My Rating ~ Four Stars
RELEASE DATE: 1 December 2021
Format: Paperback
Pages: 336
Publisher: Hachette Australia
Blurb
Four perfect strangers. Three days. Can one weekend away change your life? The unputdownable new drama by one of Australia’s most beloved storytellers.
Coming together for a writing workshop with bestselling author Jan Goldstein, four strangers converge upon a luxury forest retreat. But along with their notepads and laptops, each of the participants has brought some emotional baggage.
Beth is a solo parent and busy career woman haunted by a tragic car accident. Simone, the youngest at 26, is a successful Instagram star but she’s hiding behind a facade. Jamie is the only man. He’s a handsome personal trainer – but he looks out of place with a pen in his hand. Finally, Alice is a wife and mum recovering from postnatal depression. She and Jamie soon realise they are not such perfect strangers after all.
Only one thing is for sure: on this creative getaway, nothing will go according to script.
Review
Thank you so much to Hachette Australia for providing me with a copy of this book, in exchange for an honest review!
When Beth’s sister asks her to attend a writer’s retreat to do her a favour, Beth is reluctant to leave her young son, but she knows it’s important to her sister so she agrees to go anyway.
Simone is an Instagram influencer who’s been tasked with writing a book about her rise to fame, and doesn’t really know where to start – or how many secrets she should include.
Alice is recovering from post natal depression and wants to write a book about it, to help other women.
Jaimie is a personal trainer, looking for writing inspiration, who is surprised to see Alice at the retreat – it’s nothing the first time they’ve met.
They’re all there to learn from bestselling author Jan, but every one of them has a secret. How many of those secrets will be revealed and how will they affect their lives going forward? And what exactly is Beth doing there?
The Long weekend was a fun and interesting read. Told from multiple points of view, we slowly learned the secrets each of the characters were holding back and how they fit into their background stories. There was a bit of ‘insta-love’ involved, which didn’t grab me, but the characters and their individual stories were interesting enough to let it slide.
This was definitely a character driven book, the focus was really the past and present events of their lives that took centre stage. What I thought would be the main ‘mystery’ plot line really just fell into line with all the other sub plots. A perfect read for sitting by the pool this summer!
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