Book Review: THE HONEYMOON

Title: The Honeymoon

Author: Kate Gray

Publisher: Welbeck

Pages: 365

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

 

Two English women, Erin Steele and Sophia Spencer, meet each other on a beach in Bali. They are both honeymooning with their respective husbands, Jamie and Mark.

On their last night in Bali, Erin invites Sophia, a casual acquaintance, and Mark to dine with them at an expensive restaurant, the Blue Fin. During dinner, there is an incident when a stranger, upon who Erin accidentally spills a drink, mocks her.

Later that night, there is a terrible storm. Jamie and Erin, too wrapped up in each other to worry about the storm, witness the fall and death of the man with whom they had a fracas just hours earlier. Afraid that they may be arrested for being responsible, they flee the scene. But the guilt follows them back home to England, where both couples become involved in each other’s lives.

Erin and Jamie hope there will be nothing to associate them with the death of the man in Bali. But Sophia is a journalist, and she’s chasing the scent. How long before she finds out that they might not be as innocent as they appear?

 

The book is written in the first-person present tense PoV of two women, Erin and Sophia, and one chapter each in the first person narrative of Jamie and Mark. At least one of these narrators was unreliable, and three were definitely dodgy. I would have liked it better if all four had secrets that could have got them in trouble.

Also, we are given the impression that the two couples hit it off well, but that’s not really true. There was no real connection between the two couples.

 

I could sense a strange sexual tension between Erin and Sophia and then between Jamie and Sophia.

At one point, Jamie asks a man in Bali, “Are you bribing us?” The right word that Jamie should have used was blackmail.

Other than this example of incorrect word usage, the book was mostly fine. There were very few lines that stood out for me. These rare exceptions were:

The middle of farmers’ fields – sky and land stitched together in such uninspiring flatness. A grid of straight lines and ploughed earth.’

The foreshadowing was cleverly done. But despite its twists and turns, and the fact that it leads us to suspect nearly everybody, I wasn’t quite satisfied with this one. It was easy to figure out who the culprit was.

Also, the book could have done without the Prologue, in which the author tries to entice us into the story using the second person PoV.

(I read this book on NetGalley. Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.)