All of these women and their partners are hiding something and have their problems. None of them are people that I would want to be friends with. When all three of their husbands are delayed, Emily, Jayne and Ruth set out to the remote Dark Fell Barn for their couples’ weekend alone. Jamaica Holidays | Jersey Holidays | Kefalonia Holidays | Kos Holidays | Lake Garda Holidays | Lanzarote Holidays | Las Vegas Holidays | Madeira Holidays | Magaluf Holidays | Majorca Holidays | Maldives Holidays | Malta Holidays | Mauritius Holidays | Menorca Holidays | Mexico Holidays | Morocco Holidays | Mykonos Holidays This overall was a nice book. Clare Lydon is one of my favorite lesfic authors. However there are some things in this story that I could've done without. Once the women arrived at Dark Fell Barn, they proceeded to do nothing that would equate to the intent to have a fun weekend holiday. They were all so wrapped up in their own heads; just miserable. Why even bother?

The Long Weekend by Fiona Palmer | Goodreads The Long Weekend by Fiona Palmer | Goodreads

This has to be the lamest weekend getaway of all time. Further where it goes from there, not what I signed up for. I'm so glad this is over. Audio Review: I think I’d recommend reading a physical copy of this one. It was definitely hard to follow the plot on audio without chapter/character breaks, and I frequently had to rewind to figure out that the POV had changed. Jayne, Ruth, and Emily are our main characters although you do hear from others and one is a mystery. The one issue I had with this book is the character often changed within a chapter with no indication of the change, and I found myself trying to figure out who was speaking which was confusing. I did really enjoy that first twist!Only the guests are written about. The large numbers of workers, the housemaids, cooks, valets and other support staff are invisible to us, probably as they were to the guests unless there is an anecdote to relate where the staff were involved with the guests.

The Long Weekend: Life in the English Country House, 1918

Find sources: "The Long Week-End"– news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR ( January 2017) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) When John and Maggie, the proprietors of Dark Fell Barn receive a beautifully wrapped gift, and note for their next weekend guests, they are assuming it will be a pleasant surprise for them. After all, the instructions attached ask them to place the gift prominently on the kitchen table, facing the door, with letter leaning against it, so it will be the first thing they see when they enter the room, and stressed the importance of their attention to detail. Wife and mother Alice, wants advice on crafting a memoir she hopes will reach women who share her experience of motherhood. When four strangers attend a long weekend hosted by a best selling author for a writing workshop, their lives are changed forever. I honestly don’t have a bad word to say about this book. If you are looking for a book that is both heartbreaking and heartwarming, that will leave you wanting more, then this is the book for you.Servant numbers had been dwindling even before the war as factories were offering better money and even good working conditions. This story follows four strangers who spend the weekend together at a writers retreat with a best selling author. These four people are completely different and each carry their own secrets. There's a lot of heartbreak, drama and destruction that unfolds in this story. MacMillan pulled no punches in portraying realistic actions and reactions. It really makes you stop and think how you would react if placed in a situation like that: Being isolated, not knowing if this is a hoax or if your husband is in fact dead, having to navigate this with women you're not close to and find no comfort in. (I could definitely see myself reacting similarly to Emily). Here are some choice bits of abuse, inspired by a particularly loathsome member of the aristocracy, to hold somewhere in your mind for the time, inevitably, you will need them: “Harold Nicolson described her as “a fat slug filled with venom”; Cecil Beaton called her “a galumphing, greedy, snobbish old toad who watered her chops at the sight of royalty���; and Leonie Leslie, Winston Churchill's aunt, said she would rather have an open sewer flowing through her drawing room than entertain [said loathsome aristo]” (l. 2343). Truely, it was the golden age of invective. None of the main characters are particularly likeable. We initially meet only the women: Ruth, a doctor, alcoholic, increasingly paranoid new mother, married to Toby, and whose life is rapidly unraveling; Jayne, ex-army, suffering from PTSD, married to Mark, also ex-army; Emily, the newbie in the group, younger than the others, and married to Paul. The women are together because of their husbands longstanding friendship. These are not women who would ever have been friends otherwise. They are not particularly close and now find themselves in a remote and hostile environment without the buffer of their husbands, recipients of a strange and threatening letter, signed 'E'.

The Long Weekend by Clare Lydon | Goodreads The Long Weekend by Clare Lydon | Goodreads

Each character gets their chance to tell their story with each chapter dedicated to someone including tales from the past all woven together quite successfully. The Long Weekend started off strong with a great opening chapter. We meet these three women who only know each other because their husbands are friends, off on a weekend retreat. Oddly, all of their husbands decided at the last minute that they’d have to show up a little late, but that the women should go on ahead. I would really hate to spend even one night on a vacation with people I don’t really know without my boyfriend there as a social buffer, so this first chapter did a great job of establishing a tense setting. Darren spills the beans about Laura and Kat and Laura blames him all weekend. Girlie, if you had been honest with Tasha this wouldn't be a problem. Plus no one told Darren to stay quiet. I get it's "part of his character" and I wouldn't wanna hang out with such a lesbian and woman hating gay man (but it's cute! It's all a joke! He's gay! No. Do you notice how no one hates on him the same way he hates on lesbians? Let's grow up).Over a weekend, four strangers attend a writing retreat hosted by best selling author Jan Goldstein. Beth, Jamie, Alice and Simone are all there for their own reasons, but all of them are harbouring deep secrets.... Even the renowned author. Fiona Palmer had done a fabulous job with this writing in this book. The way she captures emotions and makes you feel like you know the characters and places she is writing about is utterly phenomenal. With so many different sub-plots taking place in this book it would be easy to expect problems with pacing and fluidity but Fiona Palmer has woven the various storylines together seamlessly with her lyrical and cinematic writing.

The Long Weekend – Bookends Gilly MacMillan | The Long Weekend – Bookends

Tinniswood, Adrian (2016). The Long Weekend: Life in the English Country House Between the Wars. London: Jonathan Cape. p.ix. ISBN 9780224099455 . Retrieved 24 February 2021. A sincere, compelling and spirited title for fans of Australian contemporary fiction, The Long Weekend is the latest release from Fiona Palmer. With connection, escape, change, self-discovery, belief and chances all playing a part in this novel’s direction, The Long Weekend is the perfect picnic day read. All of the characters in this story are fabulous and I loved getting to know them and their reasons for being there, bring them together and there is a kaleidoscope of personalities and emotions and together they open up and find themselves it was so wonderful to see them let their emotions flow and to find the healing that they needed and move on to bigger and better lives, I was cheering them on, lots of emotions from me. Life -long friendships are made all form one long weekend. Wow! This is one of the best written, complex, twisty, extra smart and most intense stories Gilly MacMillan created! Meanwhile, John Elliot, the owner of the rented barn is suffering from dementia. His wife Maggie worries about him wandering, and possibly scaring the tenants away. She is under stress, worried about her beloved husband and needing the money the rental earns to tide them over when her husband gets worse… as he is bound to.The premise sounded appealing - not completely original - but the kind of basis that has formed a solid foundation for many enjoyable mysteries I have read over the years. However, unfortunately, I found this latest offering from Gilly Macmillan heavy going. I didn't really mind that the setting with the isolated location and the group of women with troubled, secretive histories has all been done before - but I have seen it handled so much better. This is clumsy, more than a touch melodramatic, unbelievable and silly. A group of friends - mostly lesbians, and there are some f/f sexy times in the book, though it is not a romance - gather in Devon for a celebration of the 20th anniversary of their graduation from college. There are lots of dramas going on in all their lives, and the weekend will serve to resolve some of those and also create others. The Long Weekend was the first book by Fiona Palmer that I have read but certainly won’t be the last. It was a wonderful, character driven story about a group of people who couldn’t be more different. I loved getting to know them all and seeing how it would all come together in the end. It was emotional and relatable and I read it in 2 sittings. I am such a fan of Fiona’s books as they are gentle and easy to read, yet at the same time fun with clever undertones for consideration. On this occasion, The Long Weekend provides a wonderful tale of friendship and love where Fiona cleverly explores how we must live and learn from our mistakes and, in fact, appreciate how they have made us stronger and into the person we are today.