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The Long Weekend

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The Long Weekend

By: Gilly Macmillan
Narrated by: Olivia Poulet
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

By the time you read this, I'll have killed one of your husbands.

In an isolated retreat, deep in the Northumberland moors, three women arrive for a weekend away.

This quiet place, far removed from the rest of the world, is exactly what they need to heal their wounds.

Their husbands will be joining them in the morning. Or so they think.

But upon arrival at Dark Fell Barn, the women find a devastating note claiming one of their husbands will be murdered. There are no phones and no ways of checking on their loved ones.

Friendships fracture as the situation spins wildly out of control. Betrayal can come in many forms.

This group has kept each other's secrets for far too long.

©2022 Gilly Macmillan (P)2022 Penguin Audio Crime Thrillers Psychological Suspense Thriller Thriller & Suspense Fiction Marriage

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Critic reviews

"Fast paced and incredibly compelling." (Shari Lapena)

"White-knuckled suspense." (Tess Gerritsen)

"Infused with a creeping sense of dread." (Sarah Vaughan)
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I think audiobooks lay bare a book’s faults. I finished this, so the story must have been compelling up to a point, but the plotting was fractured and all the main characters unliveable. I also found it was written and narrated with an annoyingly entitled tone. I agree with the listener who felt the narration was too fast.

I rarely leave reviews and I can’t ever remember leaving a negative one. But I do wonder how some people get publishing contracts and I wonder if it’s less to do with talent and more with who you know.

Every character is unlikeable

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I enjoyed this book, the only one negative point I would like to make is that for the first few chapters I got a bit confused when the story was being told from one of the male characters point of view but the narrator didn’t change her voice in any way so for a while I thought this was one of the female characters.

The fast pace of the book kept me interested

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I was recommended this book by a friend and even though the reviews weren’t great, I thought I would give it a go.
The narration is really poor and, as others have mentioned, there are no pauses at all between chapters which becomes really irritating. The narrator also doesn’t put any effort into changing her voice between characters so it’s really hard to work out who is talking and what chapter you are even on. You would think that an author would listen to the audio book and have some sort of sign-off that they are happy with it.
Then there’s the story… the idea is good but this book just doesn’t work. The characters aren’t believable or likeable and some of the writing feels a bit like a story written by a teen at school.
I really wanted to like this, but I don’t think I can bring myself to finish it.

I really tried!

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There were no pauses between chapters so it was difficult to know when a character perspective changed.
also some of the characters were rather silly , like the woman who had served in the Army and had some weird trauma about it.

Confusing narration

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I liked the book, it would make a good TV mini series too, but while I would not fault the actress narrator as such, the format meant you didnt realise when you were suddenly listening to a new chapter or plot line. That got a tiresome to be honest. It took me half the book to work out the characters which was distracting.

Good thriller yarn, but format a bit confusing.

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I wasn’t sure what was going on at one point and had to go back over to really get a sense of what Mark was doing but really enjoyed how the story really took flight. Narration was a little fast but I felt like it was trying to keep in with the pace of the story

Twists and turns

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The narration was rushed and unengaging. I needed to slow down to x0.95 to follow the story which was sadly lacked structure.

As a doctor, I appreciated the parallel struggles drawn between alcoholism and early dementia but this was otherwise a prosaic offering.

Underwhelming

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The story is ridiculous, so long and drawn out and you have to not only suspend any belief but ditch it completely. Much worse is the narration. She races along so there’s no difference between minor details and points of tension. There’s no break between chapters, not even a breath so it’s impossible at times to know whose perspective is shown. No difference is attempted between any characters beyond one character’s dodgy accent. Really very poor performance, I want my credit back.

Worst narration

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This is a FABULOUS thriller ........... however the narration sounds like it is being played at the wrong speed and I wonder if this is a technical issue or just very bad direction given by the producer which allowed the narrator to gabble at top speed without even taking a breath for punctuation.
I had to play it at .75 reduced speed as it was making me feel very anxious and almost breathless and dizzy listening to it at the regular speed.
The only time I have ever altered the speed before is with Imogen Church narrations which are so slow and drawn out they are infuriating - anyway, whether technical problem - which I am guessing as I would have thought it was physically impossible for a human to speak at such speed without any sign of taking a breath - or the narrator rattling through it like a runaway speeding train I would beg Audible to fix it as while the narrator has a lovely voice, .75 makes her sound a little sleepy.
I have got used to listening at .75 speed and it is the very fact that I am still enjoying it despite this weird glitch that bears testament to what an amazing book this is and Olivia Poulet is a great narrator or rather would be, at a correct speed.

The other odd thing is there are no Chapter Indents - the story just goes on and the chapter - as marked on the download are extraordinarily long and I am guessing to not correspond to the chapters as the author wrote and instead feel as if they were just chopped up into vaguely even chunks of books so it is very hard to find your place as they do not seem start or end with any significance so the whole thing is like one rolling giant chapter ... which along with the frantic gabbling speed of the narrator make me think this is some kind of technical error.

But technical issues aside - when played at the slightly sleepy .75 speed this book is a blockbusting treat and I will be looking up more by the author in the hope they too are fabulous. Every day I have been giving my husband updates - that's how good it is ......... as you can take nothing for grated and the listener has the rug pulled out from under them as soon as they are starting to believe they are getting the measure of things.
Wonderful plotting, sensational twists - I have not quite finished yet and will update this but just wanted to flag the narration issue and offer the .75 solution for those eager to read without waiting for it to be fixed.
I have been listening to it last thing at night and have to say the .75 speed gives the reading a certain hypnotic effect which means I fall asleep instantly and now have to listen in the morning - so for those who long for a good night's sleep and an amazingly cunning thriller - this one is definitely for you!

Seriously speaking - AUDIBLE please fix this narration I am thinking speed needs to be reduced to .95 at least of current breakneck speed and maybe .85 or so for optimum listening comfort, thanks a mill!

So clever, so many twists, complusive listening.

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I hate to give up on a book so really did persevere with this, but after three, very long, hours I admitted defeat and gave up. It is truly one of the worst things I have ever listened to. The combination of the awful, drawn out, unbelievable and boring story and the completely unlikable characters had me just not caring about any of it, or how it would finish. And there was the narration…. Oh my it was bad. Like others I felt it had been recorded at the wrong speed. The narrator sounded as though she was speaking at 100mph in a flat monotone. No gaps between chapters, no differences in the voices of any of the characters. Utterly painful to listen to. I would suggest re-recording this with a different narrator but honestly it was so bad there is actually nothing that would improve this, except burning it. Sorry was it was utterly awful.

Just awful, don’t waste a credit

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