Guest Book Review: Elaine Spires - Singles' Holiday

Reviewed by Louise Wykes

Antigua... the Caribbean at its most luscious, its most beautiful... silver sand, cobalt sky, warm turquoise sea... and a bunch of complete strangers, who only have one thing in common: they're single. Some are looking for romance, some for something more. But they've all chosen to spend their holiday with people they have never met before. And pretty soon, some will become good friends, some enemies and some lovers. And many of them will experience things they never expected, including their tour manager Eve, who perhaps has the biggest shock of all. A story that will make you laugh and make you cry with just the right number of twists to keep you turning the pages as you get to know all the members of the group as they, in turn, get to know each other.

Amazon link: Kindle 

The first of today's reviews is a guest review by Louise for Singles' Holiday by Elaine Spires.  
Having not previously read Elaine Spires’ work I had no idea of what to expect from this book but the blurb attracted me with its description of beautiful, luxurious Antigua and the twists and turns of a group of single people who join forces on holiday and the many adventures they all face. 

The novel follows the many adventures of a large group of people who book a holiday with a 
company called Travel 2gether who arrange holidays for people who for whatever reason don’t wish to travel alone. The group travel to the wonderfully exotic location of Antigua which is beautifully described. The novel is told from all of the group’s individual points of view (the group size is approximately 20 plus the point of view of Eve who is the group’s tour leader. 

The reader is introduced to a large number of characters quite fast and because of the changing point of view, this leads to some confusion at the beginning as the reader is unfamiliar with each character but as the narrative moves along each character becomes more defined. 

I adored reading this book as it is fast paced and follows each day’s adventures but each episode is quite short and usually ends on a cliffhanger which made the book quite addictive and by about halfway through the book, I actually felt as if I was part of the group and couldn’t wait to find out what adventures the group had got up to. 

This book is full of romance, humour and a few darker scenes too as each character’s backstory is explored as each character reveals their very different reasons for joining the Singles’ Holiday group. I also enjoyed how the reader got to know Eve quite well and she has as much adventure as the rest of the group and I really liked and cared about what happened to her. 

This is a compelling, romantic and humorous tale and there is a wonderful mix of characters, some you like and some you don’t and some who you change your opinion of throughout the book. Highly recommended.