A short summer read about a seventeen-year-old boy who, while on a family camping holiday, witnesses another teenager commit suicide. Instead of alerting anyone to the tragedy, he buries the body in the sand and spends his last days of the trip fearful of what he did being discovered.

I'm not sure where I was expecting this novella to go, but it focused a lot on teenage hormones and sex. I found myself constantly annoyed with Leonard's behaviour.

A middle of the road 3-stars from me as I was hoping for something creepier and with a little more suspense.

This is a tiny little book. I loved the setting. It is written so well. It is a piece of translated fiction. However, I felt it was a little complicated

I could not get into this book, ultimately it was not form me and I could not finish it. It may be one for other readers

Highly recommend this book, it’s a feel good book. I really enjoyed this read.
Thank you to both NetGalley and publishers for gifting me this book

"Heatwave" by Victor Justin is a novel that explores the themes of guilt, fear, and desire through the eyes of its teenage protagonist, Leo. T
he story begins with Leo witnessing another boy strangle himself in an empty playground and ends with him wandering around a campsite, haunted by guilt and fear, and distracted by his desire for a girl named Luce. The novel is set during a heatwave, which serves as a metaphor for the characters' intense emotions. The atmosphere is well-crafted and the descriptions of the setting are vivid and evocative. However, the pacing is slow in parts, and the story can be hard to follow at times. The characters are not fully fleshed out and their actions can be hard to understand. The themes of the novel are heavy and thought-provoking, but the execution falls short. This is not to say that the book is bad, but it may not be for everyone. If you enjoy slow-burning, atmospheric stories with heavy themes though, this book may be for you.

the atmosphere was creatively built up in the heat of a french holiday camp. easy to picture the carefree family camping holiday with teenagers getting a taste of freedom, but felt the story was a little slow paced, perhaps needed perspective of others on the camp.

Lovely feel good book to read. It was a joy to read. Lovely characters. Great plot. The book was charming. Very well written. I’d definitely recommend this book

I received an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author Victor Jestin.
This is story is incredibly vivd, unsettling, and almost visceral. Leo's discomfort and guilt is tangible, and as the reader you are fully immersed into the camp setting, the heat palpable and uncomfortable. Very engaging, would recommend for a short, impactful read.

This story packs a punch in just a small amount of pages ( just over a 100) it’s a dark tale of a 17 year old boy who finds a boy hanging (still alive) and chooses not to save him but to watch him die, then to bury him and carry on his holiday as normal! I’m not going to say anymore, as you need to read this book! Great debut novel, I’m looking forward to your next one.

French author Victor Jestin’s short yet forceful debut novel is part dark coming-of-age novel, part morality tale. Set over the span of a weekend, it tells the story of a 17-year-old who witnesses another teenager dying and chooses not to save his life even though he is able to.

My full review is on the Crime Fiction Lover website: https://crimefictionlover.com/2021/09/heatwave-by-victor-jestin/ and will also be posted on my blog: https://westwordsreviews.wordpress.com/

Anyone who spent childhood summers in Eurocamps will immediately recognise the setting for this short novel, and the heady appeal of those temporary communities which spring up on continental campsites. These holiday destinations are places where all types of people mix, revelling in the heat and relaxed attitudes, with hedonism being the only item on the agenda – theoretically perfect for a teenager like Leonard, the narrator – yet when he stumbles on Oscar, another teen holidaymaker, drunkenly hanging from a swingset with ropes coiled around his neck – Leonard’s inaction, even when Oscar’s lifeless body drops to the ground – condemns him to a weekend (and lifetime) of psychological torment. Burying Oscar’s body does not make the problem go away, and we follow Leonard around the blisteringly-hot campsite, internally tearing himself to shreds while externally keeping up life as a ‘normal’ teen so as not to arouse suspicion. Tense, claustrophobic and angst-ridden, this book is a real white knuckle-ride and a fantastic reminder of how exhausting and emotional teenage life can be – even when not passively committing murder.

Heatwave is a multiple award-winning thriller written by bestselling French author Victor Jestin in which he fictionalises an experience that happened to him on a camping excursion in his teen years. "Oscar died because I watched him die without lifting a finger. He died strangled by the ropes of a swing." Thus begins this short and intense novel that tells us about the last day seventeen-year-old Léonard spent in a campground in Landes oppressed by the sweltering heat. An irreparable behaviour that he does not know how to explain. Is staying still the same as killing? Is an omission still merely that if it results in being an accessory after the fact? In a blind panic, and for no discernible reason, he buries the body on the beach. While his peers are celebrating in record heat, drinking, Léonard stumbles alone and tired through the last hours of his summer vacation on the French campsite. The next day, while he expects to be discovered at any moment, he meets a girl. The seductive Luce confuses him, helpless and entranced he is exposed to her shameless games.

Caught in his complex and contradicting feelings, Léonard can hardly escape his delirium. This is a compulsive and profound crime novel about the visceral impact of trauma and guilt and how it eats away at your conscience; of a teenager foreign to the world around him, a young man in his formative years who does not know how to play the game, that of seduction, of the perennial party, of the holidays, and who opposes, passively but in all of his strength, to this injunction to happiness that the loudspeakers of the campsite in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region of southwestern France pour out. A short but powerful novella that explores rumination on death and guilt as interrupters of normal quotidian life. It's a tale very skilful at instilling contradictory feelings of empathy and rejection for the young boy who is guilty without actually being guilty but who locks himself in an unbearable dead end while life at the campsite continues in its banality and ordinary trivialities. Both lucid and insane, taking action is only a reflection of his distress in a world he does not recognise as his own.

'Oscar is dead because I watched him die and did nothing.' This was the line that made me want to read this book. This and the fact that it describes itself as a 'gripping psychological thriller.'

Heatwave was a really short book, at just over 100 pages, so it was one that I read very quickly. It follows the story of Leonard, a seventeen year old boy who watches Oscar kill himself, and does nothing. The series of events that follow are a little confusing and don't necessarily make sense without us knowing what kind of person Leonard is. The book then follows Leonard over the weekend, trying to act normal, whilst coming to terms with what he has done.

I found it to be well written and it kept my interest, but it seemed to leave a wealth of unanswered questions. The ending was very abrupt and I finished the book thinking 'what on earth just happened?!'

I have given this book 3 stars as I did enjoy it, I'm just not sure I understood it as it was meant. My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for sending me this ARC in return for an honest review.

3.5 stars rounded up.
It's been a few days since I finished this book and I am still unsure what I thought about it. It's a bit of a snapshot into the life and, indeed, an event that sends Leo down a different path. He's on holiday with his family, camping, when he comes across a friend of his who is in the process of strangling himself with the ropes holding the swings in the playground. Now Leo doesn't do what you'd expect him to, He doesn't rush to Oscar's aid, doesn't try and save him. No, he watches, from afar. Then, when he is sure Oscar is dead, instead of running for help, running to report what has happened, even if that meant pretending that he arrived too late... No, he untangles Oscar's dead body, drags it to the beach and buries him in the sand. And now the story really begins as we now follow Leo for the next day or so as he comes to terms, or otherwise, with what has happened. With what he has done. All the time hiding the fact that Oscar is dead. Hiding this even from those close to Oscar... We see as he torments himself as all around him, everyone else goes on as usual...
My main issue with this book was that I was never satisfied with Leo's actions that night. I might have missed something, probably did, but nothing I read subsequently convinced me that he would take that path... Maybe leaving the boy to die, there might have been reason for that. But hiding the body seemed a bit off key. Maybe that's why I didn't quite manage to connect to Leo fully, even as the book progressed and with what happened at the end. I think maybe there's something that was missing from me for me to have been able to fully engage with what I was reading. Not sure to be honest. But it was a relatively short read that kept my attention nicely throughout, even if it didn't leave me as satisfied as I would have preferred to be at the end.
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

Small but mighty, this is a short quick read. What it lacks in size, it makes up for with an intense atmosphere, intriguing and interesting characters, and a disturbing plot.

I read this really quickly as it's just over 100 pages long, so perfect for lunch breaks or relaxing in the bath.

I found this to be an average read. Nothing terrible, just a little far-fetched, and quite unrelatable for me...but perhaps that is because I have never been a 17-year-old boy! However, despite this, it was entertaining enough to recommend to others.

"Oscar is dead because I watched him die and did nothing".

Such a great novella! It is really short - not even 200 pages - but a fantastic one, really eerie and tense, as we follow Leonard, a teenager who witnessed someone die and made an incredibly stupid decision he can't go back on. Every page I wanted to tell him to do something else, and I felt... real anxiety reading it. I nearly wished there was more but ultimately I think keeping it short is what makes it so poignant and powerful. Great descriptions of teenage boredom and teenage 'love', and really a memorable story.

A searing coming of age novel set during a late summer heatwave. Leo witnesses the suicide of another boy in the campsite where he is staying with his family. Over the course of a long weekend, we observe the actions that will change Leo's life. I raced through the novella, appreciated the brevity of the writing and the emotions of the character.

Heatwave is a short novel that follows 17 year old Leo as he wanders the holiday park he is staying at her comes across a boy he has become acquaintances with strangling himself with ropes. In a panic, Leo does nothing to help him and lets him die. We follow Leo over the next 24 hours.

This is a book that you can read in one sitting. I found the novel described place very well, I was able to clearly imagine the holiday park. It started off suspenseful but then it was just Leo and his day at the holiday park. He was constantly thinking about what had happened and what he had done, but we just saw him become interested in a girl and trying to explore that, which is not what I was particularly wanting to read about. So, I think I went into this with the wrong expectations. It was still intriguing to be in the mind of Leo an awkward teenager, grappling with something dark.

Still an interesting short novel, that left me thinking, but I wanted more from it.

A compelling read, I enjoyed this novella and read far too late into the night, which is always a good sign.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read an ARC.

Seventeen-year-old Leo is sitting in an empty playground at night, listening to the sound of partying and pop music filtering in from the beach, when he sees another, more popular boy strangle himself with the ropes of the swings. Then, in a panic, Leo drags the other to the beach and buries him. Over the next 24 hours, Leo wanders around the campsite like a sleepwalker, haunted by guilt and fear.

This is a really quick read, a novel at less than 120 pages, I read it in one sitting. The descriptions of the French campsite setting were fab, I could really picture the scenes perfectly. But I found myself being really frustrated with Leo, what on earth possessed him to bury the body?! But as you read on, you get that he doesn’t understand why he did it either, he’s just a young teenager in a place at a certain time that panicked.⁣

This is a first for me by the author and one I enjoyed and would read more of their work. The book cover is eye-catching and appealing and would spark my interest if in a bookshop. Thank you very much to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.