The Holiday: A BRAND NEW completely addictive psychological thriller from BESTSELLER John Nicholl for 2024

The Holiday is an in-depth psychological study of the effects of Catholicism on the extreme members of the faith. Very different from John Nicholl's previous thrillers, but intriguing from the beginning to the end... Or the end for one major character.Since I'd been wondering whether Suzie or George would push the other over the balcony of their luxury hotel on the holiday island of Tenerife I was startled to realise I was way off the end of the book when one of them did die, though by whose hand?As always, the master of manipulation has created a satanic being worse than any religious devil hidden in plain sight.

George and Suzie are heading off to Tenerife on holiday and staying in a rather grand hotel, courtesy of Suzie’s windfall. Suzie is deeply in love with her husband and is hoping the holiday will give them the opportunity to try for a baby. But George doesn’t love or even like Suzie very much at all and has many secrets from his wife.George is rather arrogant and holds himself in high regard, thinking he is a very attractive man and any woman would be lucky to have him, particularly his penny-pinching wife. He is a total slimeball, a nasty and deceitful example of a man who is struggling to clear his gambling debts, and feels he has entitlement to his wife’s bank balance.Suzie isn’t stupid, she won’t let George get his mitts on her money, despite his best efforts in encouraging her to do so. She has a rather strange relationship with her father. As a grown-up married woman, she returns to her childhood home to ask her god-fearing father’s advice and can’t make a decision without taking guidance from him. Suzie treats George as a child, with good reason. Her religious beliefs would never allow her to grant him a divorce. She is more than aware of his roving eye and his repeated attempts to persuade her to share her fortune. Whilst Suzie doesn’t have a particularly endearing personality, George is just totally vile with no likeable traits whatsoever.It is easy to pick up on the tension between the married couple, it’s palpable from the start of the book. The plot builds up at a nail-biting pace and then suddenly takes a dramatic shift, with devastating consequences. The final part of the book has a rather satisfying end.Another great book by this author who seems to enjoy weaving compulsive and nail-biting tales.

I'm giving this book three stars because I actually finished it.'The Holiday' is not one of John Nichol's better books, I'm sorry to say.It reads as if several plot line ideas were put into a computer and the machine mixed them up and churned this very predictable novel out. None of the characters have any redeeming features, one can only be delighted that they aren't part of one's own family. I found the characters predictable, and as two dimensional as cardboard cutouts, as if they have been selected from the big book of pantomime villains and victims.Jade, the female lead character, is a pill popping, neurotic, weak woman with trust issues.Granted, she has good reason because George, her husband, is an egotistical, narcissistic philanderer with a gambling addiction. He can't keep his pecker in his pants and has run up gambling debts. Jade has won big on the Premium Bonds, and therein lies the problem.Jade doesn't trust George with her money, after his spendthrift ways and gambling addiction and is determined to keep a strong grip on the purse strings.George desperately wants to get his hands on the money and leave Jade. But he and Jade are trapped in a toxic marriage and, as a devout Catholic, Jade won't divorce him.Cue the gist of the book as they (endlessly) squabble and tear strips off each other with their mutual antagonism. Jade, despite being a twenty seven year old married woman, is still firmly under the thumb of her domineering Catholic father and influenced by her local priest. Daddy Dearest rules his family with an iron hand, like a Victorian Paterfamilias, riding roughshod over his doormat wife and daughter, full of fire and brimstone and the Seven Deadly Sins. Jade still relies on her father to advise her on her life, health, wealth and happiness. Add to the mix a conniving girlfriend of George's that milks the situation for everything it's worth, Amelia has two faces, both beautiful and a mind like a steel trap. There's also a predictable ending that seems rushed, as if the author had tired of the whole thing and wanted to finish it post haste.Rather disappointing.

The very very best book I have read in a while. Quick and easy and enjoyable .Really excellent book. Would recommend.

This book was a very boring read. Two very irritating characters. Nothing much happens for ages and when it does it is utterly predictable and a total anticlimax. I ended up skimming through the book to get to the end hoping it might surprise me but it didn't.

I don't think I've ever bothered to leave a review for a kindle purchase before but by God this book is boring , slow and drab !!! Just don't bother 🙁

I've just finished this book (after starting it today) and I must admit to guessing how it would end, but not to Suzie. The character of George reminded me of my ex so I found him completely obnoxious and was on team Suzie, hating the way he acted towards her. The plot keeps you guessing and, though sometimes seeming slow, is fast enough that I read it in one sitting

I found that I really didn’t like the characters in this book but I think for me that’s what made it more enjoyable! I found Suzie irritating and I kept wanting her to stop burying her head in the sand, and I thought that George was so selfish and full of himself. Suzie and George are on their way to Tenerife to try to recover their broken relationship when Suzie realises that her womaniser of a husband can’t take his eyes off the beautiful woman sitting near them. . Although whilst reading it you feel it’s all a bit too predictable, you just know that everything is not how it seems. There’s absolutely no way of knowing how it’s all going to end. A great twisty read that has a dark side

I have a feeling books are " free" because otherwise no one would have noticed books such as this one. Not that it's not well written, it is. But the plot.. and the way it's dragged.. my God... Painful.. very painful..

Took too long to build up. The wife was too annoying. The plot was just mediocre. The book was not an attention grabber for me.