Six women go on a hen weekend to the (fictional) Greek island of Aegos. Someone is murdered.

Lovers of psychological thrillers. People who love words. Lucy Clarke writes the most beautiful prose.

Lucy Clarke's writing style. She uses all five senses constantly, and you really feel you are in Greece with the girls.

Read another Lucy Clarke, but I've read them all now. So, maybe I should badger the author about writing her next book.

Tense. Excited. Satisfied. Like I was on a Greek island with the sun and sea, and the smell of rosemary and oregano.

From Amazon: Sunday Times bestseller, Lucy Clarke, is the author of eight destination thrillers, which include Waterstones Thriller of the Month, The Castaways, and Richard and Judy Book Club pick, One of the Girls. Lucy’s novels have sold over a million copies in the UK alone and are published in over twenty territories worldwide.

No Escape has been filmed as a major international TV series for Paramount+ due for release in 2023, and three further novels are currently in development for screen.

When Lucy isn’t away on research trips (her favourite part of the job!), she can be found writing from a beach hut on the south coast of England. She lives with her husband and their two children.

It's brilliant! The descriptions are so incredibly lush and rich. Ad the tension is fab.

I adore Lucy Clarke's writing. She paints amazing pictures with her words. It's almost like watching a series of masterpiece paintings as they tell a story. I'm not generally a visual person, I have trouble taking inspiration from pictures, but with Lucy Clarke's writing, I can see, smell, hear, feel everything. She is so good.

This is the story of six women who go on a hen weekend to the Greek island of Aegos. The story is told through first person accounts from all six women:
Lexi, the hen; Bella, the maid of honour; Robyn, the third person in the friendship; Fen, Bella's girlfriend; Ana, Lexi's newest friend and Eleanor, the groom's sister.

Each woman is as engaging as all the others. Sometimes, when there is more than one narrator, things can feel a little false, a bit strained. But not here. Six narrators works really well. And it helps to get t know the characters. Lexi is my favourite. She has gone through her life as a free spirit, working for many years as a dander. Now, she is a yoga instructor, which is how she met her newest friend, Ana. Lexi is kind and makes a huge effort to include everyone and make everyone happy al of the time. Which isn't easy when Bella is around. She is loud, self-centred, and has no filter. All she wants to do is to get drunk and party. But, that's not all there is to her. She does love Lexi, and it is clear she isn't happy in her life. She wants life to be as it was in her teens and twenties. She wants that friendship back. And, honestly, I could understand where she was coming from.

But, the premise is that someone will be murdered. We know that from the start, and there are some asides that punctuate the women's narratives, and they keep telling us that someone will die on the last night of the hen weekend. What we don't know is who, or why. Or who would commit the crime. And I found myself guessing and trying to figure it out the whole way through. And I didn't get it right. Even up to the moment that the victim falls over the cliff (which, we are told from the beginning, is how they die), I wasn't sure who it would be. Plus, the author has a few twists up her sleeve that she saves until the end. Fantastic!

While the murder is the mystery and it creates a bunch of suspense, the book is essentially about female friendship, and how it changes over time as we get older. You know it is written by someone who has experienced this kind of friendship. Its all-consuming-ness, and the yearning we feel for how things used to be. I was surprised at how much this book made me feel and reflect on my own relationship with my two best friends. We made it through the difficult thirties without too many problems, but I could relate to that almost-grief you feel for the person you were. Yes. This book really made me feel nostalgic.

So. It is fair to say I loved this book. Lucy Clarke has knocked Marian Keyes off the top spot in my favourite authors list. She is so good.

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Created May 21, 2024 at 5:39am • Submit your own review...