Day: May 23, 2022

If there is one lesson to learn from The Bridesmaids (a new psych thriller by Victoria Jenkins), it’s that women do not need men to screw up their lives. They are quite capable of being vicious to each other and causing all kinds of devastation.

That may sound a bit dramatic, but then again, so are the plot threads in this book.

What is supposed to be a fun hen weekend away for Holly and her bridesmaids, most of them lifelong friends, turns dark in many ways.

It is apparent almost immediately that everyone at this party has something to hide. Some secrets are ancient history, and some are more recent. But they all affect each of the other women in some way.

I imagine these connections were not easy to establish and keep straight, because it does become quite a web of lies and deceit. But the success of it is also what makes it a psych thriller. So, kudos to the author on that.

I liked how the action is told from alternating points of view. The reader gets a holistic sense of the events because each person has a different perspective and very different motivations for their actions.

While you would think that Holly is the main narrator (as it is her weekend) that isn’t necessarily the case. I would say that she isn’t even the one who is most impacted by it all.

I don’t want to give anything away, but let’s just say that nobody gets out of the weekend unscathed.

There are a few unfinished threads. For example, Zoe doesn’t seem to have much to do except be there as a catalyst for the others. It would have been nice to have her be a bit more balanced with the others.

But there is so much else going on, it kind of doesn’t matter. I guess that is a bit nitpicky on my part.

There is a point in the book where the secrets start to come to light and once that begins, the actions of the women and the ensuing event come fast and furious. The author holds nothing back – it is punch after punch of “holy crap, no way!” revelations.

I also think the author is bold in the choice of ending. Many books wrap everything up neatly and characters make amends of some kind. But real life isn’t like that. So, allowing everything to be more natural actually reflects the impact the weekend had on the women.

And even then, the author still has one last revelation in the last pages.

As I said at the beginning of this review, women are quite capable of sabotaging and being horrible to each other. Victoria Jenkins does an excellent job of illustrating this in The Bridesmaids.

Want to read another psych thriller? Check out The New Family, also by Victoria Jenkins (review contains links to others as well!)

Victoria Jenkins lives with her husband and daughters in South Wales, where her bestselling series of crime novels featuring Detectives King and Lane is based. The first in the series, The Girls in the Water is a top 5 US kindle bestseller. She has an MA in Creative and Media Writing from the University of Wales, Swansea.