Member Reviews
A very fast-paced and highly involving thriller. Ivy is persuaded to accompany her old friend Zoe to France after the death of Zoe's husband in a freak ski accident, despite them having fallen out years before. Tom was out with a group of friends, all from their university days, and old patterns of behaviour begin to emerge. This novel genuinely has twists and turns and an original and unexpected ending. Highly recommended if you enjoy claustrophobic thrillers!
Thank you to NetGalley, HQ Digital, & HarperCollins for the opportunity to read and review this book before it's publication date! This in no way affected my review, opinions are my own.
Predictable (and not in a fun way), with wooden two dimensional characters. Not enough interest to continue.
A well written and fast paced novel that I quite enjoyed.
The snowy setting was claustrophobic and ideal for the perfect crime.
The characters were well written though I found none of them especially likeable except for Ivy, she wasn’t great but her heart was in the right place.
Suspenseful and descriptive, I would recommend this book.
I absolutely loved this book and couldn’t put it down, especially towards the end.
Zoe asks friend Ivy to accompany her to France to make arrangements to recover the body of her husband who has been killed in a terrible skiing accident. They stay at the chalet he had been visiting and his skiing friends from the fateful trip are still there .
While Zoe struggles to cope with her husband’s death Ivy becomes more and more suspicious about what actually happened but finds it difficult to convince other people, including the police, that it wasn’t an accident and he was murdered. This in turn puts Ivy in danger.
I was hooked from the beginning and found myself on the edge of my seat at the end with a brilliant twist I didn’t see coming. The characters were so well written I actually found myself disliking them intensely. I look forward to reading more from Sarah Clarke.
Scary icy thriller. I love the idea of an alpine style murder. Just a really good read and well worth recommending to friends!
Fast paced thriller that’s actually a doable read in a day because it’s so gripping. But some of the story seems a little hard to believe at times which surprises in a way. Enjoyable escapism!
Pick up The Ski Trip if you like….
• Locked room mysteries
•Unreliable narrators
•Alternating timelines
•Fast paced reads
•Skiing
Ivy hasn’t seen her university friends in a long time and when her former best friend, Zoe, asks her to accompany her on a trip to collect her husband’s body after he tragically died on his annual ski trip she reluctantly agrees. Ivy is a scientist and deals in facts so when they get there and the friends tell them what happened, all the hairs of the back of Ivy’s neck stand up cause it seems something is amiss. Long held secrets and new ones threaten the delicate nature of the situation and when a blizzard moves in trapping the group, the killer takes full advantage.
I’m usually a fan of unreliable narrators as long as they have some kind of redeeming quality to them. However, I couldn’t get behind Ivy or Zoe because from the very beginning you knew they had something to hide and it felt obvious what it was. There was a few attempts at misdirection but they didn’t work- at least for me. I did really appreciate the fast paced nature of the story and I was able to read it within a day.
Thank you publishers and @netgalley for this eARC in exchange for my honest feedback.
This is a thriller that is big on revenge – but who harbours it, who dishes it out and who hides in the shadows out of well-founded fear that their secrets may be exposed? There are six characters to observe, all of them linked in a complex series of relationships shaped whilst they were at university together. Tom, Rob, Julian, and Harry are the friends who go on a skiing holiday to the Alps that ends in tragedy when the most proficient skier among them suffers a fatal accident. Zoe is the unexpectedly widowed young mother who sets out, accompanied by another female called Ivy whom she has not seen for fifteen years – to bring her husband’s body home. As the novel splits into two separate timelines, Ivy becomes more prominent. It is Ivy who figures out that Tom’s death is suspicious, and that each of his supposedly loyal friends has something to hide. The reader than has much further unravelling of plot twists and turns to do before reaching the novel’s extraordinary climax.
As other reviewers have pointed out, there are some far-fetched and difficult-to-believe plot twists in this novel – to which I would say that it is a thriller after all. Although there are slightly too many characters for my liking, on the whole The Ski Trip was a riveting read.
I would like to say thank you to publishes HQ Digital, as well as to NetGalley, for granting me an ARC in exchange for this honest book review.
If you ever suggest taking me skiing or ice skating, I will 100% pass. Hard. Do I have a random fear of having limbs sliced open by blades? Yes. Do I know where this comes from? No.
For some reason, this fear is not something everyone feels because the characters in The Ski Trip love the slopes. And that’s their downfall. I mean, this is a thriller. So you know something’s going down.
The Ski Trip is going to be everything you want in a book if you enjoy:
Secrets
Messy friendships
Dark pasts
The slopes
Snow. Lots of snow
Characters who prod and prod and prod
My advice? Stay off the slopes. Stay alive. Also keep your windows closed at night because that’s how murderers get into your house.
Such a great book! This is a great example of how a little lie keeps growing until it explodes. It has such a great plot! All of the characters are morally grey, so getting to know who did it was extremely difficult, at least for me. I would love to read more of your books.
I really enjoyed this thriller. Set in a climate with snow (I love snow), and completely unpredictable, this book had me guessing to the end.
The setting was described in perfect detail, and I felt like I was right there skiing along with this friend group. The plot was set up well, and I just couldn’t stop reading. Everyone I thought I knew who the culprit was, I was wrong. And the ending was completely unexpected, but was believable in relation to the storyline. First book by Sarah Clarke and definitely not the last!
Thank you HQ Digital and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Brilliant! As Black Adder would say " more twists & turns than a twisty turning thing" It kept me enthralled from start to finish & fooled me every step of the way!*************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
I truly enjoyed The Ski Trip and find this would be a great winter book as well.
There are two timelines and while I don’t normally enjoy the flashbacks, the author did this in a very captivating way, and allowed for just snippets at a time.
I love the idea of a friend ski trip but man, now I’m not too sure! I loved the MC, and a few of the others. And staying in a lodge with home cooked meals sounds lovely. Trying to find out who murdered your friend though? Nah not for me. Lol.
Lots of crazy twists at the end. And that final page… 🤯 did NOT see that coming.
Overall a good read.
Thank you to NetGalley and and HQ for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.
A predictable thriller involving Meteorologist Ivy and her “on-again after several years estrangement” best friend Zoe, whose husband Tom has died unexpectedly in a skiing accident on a lads holiday. The two women and four men had all been atUniversity together and had a complicated back history of relationships. The main theme of this story, however, is revenge and with several of the characters having a motive for revenge, it keeps the reader guessing. That said, some of the plot lines seemed unlikely and unnecessary and many of the characters seemed lacking in depth.
With thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for an opportunity to read and review an advance copy.
There is something about this book that gets under your skin from the off but in a good way as it really does make you want to keep reading. Usually I’m not a fan of books when they jump back in time but in this book, it does work in well along with the storyline changing among the characters. The characters in the book are really good too and that helps you really get into the book. I won’t spoil it by saying too much about the storyline other than it’s excellent and I absolute love the ending! Definitely a book to read even if you need a bit of perseverance.
This was a very entertaining read for me , I found myself racing through , although I had an idea of what was happening it didn’t spoil my enjoyment . When Zoe turns up on Ivy’s doorstep out of the blue she has had some devastating news , Tom her husband has died following a skiing accident , she begs Ivy to accompany her to go and retrieve his body . The questions keep coming , how could such an accident happen when Tom was such an accomplished skier . The investigation rules an accident but it becomes clear that all was not how it seemed and many of the friends could have a reason to cause Tom harm . Very good read !
Mountains can be dangerous, surely everyone knows and understands this. Particularly those who have been going on ski trips for years, who understand the importance of keeping to the pistes and keeping an eye on the weather.
When Tom tragically falls to his death whilst on a 'boys only' skiing trip his wife is devastated, and enlists the help of her university friend Ivy to accompany her on the trip to the Alps to liaise with the police and bring her husbands body home.
Zoe is consumed with grief and barely able to function, she is just going through the motions. Ivy, whilst equally as devastated at her friends death, has a more logical scientific mind, and isn't afraid to question how such a competent skiier could have such an unthinkable accident.
No one has ever died there before...
Was it really an accident, or did something more sinister happen to Tom. Ivy can't help but wonder if it was something more than an accident. Although the conditions on the day weren't perfect, no one has ever gone over the edge of that piste before.
As this story progresses we understand that this group of friends relationships are complicated. University friends who have lost touch with each other, and been bought back together, through life, loss, love and other circumstances.
Something has happened that at least one of them wants revenge for, and some people will do anything for revenge.
No matter what the cost.
The Ski Trip is a fast paced read that really comes in to its own the later part of the novel. It will make you think twice about holidaying in chillier climes, and more than twice about who you are travelling with..
I really enjoyed The Ski Trip, it was full of
The main character Ivy was likeable, but I didn't really like the rest of them, they were all very selfish or boring, so it was hard to feel for them.
The story itself was very entertaining and it kept me on my toes.
The last couple of twists were brilliant, I didn't see them coming at all.
I would definitely recommend The Ski Trip and I look forward to reading more from Sarah Clarke.
4 stars from me.
This was an easy, gripping read with a satisfyingly unexpected twist at the end. On the flip side the connections and motives were a little too contrived and unlikely and the characters difficult to like or get behind. So for me, a great read during but a little less so post reveal.
A group of uni friends reunite 15 years later, over a death of one of their friends, but secrets, lies, plot twists, adult life, and murders turn this read into something else.
I’m not usually a “who done it,” crime reading sort of person, but Sarah Clarke’s Ski Trip seemed intriguing as an easy introduction to the genre. I first started to read this book and then put the story down for a while, on picking it up again, I just had to finish the book in one sitting. When you think you’ve worked out what’s happened and who has committed the crime, it just does not work out how you could imagine, and The Epilogue, it threw me, wow! The story definitely picks up later on in the book.
If you’re looking for a story that keeps you reading, in a casual non-complex way - an easy read, with a storyline that makes you say, “what!?!?” when you think you’ve grasped what’s happening, this is a book for you.