Pine Ridge is a small coastal village off the south coast, somewhere near Bournemouth and has that castaway feeling from the moment you cross on the car ferry. However, this idyllic village is the setting for discontent and divided loyalties between those DFL (down from London) residents and those who have grown up in Pine Ridge and mainly work servicing those August visitors. The ridge has a resort hotel, beach bar and spa to keep holiday makers happy, but some visitors have gone away dreaming of their own little slice of south coast heaven. One summer Pine Ridge becomes the centre of a dispute over second home ownership. This is a bad time for Amy and Linus who have just bought their own little bungalow with coastal views up on the ridge. It needs work, having been the home of an elderly couple, but she has a plan and builders starting this summer. She was inspired by friend Charlotte whose banker husband Perry used a huge bonus to buy their perfect holiday home with it’s own summer house overlooking the sea, nicknamed The Nook. It’s people like this that friends Robbie and Tate are angry about. They grew up here but are stuck living in static caravans on a temporary site because they can’t afford to buy or rent anywhere. The private rental market has shrunk as people refurb for the AirBnB market and no new houses are being built. People on service wages can’t hope to pay the prices of houses on the ridge, so they’re snapped up by Londoners who only come in August. This leaves huge homes empty all year while villagers are homeless, this is why the men have set up the NJFA – ‘Not Just For August’ Campaign. As tensions rise towards the August bank holiday, the NJFA are gearing up to make their final public protest of the summer. As the music festival gears up on the beach, people are interested in the design they’ve created on the sand, but they’re stopped in their tracks when half way through the day a summer house is bulldozed from the cliff and into the sea. Was this the NJFA plan all along or is something else going on?
Louise Candlish is brilliant at satirising the middle classes and she’s hit upon an issue that holiday destinations around the world are facing. I’ve always visited Venice in winter or early spring because I can’t stand cruise crowds and I was emotionally drawn in by the problem of keeping that balance between tourists and residents. They’ve addressed the cruise ship issue in recent years, have set up campaigns that show tourists which are the authentic Venetian restaurants and shops rather than the tourist traps. Authorities are now considering curbing numbers. Otherwise, it will become little more than a Disneyland experience; can Venice be the city it is, without it’s people? It’s a problem that areas like Devon and Cornwall have faced for years, with second home owners and holiday cottages turning whole villages into ghost towns in the winter. Even worse, it means the opinions of people who are not even year round residents, hold more sway in local matters than people trying to earn their livelihood. This came to the fore a few years ago in Cornwall where local fishermen’s need for a new jetty was being blocked by second home owners objecting to the planning application. There is always a tipping point and Candlish has demonstrated that exquisitely here. I had so much sympathy for Tate and his girlfriend Ellie, working in the beach bar and spa but not able to buy a home where they were born. They finished long shifts, only to broil all night in the heat of a static caravan. Tate’s friend Robbie is determined to take action and his NJFA campaign starts with throwing eggs and soup at DFL cars at the ferry stop. He pushes his agenda at council meetings and in the press, especially when he parks his caravan on the drive of a Pine Ridge home that’s been empty all year.
When we meet the DFL families their privilege is apparent. Candlish has this brilliant way of creating the stereotype we expect then subverting it. Perry is the archetypal banker – big car, egocentric and totally unapologetic about his banker’s bonus that allowed him to buy their holiday home and retire early. It’s easy to find fault with him; the drinking, the toxic masculinity and the absolute rejection of the type of ‘woke’ causes the younger people are hung up on. His son Benedict has brought girlfriend Tabitha to Pine Ridge, but she’s so ‘woke’ that she gets under Perry’s skin. Her sympathy for the NJFL cause grinds his gears, especially when she criticises his lifestyle while happy to enjoy the benefits for herself. Perry is simply incapable of keeping the peace, tearing up to the caravan park to give Robbie a piece of his mind and his fists. He’s also irritated by Linus, who is more aware of his impact on the world and travels everywhere in the village by bicycle. Perry finds his middle-aged Lycra wearing ridiculous and vents much of his rage on him and his bike. Yet there’s another side to Perry, a fear of being who he really is perhaps? He’s on the wagon after years of alcoholism and has formed an attachment to a resident at the halfway house for addicts where he volunteers in London. Charlotte is suspicious of his weekly drives back up to the city, but it’s fair to say doesn’t suspect the identity or gender of the object of his affections. It’s clear that Perry’s lies are starting to stack up and he won’t be able to hold his perfect life together for very long.
Another interesting character is Linus and Amy’s daughter Beatrice, who at 17 has blossomed into a goddess, something her mother realises when she sees her on the beach in a bikini. Beatrice could be an rich bitch, totally unaware of how privileged she is. Of course they’re not as well off as Perry and Charlotte, but still they can afford to renovate the bungalow as a second home and she has the usual teenage accoutrements of manicured nails, the latest iPhone and enough clothing to dress the whole family. Underneath Beatrice doesn’t seem happy though and when Charlotte notices a wrap she’s wearing on the beach is genuine designer and not the Vinted fake she claimed it was, her mind starts whirring. Where is Beattie getting the money for all these designer items? Candlish has all the right brands here including the designer collaboration Birkenstocks. It turns out that Beattie has a way of acquiring her goods that is less than savoury. I was expecting OnlyFans or an online sugar daddy! Yet what does Amy expect when she’s already going out of her way to keep up with Charlotte and Perry? It’s something that’s very apparent when she purchases her own summer house to sit overlooking the bay and christens it The Niche. Beattie has other secrets too, involving the The Niche and a certain beach barman. All hell will break loose if Linus finds out that this man, with a pregnant girlfriend, is hanging around his daughter. Tate is feeling ever more desperate and utterly trapped. He can’t bear the idea of the winter in the confines of their static with a screaming baby. He isn’t ready. While Ellie is planning to tell her parents and lobbying the council for more permanent housing, he is meeting his teenage lover and planning his escape.
There are so many strands to this story that by the time the summer house slides off the cliff and onto the beach I had no idea who had done it. The shockwaves ripple through the villagers when the police find a body in the wreckage and start a murder enquiry. Tate knows he and Robbie will be in the frame for their activist antics and their ability to use a bulldozer. I couldn’t help but think that it wouldn’t be as simple as that. Despite their circumstances driving them to criminal behaviour, they really aren’t bad boys. My money was on one of the DFL crowd: had Charlotte found out about Perry’s extra-curricular activities? Was Beattie so scared of her secrets coming to light she’d silenced someone? Had Perry been driven to distraction by Linus and his bike? We didn’t even know whose summer house was wrecked at first. This labyrinth of possibilities slowly unravels, including some fascinating twists and turns. I loved how Candlish highlighted a very real injustice, while weaving a unputdownable thriller around it. I genuinely felt for locals having to sofa surf, while huge houses stood empty all year. To then add insult to injury they then have to earn their money servicing these families and their houses, providing their massages in the spa and listening while they complain about their busy lives and seeing how much they spend without thinking on their food and drink. I could see why they were angry and it was interesting to see how those inequalities lead to other ideologies – when locals find out that asylum seekers might be housed nearby they are incensed. Their antipathy comes from fear that someone will jump them in the queue, but they’re missing who the real enemy is. Everybody has to do a lot of learning as we rush towards her conclusion, there’s some learning around respecting differing opinions, understanding why the other person thinks like they do and finding ways of working together. This is a fabulously current morality tale with some delicious satire and lots of secrets to uncover. The perfect summer read.
Out Now in Hardback from HQ
Meet the Author
Hello and welcome! You join me as my new thriller OUR HOLIDAY is published – it is out now in paperback, ebook and audio and was just announced as a Richard & Judy Book Club pick for the summer! It features my favourite ever love-to-hate characters (wait till you meet Perry and Charlotte!), second home owners in an idyllic beach resort who think they’re in town for another summer of sun, sea and rosé… But instead, they’re in for a bit of a reckoning…
I’m also celebrating my 20th year as an author this summer – that’s right, my first book came out in 2004, which somehow manages to feel both like yesterday AND a hundred years ago.
OUR HOUSE is the one you may know me for as it’s on our screens as a major four-part ITV drama starring Martin Compston, Tuppence Middleton and Rupert Penry-Jones (watch the full series free on ITVX). This is the novel that turned my career around – right when I was about to give up. It won the 2019 British Book Awards Book of the Year – Crime & Thriller and was shortlisted for the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award, the Capital Crime Amazon Publishing Best Crime Novel of the Year Award, and the Audible Sounds of Crime Award. It was also longlisted for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award and the Specsavers National Book Awards.
It recently received a Nielsen Bestseller Silver Award for 250,000 copies sold and I feel so proud that readers are continuing to discover it and recommend it far and wide.
My 1990s-set thriller THE ONLY SUSPECT just won the 2024 Capital Crime Fingerprint Award for Thriller of the Year and I was recently nominated for a CWA Dagger in the Library Award, voted for by librarians and readers.
OUR HOLIDAY, THE ONLY SUSPECT, THE OTHER PASSENGER, THE SWIMMING POOL and THE DAY YOU SAVED MY LIFE have all been optioned for the screen – I’ll share development news on those as soon as I can.
A bit about me: I live in a South London neighbourhood not unlike the one in my books, with my husband, daughter (when she’s not at uni), and a fox-red Labrador called Bertie who is the apple of my eye. Books, TV and long walks are my passions – and drinking wine in the sun with family and friends. My favourite authors include Tom Wolfe, Patricia Highsmith, Barbara Vine and Agatha Christie.
Be the first to hear about new releases and price drops by clicking on the ‘Follow’ button under my pic or:
Website: louisecandlish dot com
X/Twitter: louise_candlish
Instagram: louisecandlish
FB: LouiseCandlishAuthor
Author photos: ©Neil Spence; ©Johnny Ring; ©Joe Lord/Archant
From Louise’s Amazon Author Page.
The Lotus Readers 