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The Birthday Weekend

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It was a celebration to die for . . .

What happened on holiday was supposed to stay on holiday - but that was before a body was found . . .

Socialite Lucinda Oliver planned a lavish celebration for her fortieth birthday - a weekend escape at an Irish coastal town with her sister Stella and her closest friends. The weekend was to end with a blow-out party and a special announcement, one Lucinda had been dropping hints about for weeks.

But before Lucinda could reveal her secret, she went missing. And now, six months later, her car has been found submerged in the Atlantic Ocean.

Devastated, Stella decides to gather Lucinda's friends once more, in that same coastal town - the first time they've all been together since her disappearance. But soon she starts to suspect that one of the group knows the truth about Lucinda's accident.

Which one of them is lying? Stella vows to find out, discovering that what happened to her sister links back to another birthday celebration, ten years ago...

See what readers are saying about The Birthday

'A suspenseful and an extremely addictive read! It hooked me from the very beginning and made me read well into the night! . . . a fantastic book - if you don't read it you are really missing out!' Netgalley reviewer

'One of the most exciting books of 2024! Filled to the rim with twists, this book can result in whiplash. I ripped through this book in a few short hours that honestly felt like minutes. I was so consumed within the pages, I doubt I even once checked the time.' Netgalley reviewer

'Once you pick up this creepy, menacing book packed full of twists and turns you'll find it very difficult to leave it out of your hands. Zoe Miller has written an excellent, gripping read that is well told and keeps you guessing throughout.' Emma Crowley @emthebookworm

'A serious page turner that I couldn't put down. This book is packed with twists . . . a brilliant thriller and I look forward to reading more books by the author' Netgalley reviewer

'Buy and read!! This is the best book Zoe Miller has written, full of intense mystery and just when you think it's all over there is so much more. I loved it.' Netgalley reviewer

'OMG... I absolutely loved it, couldn't put it down . . . Would definitely recommend!!!' Netgalley reviewer

'Such an intense gripping read, it had me up late into the night reading, could not put it down. I loved the writing style which helped build the tension throughout. Fantastic mystery thriller which I highly recommend.' Netgalley reviewer

'A story packed with twists and many red herrings to keep the reader guessing ... such an interesting and engaging read.' Netgalley reviewer

377 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 7, 2024

14 people are currently reading
114 people want to read

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Zoe Miller

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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
Profile Image for Mairead Hearne (swirlandthread.com).
1,191 reviews97 followers
March 13, 2024
My Rating - 3.5*

The Birthday Weekend by Zoë Miller published March 7th with Hachette Ireland and is described as ‘a suspenseful page-turner about friendship, sisterhood and long-buried secrets.’

Six months ago Lucinda Oliver had planned an exclusive party for her closest friends in a luxurious house set in a dramatic location off the Kerry coast. Lucinda was known for her party lifestyle so her friends did query her choice of location for her fortieth bash as the previous lavish thirtieth celebrations were ten years ago in Santorini.

Lucinda had every detail planned, with an ultimate banquet to finish up the weekend. Lucinda’s sister, Stella, was among the guests in Kerry but Stella was a more introverted individual, often finding Lucinda and her friends to be a little overbearing. With raucous behaviour evident on arrival, Stella decided to just do her best and put her game face on. The local hostelry provided sumptuous food and, with a fully stocked bar that was kept replenished, the party took off. The weather was glorious, so much of the time was spent outdoors soaking up the sunshine, when not sleeping off the hangovers. There were moments when tempers were a little fractured but Lucinda ploughed through it all with her usual drive and finesse. This was her party and she was determined to enjoy it.

But the weekend took a very dark twist when Lucinda never showed up for her final banquet. The weather had turned for the worse, causing concern among her friends, but none of them were prepared for what was to come. Lucinda never did make that party, leaving everyone traumatised when news of what transpired emerged. Her friends left Kerry returning to their old lives. But of course no-one could really move on. Stella rehashed that weekend over and over again, trying to understand what happened. She knew that someday she might get a call to return to Kerry and six months later that call arrived. A local had picked up what appeared to be the wreckage of a car below the cliff, via drone footage, leading the police to believe that it might be Lucinda’s.

Stella makes a decision to invite Lucinda’s friends back to Kerry to be there when the car is recovered. With help from a relative she secured the same property to stay in again, with the view to having a vigil in remembrance for Lucinda. Stella, though crushed, knew that this closure was necessary in order for her, and for all of them to move on.

With the freezing cold wind blowing in off the Atlantic on a bleak January weekend, the group gather to reminisce and to say their goodbyes but somebody has other plans and the atmosphere very quickly starts to change. As the veneer slips from this so-called close-knit group, Stella begins to question events linked to the Santorini reunion ten years ago.

Suspicions are raised as the friends start to bicker. It’s clear to Stella that something is amiss but she is totally unprepared for what happens next, when circumstances take a very sinister turn.

The Birthday Weekend is quite a layered tale of duplicity and vengeance. Relationships and friendships are put to the test as truths are revealed and realities are shattered. There is a lot happening in this novel and I did, at times, think there was perhaps too much going on, perhaps stretching credibility a little but, with the multiple threads interwoven, it does create rather a dramatic storyline. The windswept Kerry coastal setting in January is perfectly described adding to the bleak atmospheric vibe of the plot, with the cold almost seeping into your bones. With lots of twists and turns The Birthday Weekend is an enjoyable and suspense-filled read.
Profile Image for Emma Crowley.
1,028 reviews156 followers
March 18, 2024
Zoe Miller is back with a bang with her fantastic new page turner, The Birthday Weekend. Once you pick up this creepy, menacing book packed full of twists and turns you’ll find it very difficult to leave it out of your hands. It really is a one or two sitting kind of read and I had to stay up until I reached the final page to discover just what happened to the enigmatic Lucinda Oliver on that fateful birthday weekend in West Kerry.

I will say that there are a lot of characters to become familiar with and in the first half of the book I did find it challenging to keep track of who was who, how they were connected to each other and who they were dating or interacting with etc. But once I got this clear in my head, I felt free to revel in the story that was unfolding and towards the end I understood how essential everyone was to the overall plot.

Zoe Miller takes her readers on a twisted journey packed full of secrets, suspicion and intrigue where all the characters are hiding something especially from that fateful weekend. But also, the past holds a key to why certain people feel bitter towards one another and you soon come to realise that not everyone is as they seem. Not one character can be underestimated whether they play a major or minor role within the book. Keep your wits about you. Watch every little thing that everyone says or does and even then, you will be surprised by the final revelations and conclusions. I certainly was as I had no clue as to what exactly had happened and why and that’s the way a good thriller should be. Ok, I did begin to piece things together as we neared the end but that was only because the clues were becoming more apparent but there were so many red herrings thrown in throughout the story that one minute you think so and so is responsible and then with a turn of the page a different event or revelation occurs which has you doubting everything you had thought. It’s great to be kept guessing until the last possible moment and that’s what happened for me here.

The book opens with a newspaper article detailing a discovery at a property. A few days earlier in the area a car had been taken from the sea near to the location where socialite Lucinda Oliver’s car had plunged from a cliff six months earlier. The news is devastating for Stella, Lucinda’s sister, who had clinging to the last vestiges of hope that her sister would come back to her. But now that the car has been discovered Stella has a strong urge to find out what exactly happened six months previously at the birthday weekend Lucinda had gathered her friends together for at a property named, The Lookout, near to the coastal village of Wolf Cove.

As the reader gets to know Stella, you can tell that she is deep in grief but also that there is a sense of guilt emanating from her. That the last time she saw Lucinda there had been a fight and she has never been able to reconcile with this fact. She is haunted that there has been no clarity as to what happened to Lucinda and the more she looks back on that weekend the more she begins to think were the invited guests harbouring secrets, acting suspiciously or was this all just an awful tragedy?

Stella has been receiving anonymous messages and spiteful comments on social media saying she is responsible for the events that occurred. Could someone from that weekend be targeting her and for what reason? Surely, she has nothing to hide? As the guards prepare to recover the car from the sea Stella invites all Lucinda’s friends who were there on that significant weekend back to the Lookout. It’s a memorial of sorts, a chance to say goodbye but also an opportunity for Stella to dig a little deeper. But will she be comfortable with what she finds out and is she prepared for what is about to unfold?

Within the first few chapters a lot of characters are introduced and their backstory is supplied over the course of the book but the impatient part of me wanted answers immediately to the umpteen questions that began to form in my mind. I knew I wasn’t going to get them instantly and that I would have to be patient and bide my time but that only served to make merace through the pages even quicker than I already had been. At times, I did question the relevance of some of the details especially when the story moved back to another weekend ten years previously which took place in Santorini. But Zoe Miller knew exactly what she was doing and had everything so brilliantly plotted out leading her readers in many different directions only to reach dead ends and then you were back to the start again. I did at some stage think what was the point in this? Was the Santorini element adding anything to the story set in the present? It was so frustrating - in a good way - all the teasers being dropped and I longed to reach into the pages of the book and grab a character and say, hey stop being so evasive and just spill the beans please.

Caz Costello is a freelance hair and makeup artist and one of Lucinda’s closest friends. She knows things about Lucinda that would shock Stella. Images of that weekend haunt her and hold her in their grip but now with the discovery of the car anything she tried to hide is about to come rushing to the fore. Eddie has tried to pretend that the weekend at the Lookout never happened. His business has crashed. His relationship with Sasha is over yet Eddie is hiding something big and if he doesn’t accept Stella’s invitation it will definitely look suspect. Maisie is married to Keith with two children and it’s evident old hurts and jealousies are still very much at the forefront of her mind so much so that these will lead her in a heap of trouble and she jumps to unnecessary conclusions. For Janet the weekend she wishes to forget created huge scars in her and Aaron’s relationship which are difficult or perhaps impossible to heal. Britt, a long time family friend of Stella and Lucinda’s who resides in the area, is there to welcome them all back but with a lot of unfinished business and resentment surrounding this gathering only time will tell will anyone emerge unscathed and the big question will the truth surrounding Lucinda’s disappearance be revealed?

Considering we learn about Lucinda from the perspective of Stella and the other characters we certainly got to know a lot about her and to be honest I wasn’t all that enamoured by her. She seemed to hold everyone in her spell and they were fearful of breaking any confidences even if it was necessary to do so. She seemed to have this magnetic forcefield around her packed full of glamour and intrigue that everyone else orbited around. They were charmed by her and beholden to her and even more so in the wake of her disappearance. She always portrayed a bubbly, vivacious, ultra-sparkling façade to the world but as Stella digs deeper and starts questioning things, she learns all was not as it seemed in Lucinda’s world. That she had many layers to her and not all of them what she would have liked the world to see. She was an enigma and a chameleon and as I raced towards the conclusion this only became more apparent and as home truths and disclosures poured forth I was torn in multiple directions believing one person over another only to have it upturned with a word or sentence and I was kicking myself that I hadn’t paid closer attention to a certain someone.

Zoe Miller has written an excellent, gripping read that is well told and keeps you guessing throughout. I don’t read in this genre all that often and I would say I am selective when I do so but no doubt about it I made the right decision to read this one and I highly recommend it.
13 reviews
May 5, 2025
This needs a series! It would perfectly suit a “Fool Me Once”-style limited series, with all of its twists and turns. What began as a seemingly straightforward murder investigation turned into a complex, twisted plot.
Profile Image for Erika Jayne.
143 reviews20 followers
January 31, 2024
I received this as an ARC via Netgalley… OMG… I absolutely loved it, couldn’t put it down… I had an idea about a certain character but OMG… what a bloomin twist!!!
Would definitely recommend!!!
Profile Image for Sharon.
1,211 reviews75 followers
March 2, 2024
A solid 3.5, rounded up to 4. Better than a three-star but not quite a four-star for me. Longer review to follow
Profile Image for Siobhan Maher.
Author 2 books4 followers
March 23, 2024
Loved the suspense of this gripping story of mismatched characters as they intertwined. Miller cleverly leads the reader into believing they know the plot and then twists the tale magnificently.
Profile Image for Danielle.
278 reviews133 followers
May 21, 2024
First two thirds were good. Ending a bit daft
Profile Image for Hanna Berntsen-Holte.
30 reviews
May 15, 2025
Litt sakte i starten. Men uansett en super bra bok. Får 3 stjerner litt pga. jeg sleit med å fokusere helt i starten. Men alt var verdt det for endingen!!
Profile Image for Robin.
57 reviews
December 28, 2025
The story felt more American than Irish to me. This could have been set anywhere which honestly is a shame.
Decent read for the holidays.
Profile Image for Farah G.
2,043 reviews37 followers
March 20, 2024
When socialite Lucinda Oliver suddenly disappears in the midst of the week-long celebrations for her 40th birthday, nobody is sure what to make of it. The plan had been for the celebrations to end with a huge party, where Lucinda had hinted at an announcement she was planning to make.

Her behaviour in the lead up to the party had been out of character anyway - brittle and over the top despite her insistence that she was remaining teetotal for reasons that were not quite clear.

Her sister Stella is now devastated to hear that Lucinda's body has apparently been located in her vehicle, which is being raised from the water. This, despite the tensions already existing within their family, related to an earlier discovery by Lucinda. Some of Lucinda's fans have also blamed Stella for whatever happened to her sister.

Meanwhile, Lucinda's friends group was not nearly as cohesive as it appeared on the surface. Several of her friends had been keeping secrets, and there were tensions between some of the friends - so, no lack of undercurrents there.

There is an almost claustrophobic feeling to this story, as friends and family gather at the coastal town where they all last saw Lucinda. Why is everyone so tense? What do any of them know about what really happened? Stella is determined to take the opportunity to find out...

The story is well told and effortlessly holds the reader's attention. The characters are an interesting bunch and the tensions between them are rendered with a fine eye for detail. Recommended to those who enjoy suspenseful stories with a literary fiction feel to them.

I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review
Profile Image for Kasey Thorne.
383 reviews
March 31, 2024
This book was just okay, wouldn't read it again. Real slow build up due to so many POV, then slow getting to the conclusion.
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