Book Review: The Other Guest by Heidi Parks

 It is no secret that books can take us on a journey. They can transport us to distant lands, teach us something new, or simply entertain us for an afternoon. Heidi Parks’ novel “The Other Guest” offers all three of these experiences in one delightful package. Read on to find out what I thought about this lighthearted romance novel.

Click me to go to my Review

Synopsis

She thinks she knows the truth. But what if she’s wrong?

Laila and her husband arrive for a week’s holiday in Greece in desperate need of a reset.

As Laila sits by the pool she finds herself inexplicably drawn to the other family staying in their resort.

Em has no idea who Laila is, or that she has been watching her and her teenage sons and husband so intently.

Five days later their worlds will be blown apart by a horrifying event.

Laila thinks she knows the truth of what happened. But in telling Em what she’s seen, she stands to lose everything she holds dear.

And what if she’s got it wrong?

About The Author

From her Amazon Author Page (www.amazon.co.uk)

My first book published with Century, NOW YOU SEE HER, came out in July 2018. It became a Sunday Times Bestseller and a Richard and Judy book club pick, and in 2021 I received a silver Nielsen bestseller award for selling over 250,000 copies.

Since then I have published three more novels: COME BACK FOR ME, THREE PERFECT LIARS and THE WHISPERS. The Whispers is out in paperback April 2022.

I am currently editing my new book ready for June 2022. THE OTHER GUEST will be out in hardback and e-book and is set in the exclusive resort of White Sands in Greece. I’m also in the midst of plotting out ideas for book number six due in 2023.

I live by the sea in Bournemouth with my husband and two children, and love spending time on the coast and in my beach hut where I get much of my inspiration for the crime thrillers I write. I hope you enjoy reading my books as much as I do writing them!

My Review

After several failed IVF attempts and James’ announcement that he no longer wishes to continue on that path, he and his wife, Laila, take an expensive trip to the luxury island resort of Ixos in Greece. The aim is to rekindle their relationship, relax after all the stress and strain of the IVF and work out where their lives will go next. Laila loves to people-watch while she relaxes by the pool and spends a lot more time on her sunbed than James who would rather take himself off for some adventure. Before the end of their holiday though things take a tragic turn when one of the other guests is found dead in mysterious circumstances and someone is to blame.

Parks does an excellent job of setting the scene of the beautiful, well-detailed, location, so much so that I found it appealing enough to wonder if I might like to visit before realising that its clearly not for me for a number of reasons. The characters fell a little flat for me in this book, though it pains me to say as I usually love the characters that Parks invents. Laila felt disconnected from the beginning, showing no interest in spending time with her husband and James was no better. Planning a holiday to spend time together and abandoning the other doesn’t bode well!

The other characters were discussed from Laila’s perspective from her people watching and some had some good twists in who they actually were, but they all felt quite two-dimensional. When the body is found I didn’t feel that people actually cared. There was a lot of speculation over who had done what and who found him first etc but nobody seemed that devastated or upset that he had passed away or particularly concerned that it was in suspicious circumstances.

Having said all that though, I enjoyed it for the most part and was gripped by what I thought was going to happen (way off!), the little cliffhangers at the end of each chapter kept me reading well past bedtime and I found myself wanting ‘just one more chapter’. Things went downhill after the death for me though and things went too flat towards the end.

The Other Guest had one of the most irritating endings of all the books I’ve read recently though. I found it frustrating and felt that it left an otherwise good book falling flat on its face. I wanted something juicy and some big twists but alas they didn’t appear and what was shown to have happened was boring in comparison to the rest of the book.

I have always enjoyed Heidi Parks’ novels, but “The Other Guest” stands out from the rest for all the wrong reasons. Where she can usually keep me hooked until the very last words here I just wanted to throw the book in the bin and never look at it again! The more I think of it the more it’s beginning to annoy me, to be honest, it’s left a brain worm that just keeps niggling and eating away at an otherwise good book. It had such a good premise and what could have been a great ‘who done it’ feel but it didn’t do it for me this time unfortunately.

Rated