Joined in 2023 
82 
63 About this deal
That evening they’re all letting loose with a few drinks as they wait for dinner. Before they know it, however, small things start to trigger the group and a disagreement breaks out. That’s not surprising, of course, given the fact that Jen’s venomous ex sister-in-law and her gossipy future sister-in-law are in attendance. Adding to the fray are her two best friends from childhood—one of whom is a pop star sensation while the other is her publicly ditched ex-bandmate. Throw in their tennis coach and the group fashionista and fireworks were always sure to be on the horizon. The great Scottish outdoors is where Chris does a lot of his plotting for his novels. “I like being outdoors I like walking,” he says. Somewhere isolated might seem quite sinister while at other times it might seem paradoxically secure because you are away from what you are afraid of.” The Cliff House and ‘the toy box’ The chapters alternate between the viewpoints of each of the protagonists and, when they split up in search of the kidnapped woman, each begins to wonder if they’ve been paired with the intended target, but, at the same time, guiltily accepting the target could be them. The whole thing felt pretty stale from the start to be honest; a party in a cut-off island location where several people have “history” and the organiser is worried about how everyone will get on...seriously? Again? And then the first part of the book seemed to go on forever as each person arrived and we very slowly learned a bit more about them, their relationship to the others and that each one has a Dark Secret and is worried about That Thing They Did being exposed – without, of course, telling us what the Secret or the Thing is. I got to the eye-rolling stage fairly early on in the book – and it got worse as absurdities and clichéd situations mounted up, so I was muttering “for heaven’s sake” (I paraphrase) pretty regularly until eventually I gave up because life was too short.
You might have known someone for ten years and you don’t really know anything intimate about them and equally there are people you have known your own life can be more of a threat to you because they know all your secrets. This is a story of friendships, secrets and lies from the past and what happens when those secrets start to emerge and cause enormous problems for everyone. From the synopsis, I thought the story would be a phycological thriller, but, I'm afraid I felt slightly let down by the pace, which for me was too slow. However, the book redeemed itself with the writing and the actual idea for the plot of the story which was actually a really good one. No,’ Zaki replied. ‘You should take the weekend to have some distance, have a good time. Maybe it will let you get some perspective.’ The extent to which you might enjoy this convoluted and twisty tale will very much depend on your willingness to suspend disbelief. The initial set up is a little far fetched however at around the halfway point it stretches the bounds of credulity to beyond breaking point, and by the conclusion it's just plain ludicrous. He had been right. It was her problem. She had never fully trusted him, and at the root of it was this inescapable fear that he was too good to be true.Some of the group helicopter into Clachan Geal, while Jen’s oldest friend, Michelle, comes over by powerboat. She’s a big-name pop star these days and has been in ‘retreat’ on a nearby island and she and another woman in the party have history. This is a disparate group; some are friends of Jen’s because they play tennis together, while Beattie is the sister of Jen’s late first husband. And then there is Samira, who nobody knows. She’s Zaki’s sister, a new mum in need of a break, and she was foisted upon Jen by her fiancé. Set in a luxury retreat on a private island surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the action unfolds with a weekend hen party organised by the bride-to-be, a self-made millionaire with a pop star in the mix. “One party, seven secrets, one worth killing for,” says the publisher’s pitch. But it’s more than that. The novel is an exploration of friendship and forgiveness with a killer twist and an upbeat conclusion. Thinking about The Cliff House in particular, he says: “It’s very much about, if you put a whole lot of people on a small island and they realise somebody dangerous is on the loose and you’ve got this contained environment, the reader can be sure that all the components are already there. He was originally planning on sending his bride and her guests to New York before deciding that they should have a more isolated party venue. Who can you trust in The Cliff House?
The isolated-place murder mystery is one I’ve always enjoyed, and I’ve liked quite a few of Brookmyre’s books in the past, so I thought it would be fun to give this one a try. Our isolated place is a small Scottish island with a luxury manor house that is rented out for retreats and small gatherings. This time it’s a weekend-long hen party before Jen’s wedding to her fiancé Zaki. Instead of a close circle of friends, she’s invited women from various stages of her life, from her childhood to her young adulthood, and including her sister-in-law-to-be, Samira, and her sister-in-law from her first marriage, Beattie. Some of these women already know each other and some don’t. Two, in particular, know each other and have bad blood between them from when one, Michelle, dumped her bandmates, including Helena, to become a solo act, going on to fortune and celebrity. It also turns out that Beattie is hostile to Jen, thinking that she wrongfully accused her first husband and Beattie’s brother, Jason, of being mixed up in criminal activity before he disappeared 10 years earlier. You are often inspired by locations – sometimes it is imagining what might take place in that location or sometimes it is something about the atmosphere that suggests something. As a fan of Christopher Brookmyre's books I was expecting great things from this, and was not disappointed. Seven women. Seven sins. One night of judgment. Jen Dunne is forty-two and getting married for the second time, but that doesn’t mean she can’t go all out for her bachelorette weekend. She’s taking her closest friends to the kind of place that has a years-long waiting list for a three days of super-exclusive luxury accommodation on a remote Scottish island. So excited by the complicated means of transport required to get to the island, no one gives much thought to the implications for getting off again, especially if the weather should turn. But why would they? They’re in for a time they will never forget. Just not for the reasons they imagine.
Cosy Conversations on the Coast
The characters were cool, I learned a lot about them, which was kind of the point. But I felt like some of their motivations and choices were not fully believable and that's ok, I have no issue with suspending my belief, but - something it was a little too far-fetched how serious things were are how everyone just seemed so ok to forgive and forget so easily, no questions asked. My new book is best described as what you might get of Agatha Christie and Michael Connolly teamed up to write their version of Inception. It was the moment she should have said she did trust him, even if they both knew it was just lip service. But it hit her that they were past the point of pretending, and Zaki had nailed why. He stared at the ceiling, like he was asking for strength, and when he looked at her again there was frustration in his eyes. ‘I’d like to say I can’t marry someone who doesn’t trust me, but the sad fact is I’d marry you anyway. But you shouldn’t marry someone you don’t trust. And you’ve never trusted me.’ He had seemed angry at this, though he tried to disguise it by appearing hurt. ‘For God’s sake, Jen, you need to chill. Not everybody’s playing an angle all the time.’
And then there are people we might have some family connection with but who we don’t particularly get on with. I wanted to write about what friendship really means to people in different ways and how that works out over the course of years. But, crucially, I wanted to write about who we can trust. The person who might be closest on the surface is maybe the person who knows all our vulnerabilities.As a writer I do plot things out quite carefully but you always need room to allow the characters to breathe – it’s always a kind a balancing act. East Neuk Literary Festival
Great Deal 
New Comment