets and resentment simmers...
This was a firecracker of a read. It zips along so steadily. The dialogues are packed with tension and mistrust. The characters are all real. I felt like if I bumped into them on the train or the street I’d instantly recognise them. There’s lots of reveals and twists too. I did find the last 20% to be quite rushed though and found the ‘antagonist’ a bit caricature. Had that aspect of the novel been better developed this would’ve be a five star read. Nonetheless this was gripping and a damn good ride. 4/5. .

2.5 stars - After reading the description, this wasn’t quite what I was expecting. I did enjoy the way Rachel and Ali’s relationship developed throughout the book, and all the twists that came with it. The story itself was decent, but I found myself constantly waiting for the real excitement to start and didn’t get that until the last 25% of the book.

Had I been expecting more of a drama, rather than a thriller, I think I would be more satisfied. I did really enjoy Rachel and Ali’s characters and would’ve loved this as a dual narrative from their perspectives!

Overall, it wasn’t for me but I’m glad I gave it a go.

I have enjoyed previous books by Sandie Jones and this does not fail either.

A fast paced thriller regarding 3 couples who go away with each other for a wedding and what unravels during this time. I devoured this book and wasn't sure how it was going to wrap up! All the deceit and lies come to a head during the wedding reception which ends in a twist you won't be expecting!

I liked the relationship between Rachel and Ali and how that played out over the course of the book but the final third left me a bit confused and I had to reread several chapters again to clarify it all, especially the ending!

Overall a good and pacey read but left me feeling a little confused by the end.

Thanks to Sandie, Pan & Netgalley for the ARC :)

A fast paced physiological thriller! I really enjoyed this book. It's a story about a group of friends who attend a wedding.. their lives are intertwined with betrayal and deceit... but who is telling the truth?

One of the most twisted and entertaining plots. A perfect beach read to escape with fabulous characters

Absolutely brilliant book, delving in to the depths of being a close group of friends and trying to let someone new into the group.

Jack and Rachel are strong friend’s with Noah and Paige. Jack’s brother Will is getting married to Ali, who is desperately trying to be accepted by the group.

Everyone is quite suspicious of Ali, Jack is just plain rude to her. But is Ali really the issue people are making out.

Stunning twists that you won’t see coming and a truly excellent read.

Thanks to Netgalley for the preview of this book. Unfortunately I found it very different to what it promised. It was not really a thriller or a murder mystery more of a drama between friends I did like the character but I felt it didn't live up to what it promised.

I really enjoyed this book as it gave a great insight to each character. I especially liked the connection between Rachel and Ali, complicated to start with but all ends well.

The twisted love story followed many different avenues - just as you thought you knew what was going to happen, the author would throw in a curve ball and send you in a different direction.

Thoroughly entertaining book and one that you could see made into a TV series.

I thought the way the Author wrote this was genius, giving you not only the conversations between the characters, but their individual thoughts too

Rating: 2.3/5

Having read the marketing blurb I was expecting a very different book to the one I ended up reading. I quote: 'They went away as friends. They came back as suspects.' And then: 'By the end of the weekend there’ll be one dead body and five people with guilty consciences wondering if they really know each other so well after all. Because one of them has to be the killer . . .' Now, I'm pretty sure it isn't just me getting hold of the wrong end of the stick, but doesn't that suggest the tried and trusted premise of a "locked room" style murder mystery? But that isn't what "The Guilt Trip" delivers at all. It is much more of a drama story with a "frenemies" theme to it, that is full of secrets, lies and deception.

At the heart of the story is the imminent marriage of Will and Ali in Portugal. They are joined on the trip by Will's brother, Jack and his wife, Paige, in addition to Rachel and her husband, Noah. Most of the group, except for bride-to-be, Ali, are in their early 40s and have been close friends for many years. For the sake of remaining as spoiler-free as possible I will not go into great detail here, but suffice to say that the plot development very much hinges on a number of secrets, lies and deceptions - some more recent, but others that are quite long-standing.

How much each individual will enjoy this novel will, I suspect, depend very much upon the amount of dramatic licence they are prepared to grant the author. Personally, I found it difficult in the first instance to envisage the likelihood of this group of people being such devoted friends, given their history. However, if you are prepared to accept this, then there is still the fact that this group of, supposedly, incredibly close friends seem incapable of communicating with each other in order to sort out even the most minor of potential misunderstandings.

If you are prepared to look beyond this, then the writing is generally quite engaging and there are twists and turns along the way, with plenty of misdirection too. On the whole, the pace is good, though during the middle third of the book I did feel as though the story was meandering around for a while without really going anywhere very quickly.

Overall, this a fairly easy read with some appealing elements, but it stretches credulity a bit too far and the misleading blurb doesn't do the writer any favours.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for supplying an ARC in return for an honest review.