The Boat Trip, a review by Joanna

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The Boat Trip

Heather J. Fitt

258 pages

Published June 26th, 2023

Bloodhound Books

⛵️⛵️⛵️⛵️

This was a compulsive suspense thriller about a group of friends & acquaintances who have been commissioned to sail a yacht across the Atlantic from Glasgow to St Lucia, where everything that could go wrong, does go wrong! It’s the author’s third novel and she’s delivered another highly readable mystery  – this time of the “locked boat” variety. After a couple of overly long novels that completely destroyed my reading schedule, it was a joy to get back to a fun page turner that I finished within 24 hours!

Helen is an experienced sailor who has gathered together nine others of varying skill levels to help her transport The Duchess, a high end sailboat, to its new owners in the Caribbean. She desperately needs the money, but also wants to help out her best friend Erin, who’s been through tough times, so puts aside her concerns about some of her crewmates and determines to make the best of it. There are arguments from the get go, but as their journey gets underway, the team seem to be bonding, until a series of mishaps suggest that someone on board could be a killer…
Sailing anywhere much further than a day trip has never appealed to me, so this is my idea of the holiday from hell. (Or one of them – I’m not keen on those giant cruise ships either!) Fitt has crafted a clever suspense story with a believable cast of frenemies – few of which are in any way appealing. Told from Helen’s first person past perspective, we know from the prologue that things have gone badly for her, but the fun is in finding out why. The descriptions of sailing out into the open, days from help, and particularly during a violent Atlantic storm, were vivid and terrifying, and show that Fitt has once more done her research. I did guess whodunnit this time, but that didn’t affect my enjoyment one bit. 4.5 rounded down for the ending – no spoilers!
Thanks to Heather and Bloodhound Books for the ARC. I am posting this honest review voluntarily.

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