Thriller set in Wales and Gozo

28th May 2021

Her Last Holiday by C L Taylor, thriller set in Wales and Gozo.

Audiobook narrated by Clare Corbett.

Fran and Jenna are sisters who aren’t particularly close but when Jenna goes missing – it seems she has taken her own life – on a new age retreat in Gozo, Fran leaps into action, cajoled by their mother, Geraldine.

At first I thought “Soul Shrink” (the name of the organisation behind the retreat) was a good, innovative name for a bit of therapeutic ‘time out’ (given that shrink is a slang term for a psychotherapist), but then it soon dawned on me that shrink might not be about psychology but more about the process of diminishing and cowing a soul, which then added a creep factor early on to the proceedings.

Tom is the face behind the organisation but the enabler is his wife Kate (they try to keep the fact they are married hidden). Jenna wasn’t the only one to suffer in Gozo, as two people died, and as a result Tom faced a prison sentence whilst Kate had to keep body and soul (oops, there is that word again) together on the outside. Now, the couple is planning a repeat of the Soul Shrink experience, but this time in Wales, and Fran, now posing as a woman called Geraldine (aka her mother’s name), joins in. Kate is wary of all the participants in case they are journalists in disguise, who, she surmises, are hoping to get more of a lowdown on what went on in Gozo, and who have perhaps chosen to be on the Wales retreat to experience the schadenfreude should Soul Shrink in Wales fail this time around. She is not one to be deterred because the couple’s vocation is certainly her be-all and end-all and she is going to make this retreat work, whatever the cost. Fran/Geraldine is there to see if she can find out more about Jenna because she really does not believe her sister would have actively chosen to die.

There are lots of sessions and some outward bound activities (where Fran/Geraldine nearly drowns, so Soul Shrink is on the cusp of getting into deep water once again) but they all plough on with the retreat, as feathers are ruffled, secrets unfurl and events take a darker turn.

There are also personal therapy sessions with Tom, who holds them in his bedroom (that is SUCH a no-no in the therapeutic world, it just underlines how the safe boundaries for the clients attending are shot to pieces).

A good thriller relies on storytelling with a knife-edge thrust but for me this was just the wrong side of plausible. I listened quite happily to it as an audiobook and it is a story well told, written by a creative author. As it comes to the end it just loses direction and takes twists and turns that beggar belief. It almost came to a credible end but then I discovered there was still an hour to go and at that point I felt that it had gone beyond being a cohesive read. Engaging in many ways, but a little drawn out for my taste.

Tina for the TripFiction Team

Catch the author on Twitter

Join team TripFiction on Social Media:

Twitter (@TripFiction), Facebook (@TripFiction.Literarywanderlust), YouTube (TripFiction #Literarywanderlust), Instagram (@TripFiction) and Pinterest (@TripFiction)

Subscribe to future blog posts