The Honeymoon by Tina Seskis #BookReview

There’s trouble in paradise . . .

For as long as she can remember, Jemma has been planning the perfect honeymoon. A fortnight’s retreat to a five-star resort in the Maldives, complete with luxury villas, personal butlers and absolute privacy.

It should be paradise. But it’s turned into a nightmare.

Because the man Jemma married a week ago has just disappeared from the island without a trace. And now her perfect new life is vanishing just as quickly before her eyes.

After everything they’ve been through together, how can this be happening? Is there anyone on the island who Jemma can trust? And above all – where has her husband gone?

  

Blimey! Let’s skip to the best part right away and let me tell you, this one sure packs a punch in the end. I can’t get over it, I’m still thinking about it! I’ve got a lot of respect for anyone who can figure out how this story will unfold on her own :-).

I can’t say much about the plot, only that Jemma, the main character, wanted to get married for a long time and when it’s finally happened, she doesn’t feel very happy at all. What’s more, the newlyweds have a massive blow-up in front of another couple who are honeymooning in the Maldives too and Jemma doesn’t even remember the rest of the evening, she was so drunk. Her spouse goes missing that same night. Queue the perfect unreliable narrator. What did she say to her new female friend after he stormed off, what did she do? She’s kind of worried about that and that made me edgy too. Suspicion soon falls upon her, from other couples, from the staff in this dreamy resort, from the media who have caught on very quickly and sense a great story to sell.

What struck me as well was that Jemma was so much aware of how she looked and how she had to act in front of other people. I can understand you don’t want the police to scrutinize you but still, it felt strange and it sure added to my doubts if she was to be trusted.

So why did I like this novel but am I not using a thousand superlatives? Well Jemma was a little too erratic in behaviour for me sometimes. She misses her husband, but in other parts of the story she detests him, can’t stand him, hates him even. I had high expectations about what happened to make her very suddenly feel so strongly but honestly I still don’t completely understand. Something did happen but I still don’t feel it should translate to these overly negative feelings towards her hubby.

There are a few twists and turns in this novel and one of them came quite early in the novel which made me almost squeak from surprise because I wasn’t expecting anything to happen so soon in the story. Unfortunately there’s nothing of exitement following this first thrill and there isn’t happening very much at all on the island, it’s pretty much status quo all the time regarding the investigation so even though I still had the burning question that I wanted to know if her husband was dead or alive and if she had anything to do with it, I had nothing but the past and the lead up to their honeymoon to read about. There sure is a lot of drama to be found there. The story unfolds much more in the past than in the present which was intriguing and interesting but I felt the storyline about his disappearance was a bit slow-going and I kind of wanted more intrigue there. You’ll have to wait for it, you’ll probably fervently check how many pages there are left in the novel like I did and then – finally – all will be revealed in an astonishing and gripping ending. My overall conclusion is that The Honeymoon had a really very strong beginning and a truly astonishing ending :-).

One word of advise to those engaged.. I wouldn’t go to The Maldives and plan on reading this novel, it might give you ideas!

If anyone wants to do a bookswap for this one, let me know 😉