The Perfect Holiday by T.J. Emerson
Genre: Psychological thriller
Read: 11th April 2022
Published: 20th April 2022
★★ 2.5 stars
DESCRIPTION:
Olivia and Julian are enjoying lazy days in their Spanish villa, a well deserved break from their busy lives. Especially for Julian, who after a lifetime as a carer was thrust into the public eye following the tragic murder of his first wife.
The languid heat and peace of the villa is broken only by clifftop walks, sun drenched lunches and cooling swims. Until a chance encounter with Gabriel - an attractive man, many years their junior - changes everything.
Soon their idyllic break turns into a dangerous, high-stakes game of cat-and-mouse. Will any of them get out alive?
MY REVIEW:
Vacation thrillers tend to be a little hit and miss for me and I've found I've generally only really enjoyed those written by a favourite author. But this one intrigued me...sadly, that was all it did. And that was just in the premise because the story itself did not live up to its promise, I feel. In fact, I almost DNF by the time I reached 30% and instead I ploughed on and really wish I hadn't. Maybe I should have just left it where it was...stuck in a caravan in remote Perthshire in the bouts of hot sex while his invalid wife was back in Edinburgh.
The perfect book of the perfect holiday? I don't think so. In fact I didn't really warm to Julian's wife Olivia while Julian himself seemed a little distant that I had to wonder what was going on here in the opening chapters because they didn't seem at all devoted to one another.
Julian and Olivia are holidaying in their Mallorca villa, having escaped London for the summer. Or should I say, Olivia's villa? Because let's face it, it really was Olivia's villa. She inherited it from her incredibly wealthy parents leaving her as equally incredibly wealthy. And a villa in Spain is just one of the perks of being that wealthy.
Olivia is Julian's second wife, his first having been murdered in her sleep in their pokey little council flat in Edinburgh while he was out at a Young Carers event. The police put it down to a burglary gone wrong and they panicked and smothered the invalid Helen, incapacitated and brain injured as a result of a car accident ten years before. Julian had been her sole carer throughout that whole time. After she died, he set up an Award foundation in her name. And it is through this he met Olivia and after a brief romance, the couple married. To live happily ever after...or not.
Enter Gabriel. On a hot dun drenched beach in Mallorca all cheery and matey...and Julian knew then that there was no escape. And things just went downhill from there. However, the only saving grace was the delicious little twist at the very end. But that is all it was...it certainly didn't redeem this psychological chaos that was meant to entertain.
And then there was the sex scenes. OK, so I don't have a problem with gay characters or even couples...but I really don't want to read graphic sex scenes giving me a detailed account of their coupling. Just no. And how it all began was a little out of nowhere and somewhat random. Locked away in a grotty little caravan, where Julian was meant to be taking time out for himself - a respite break - from his 24/7 care of wife Helen. Instead, he picks up hitchhiker Gabriel and they end up rolling around in the sheets together...and thensome. Like I said...random. And then Gabriel just wouldn't go away, even after he did. So when he turned up in Mallorca, and his presence was then explained in the "Before" chapters after his initial appearance in Spain, I am just like...here we go again. But the plot just got worse. Enter a full blown love triangle, cheating on his second wife Helen with freeloader Gabriel who, really, is just in it for whatever he can get out of it.
I didn't like any of the characters. I know Gabriel was meant to be unlikeable but so was Julian. If the reader was meant to feel sorry for him in his life as a carer, I didn't. He came across as morose, self-pitying and something else I can't quite put my finger on. But I didn't like him at all. And Olivia? Well, she was astute but she felt a little shallow to me as well. Born into money, raised with money, living with money...she took it all for granted a bit, I thought. And even Julian, as well. I kind of felt like she saw him as a kind of pet project. "There, there. Good boy, Julian." It was nauseating.
There is also a lot of useless information in the story that I feel doesn't really need to be there. For example the excessive inclusion of a character's toileting - do we really need a rundown on what he's doing in there? We get the picture without having one painted, please. There should also be a warning as to the gay content because not everyone wants gay sex played out for them. As this is such a focal point of the story it should be in the LGBT category, giving readers fair notice.
Added to that, the story was a real slow burn that didn't really go anywhere interesting. It doesn't even really fit into the psychological thriller genre. As I said, the final twist at the end was the book's saving grace, but not enough to earn it more than 2.5 stars.
I would like to thank #TJEmerson, #BoldwoodBooks and #RachelsRandomResources for an ARC of #ThePerfectHoliday in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
Before writing fiction, Tracey worked in theatre and community arts. As well as acting, she ran drama workshops in hospitals, focusing on adults with learning difficulties and mental health issues. After a period of poor health, she began writing as a way of reconnecting with her creativity. She started attending creative writing classes at the University of Edinburgh’s Lifelong Learning Centre and was lucky enough to meet the author Helen Lamb, who encouraged her to send in one of her first short stories to The Scotland and Orange Short Story prize. The story, ‘Our Big Day Out’, was a runner up in the competition, and this early success gave Tracey the confidence to keep writing. Other story publications in anthologies and literary magazines followed, and Tracey went on to study for an MSc in Creative writing at the University of Edinburgh. After completing this course, she received a scholarship to do her PhD in Creative Writing at the university, working on the novel that would eventually become her debut thriller, She Chose Me.
Since then, she has continued to publish short stories and her feature writing has appeared in Stella magazine, Woman’s Own and The Sydney Morning Herald. In June 2021, she signed with Boldwood Books to publish her second thriller, The Perfect Holiday, under the name TJ Emerson.
As well as writing her own fiction, Tracey works as a literary consultant and writing tutor and is also the Creative Director of The Bridge Awards, a philanthropic organisation that provides micro-funding for the arts.
When not travelling, Tracey lives in the hills of Perthshire. She can often be found tramping around the countryside and, occasionally, braving a dip in the chilly rivers and lochs.
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