When a group of women head to a remote island for a hen weekend the most they are expecting is to feel slightly uncomfortable as they don’t all know each other but each is important to the bride to be. However, soon after they arrive one of the group is kidnapped and to secure her release each has to reveal her darkest secret.

Set over a single weekend this book is full of tension. Fast paced with a gripping storyline. A great read.

Jen’s getting married and a group of her friends, some who know each other, some acquaintances and some who are meeting for the first time, gather to celebrate on a remote island retreat. Some of the group have history between them. All of them have secrets.

The weekend already has potential to be explosive but when they find a body and one of the group is kidnapped the stakes are raised. The only way to save their friend is to reveal their deepest secret. How far will each woman go to keep her secret and is everyone as they seem?

Having been on a few girls' weekends I felt Brookmyre caught the dynamic pretty perfectly. From the excited airport drinks to the underlying tensions and resentments. He did a great job of writing a set of believable, interesting female characters and some of the interactions were spot on.

I felt this book was really well paced with the action developing alongside the unfolding of the characters' stories and possible motives. The humour we associate with Brookmyre’s books is there, definitely not as dark but there all the same.

This book is a total corkscrew - twist after twist after twist. My head was spinning come the end. A couple of things I thought I had definitely worked out. One in particular I thought I had right and I did - until the story twisted again!

Loved the music references throughout. I’m probably a similar age to the characters so definitely a bit of nostalgia and some songs that I had forgotten about.

It has been a few years since I have read any of Chris Brookmyre’s books. This book felt different from his earlier work but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

Huge thanks to NetGalley and LIttle Brown for the chance to read an early copy

{{Frontpage
|isbn=1408712172
|title=The Cliff House
|author=Chris Brookmyre
|rating=5
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=''Many of them didn't know each other, one of them didn't know anybody, including Jen, one of them quite possibly hated her, and two of them definitely hated each other. What could possibly go wrong?''

That's the round-up for Jen's hen party which is to take place on Clachan Geal an island just south of Barra. They're all staying in The Cliff House, hosted by Lauren, and it's the utmost in luxury living but then Jen can afford it. She's just sold her muffin business for millions but is staying on to run it. She's got her doubts about the long weekend: fiance Zaki Hussain has been acting a little strangely of late and wouldn't explain to her what the email he was hurriedly deleting was about. Added to that, he's just about forced her to bring his sister, Samira, whom Jen's never met, on the trip, on the grounds that she's been stuck at home with newborn twins for the last six months and desperately needs the break.
}}

Authentic Scottish murder mystery!
Took me a while to tune into the gaelic which didn't detract from a good storyline. A great summer read.
Jen is having a luxury island retreat hen party with all the mod cons, but the dynamics between all the ladies will slowly unravel over the weekend, along with an unknown new relative and a personal chef!
Old grudges, secrets, passions and personal issues abound.
The story weaves in and out along with the tension and drama. Certainly edge of the seat stuff in places!! Slightly predictable at times but a good read nonetheless.
Thank you NetGalley for the early read.

If it didn’t have Chris Brookmyre’s name on the cover I would never have guessed he had written it. It didn’t sound like his “voice” and was lacking his trademark snarky humour!

Jen has organised a hen’s weekend at a luxury resort on a remote Scottish Island, Clachan Geal, and invited six friends including her former sister-in-law, Beattie, and her soon to be sister-in-law, Samira. There is even a private chef arranged. The owner of the resort, Lauren, usually leaves once her guests have settled in but elects to stay this time in her private apartment. It is not long before things start to go spectacularly wrong. At first I thought this was just another of the many “locked room”type mysteries set in remote Scottish islands but it soon got very interesting.

One of their number has been abducted and is being held by The Reaper until someone admits their sins and makes reparations. Of course these people, including Lauren have all done things they are not proud of and they all have secrets. They have no idea who the actual target is. So of course nobody wants to go first!

The characterisations were really well done, we get a good sense of who these people are, warts and all. As the situation becomes more dire the secrets start to come tumbling out and some sins are forgiven and the women work together to find a resolution. But as you will see, not everything is revealed. The tension really ramps up and it starts to dawn on the women that they are all in extreme danger. I don’t want to say any more but the ending was very dramatic indeed and there were some surprising twists! So I did enjoy the book despite my early reservations. Many thanks to Netgalley and Little Brown Book Group UK for the much appreciated arc which I reviewed voluntarily and honestly.

A hen party on a private island quickly takes a dramatic turn when one of the group goes missing. A mysterious blackmailer demands that someone confesses their secret to save the life of their friend. It quickly becomes apparent that everyone has a secret that they would rather not share.

This is a brilliantly written fast-paced book, full of twists, turns and plenty of secrets! I loved that all of the characters had secrets in their pasts and immediately you do not know who to trust. The remote island setting was perfect and really added to the tense atmosphere throughout.

A fantastic story that will keep you guessing until the very end.

Having read some of the author’s earlier work, I hadn’t read anything recently but now remember why he’s such a great crime writer. This story was original, gripping and kept me guessing. I also loved the focus on female lead characters and the complexities of their lives and relationships. Very well written. I

Absolutely brilliant thriller, secrets come out at perfectly timed intervals, so the pace never lets up. Just as you think you have it all figured out, one of the characters has the same thought and then proves you wrong. Would highly recommend.

Brilliant! Chris Brookmyre back to his scintillating best. The Cliff House has all the Brookmyre hallmarks - a lonely retreat, a group of people trapped and secrets that are best kept that way.

All that changes in the blink of an eye when the six women who arrive on the remote Scottish Isle of Clachan Geal to celebrate a hen party realize there is a psychopath pulling their strings.

It is quickly revealed that someone amongst them (and this includes the island's owner) has a secret that needs to be atoned for.

We are led on a breathless search across the island during which we learn that not one, but all the women have a secret they'd really rather not reveal.

This book was a joy to read. It picked you up and grabbed you by the scruff of the neck and held you until the last page. Suffice it to say, great armchair detective that I clearly am, I did not guess one thing right and that, to me, is the mark of an excellent thriller.

The writing, as always is superb. Chris Brookmyre is in a class of his own with a book like this. It should scream "this is how you do it" to so many other thriller writers. It's not so twisty you can't follow it, the characters feel real, it's funny and sad in places but, the main attraction is that you simply get to a point where you cannot put it down.

Excellent. Very highly recommended for anyone who loves a good taut thriller with some humanity thrown in. Loved it (in case you hadn't worked that out ye

Women travelling to a Scottish Island for a hen party. Nothing can possibly go wrong, right? Wrong.
The set up is very unrealistic. Why would a bunch of people who have history be together? Each person has a dark secret that they are afraid will be exposed and it just seemed very fake and unrealistic. I had to stop myself from eye rolling as it just irritated me a lot.

Well I finished it, which I didn’t think I would do….

A hen weekend on a private island in Scotland with 7 people who don’t really know each other that well…of course something is going to happen! From the flaky hen Jen who thinks that everyone wants to scam her, to her schoolfriends Helena and Michelle who fell out over their band, a tennis pro and a fashion guru, to the aggrieved ex sister in law and the mouthy soon to be sister in law.
Then the chef is killed and the party really gets started, as they all realise that they have secrets that they want to stay hidden - but can they?!
A bit far fetched and overly dramatic in places.

An absolute cracker of a book that will keep you gripped until the end. I guessed one of the twists but there are so many that you will be breathless. However the characters seem real enough and the story is not all high octane chase stuff, more depth than that. Just remember, people are not always what they seem and everyone has an agenda. Loved it.

Thanks to NetGalley and Little, Brown Uk for ARC.

Chris Brookmyre is an old hand at structuring a thriller that keeps you guessing.
This has been a classic crime fiction premise for almost a century - glamorous but remote location, group of people gathering for a specific purpose, an undisclosed person/persons with a hidden agenda, a lot of secrets and lies - and murder.

Muffinpreneur Jen is organising a hen party before her impending second marriage and has invited a handful of guests from her old and new lives. You'll be unsurprised to hear that things are not quite as she imagined when they get to the exclusive resort off the Scottish coast, and the people invited are rapidly involved in a terrifying escalation of threat.

It's ridiculous, it's broad, but it's just great fun. Should be on sun loungers everywhere.

What a page turner! I could not put this book down as it had some intriguing back stories and very clever twists. Would recommend it, but not as a bed time read as it made me on edge a lot of the time.

This thriller is set on a Scottish island where Jen has booked the island for the weekend for her hen party. She is joined by five friends and the landlord who feels something isn’t quite right so decides to stay.

After a few cocktails the women start to unwind but this also brings old tensions to the surface.

When the hired chef is found with his throat slit in the kitchen the women are terrified, and then suddenly they all get a message saying one of them isn’t who they say they are.

The women all start to think about their own wrongdoings and the secrets they have kept and start to believe the killer could be after them.

Which women is the killer after? Will they survive the weekend?

There is a lot of tension throughout this book and the number of secrets that these seven women have been keeping is shocking. It is fascinating seeing secret after secret being revealed all becoming more outrageous than the next.

I did feel that the storyline didn’t feel completely realistic to me, but it was still a great read and kept me rivetted to find out who the killer was and who they were after.

This story definitely puts be off going away on an island for a weekend, as I think I would be on edge after reading this.

Overall, a secret filled thriller where a hen party turns into a deadly game of survival.

I received an E-ARC with a request for my honest review.

A hen party isolated on a private island. But they are not alone, and they all have something to hide. But they’ll have to come clean if they want to save their friend.

This is a thrilling twisty read with echos of “And Then There Were None”.

It is rare for a book to be genuinely chilling, but The Cliff House manages it.

Seven women set out for a luxury hen weekend on a Scottish island, just the property manager and a chef to keep them company. Jen, the bride-to-be-, is the common link between the women; some have been friends since childhood and others have come into Jen's life much more recently. They all, it seems, bring secrets.

The plot is as cliched as it is improbable. A body is found, the women are trapped on the island with a killer amongst them, and as the day unfolds, so too do their secrets. One of their number, they are told, is not who she seems, But are any of them who they seem? It could be Murder on the Orient Express; it could be The Last of Sheila; it could be Ten Little Indians. Like the best in the Genre, the brilliance is in drip feeding the backstory while creating moments of shock, horror and revelation. It works if the reader is willing to go along for the ride and, presumably, falls down if the reader ponders too hard on the likelihood of it all.

The women themselves are grotesque. Rich, spoilt, untrusting, selfish, lying, greedy, rude and manipulative. The novel is narrated in short sections, travelling with each of the women at various points. This is done well, both in order to create cliff-hangers, but also to generate an element of empathy through understanding some of the human thought processes behind unspeakably poor behaviour. My personal favourite was the rock star brought back down to earth but there are so many exquisite moments of karma for them all.

The ending is perhaps a bit silly, but there is a point at which the good stuff has happened and Poirot/Miss Marple/whoever has to round up the survivors and explain it all over a stiff gin. It's a requirement, but The Cliff House, like all psychological thrillers, is about the journey rather than the destination.

It is Jen's hen party and she decides to treat her close friends to a special weekend in a fabulous mansion on a tiny Scottish Island .All is wonderful until the chef is found with his throat cut in the kitchen and one of their party is kidnapped and the ransom is a confession from one of the woman for past misdeeds .Everyone has secrets to hide and each one thinks it must be her .The story is fast paced and full of red herrings a very enjoyable read with a satisfactory ending .Thank you to NetGalley for my ARC .

This is the first book by Chris Brookmyre that I’ve read and certainly will not be the last.
I do enjoy a storyline that involves being on a remote Island with no way out, women gathered together each with a multitude of secrets and a plot that twists and turns so much. Each of the six women tell the story from their perspective going back in time giving the background story. It moves along at a good speed with great characters.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in return for an honest review.

The Cliff House by Chris Brookmyre
I give this book 4.25 stars

Jen's hen party is a luxury getaway on its own private island. The helicopter won't be back for seventy-two hours.
As well as Jen, there's the pop diva and the estranged ex-bandmate, the tennis pro and the fashion guru, the embittered ex-sister-in-law and the mouthy future sister-in-law.
The parties started, but then a message tells them that unless someone confesses her terrible secret to the others, their friend who has gone missing will be killed.
Problem is, everybody has a secret. And nobody wants to tell.

This male author has done a fantastic job of writing from several different female perspectives.
Who can you trust in this race against time mystery thriller.Each hen party guest has something to hide and l loved how their past secrets slowly unravelled as time was progressing forwards. The characterisation is superb and the change between the different POV’s is well done (so it’s not confusing) Full of suspense it’s a compulsive read that l have no hesitation in recommending.
With thanks to Netgalley, Chris Brookmyre and Little Brown Book Group UK for my chance to read and review this book