Our Holiday by Louise Candlish

When families from London spend the summer at their second homes on the south coast conflict with the locals ensues. Secrets are uncovered and property is destroyed as the summer lingers on.

Louise Candlish has written some superbly twisty thrillers so a new book is always keenly anticipated. Our Holiday, unfortunately, didn’t quite live up to expectations for me. The book is a classic slow burner. Right from the outset you know that something monumental has happened, but the vast majority of the book focuses on the slow build-up to the actual event and I felt that this was a little too drawn out.

I think the main reason for not loving the story was that none of the characters are likeable. We focus on two families from London who descend on Pine Ridge each August. The rest of the year their holiday homes are left empty. They are so entitled that they feel that they add value to the area, little realising that the only value they add is to property prices which results in the locals having to live in caravans. Their only consideration is how things effect them.

The living situation of the locals elicits more sympathy and raises a number of points that would be really good for a reading group. Some of the younger residents are keen to raise awareness of what is happening through peaceful protest. The second-homers feel that they are being harassed. When a local hotel is commandeered to house refugees, the locals are angered even more, feeling that their plight has been overlooked, with the refugees ending up in better accommodation than the caravans they are forced to live in.

Once the story reaches the shocking event we are told about at the start of the book the pace really picks up. I was fully engaged at this point, wanting to know exactly what had happened. Louise Candlish manages to keep the reader dangling for a little while longer as events are slowly unpicked and alibis examined.

Our Holiday by Louise Candlish will be published on 4^th July in paperback, ebook and audio format. My thanks to NetGalley and HQ for a review copy.