Our Holiday

Louise Candlish

IF you’re looking for a truly scorching thriller to warm up a summer that hasn’t really stoked up its fire yet, then look no further than this brilliant beach read from master storyteller Louise Candlish.

Bestselling author of 16 novels, including Our House which was adapted into a major four-part ITV drama, Candlish (pictured below) hooks in readers from the first page with this sizzling psychological crime drama set in a Sandbanks-style second homes community where seething locals are on a warpath littered with threats and intimidation.

Bristling with menace, and exploring some dark and divisive topical issues, Our Holiday is a gripping, red-hot summertime thriller which comes tantalisingly layered with the kind of chills and thrills that have made Candlish one of the nation’s favourite authors. 

Charlotte and Perry long for summers at Cliff View, the gorgeous clifftop holiday home which they have owned for years and which overlooks the turquoise waters of Pine Ridge. They have worked hard for it so why shouldn’t they enjoy it, even if the locals can’t afford to live in the village these days.

And now city friends, Amy and Linus Shaw, have bought a second home nearby, so when the two families descend, they plan lazy weeks of sun, sea and beach, and evenings sipping rosé on Charlotte’s summerhouse veranda.

But this summer is different because there’s trouble in paradise. A group of locals – calling themselves Not Just for August and headed by the charismatic Robbie Jevons – will stop at nothing to make the second home owners pay for their holiday. And the rising tide of resentment is heading the way of the two holidaying families with small acts of criminal damage soon escalating into something more menacing. By the end of the summer, marriages will be torn apart, friendships shattered, crimes exposed and Pine Ridge will be known for more than its sun-drenched beaches... it will be known for murder.

Breaks in coastal paradises have never seemed less alluring than in this brilliantly entertaining and caustically clever social satire which homes in on some very real and corrosive social topics and turns up the temperature with a big dollop of menace, mystery... and murder.

With class divisions under close scrutiny, the distrust between city and seaside glaringly exposed, and a leavening serving of Candlish wit to lap up, don’t head for your holidays without this all-round winner tucked into your suitcase.
(HQ, paperback, £9.99)