ARC REVIEW: Her Last Holiday – by C.L. Taylor

Title: Her Last Holiday
Author: C.L. Taylor
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense
First published: April 29th 2021
Publisher: Avon
Finished reading: April 20th 2021
Pages: 400

“People are much better at masking their real selves than they are their physical ailments.”

*** A copy of this book was kindly provided to me by Netgalley and Avon in exchange for an honest review. Thank you! ***

I’ve enjoyed every single C.L. Taylor thriller I’ve tried so far, and I’ve been looking forward to read her newest adult release… I was immediately intrigued by the blurb and the promise of a foreign setting as well as a wellness retreat angle and a mysterious disappearance. I’ve been seeing mixed reviews, but I shouldn’t have worried as I ended up having an excellent time reading this story. Engaging, entertaining and addictive, and while the plot was a tad too predictable to my taste, as a whole I couldn’t help but keep turning those pages.

Her Last Holiday uses three different POVs as well as flashbacks to slowly reveal what happened in the past and how this relates to what is happening in the present. We have Jenna, Fran’s sister who mysteriously disappeared two years ago. We have Fran, who is determined to discover what happened to her sister during the wellness retreat in Gozo. And we have Kate, Tom’s wife and co-creator of Soul Shrink Retreats, who is fighting to get her life back on track after what happened in Gozo. These POVs complement each other well and it was interesting to see how the story evolved through their eyes. I can’t say that I found the characters likeable though, but there was something about them that made me keep reading anyway.

I really liked the fact that part of the story was set in Malta, although I have to say that I would have liked to see more descriptions to really make the foreign setting come alive… As it is, this part of the story could have been set on any Mediterranean island; a shame as this could have made the story stand out more. As for the plot… While I still like the premise of Her Last Holiday, I do have to say that I found certain parts to be quite predictable, and the same goes for a lot of the twists. It is still an entertaining read and C.L. Taylor‘s writing is always engaging and strangely addictive, but I wish I would have seen more originality and I felt like the spark that would have taken this story to the next level was missing. The ending didn’t convince me completely either… But like I said before, somehow I found myself flying through those pages anyway.

In short, if you are looking for an entertaining and fast-paced psychological thriller and don’t mind things getting predictable, Her Last Holiday is a great choice.