No matter what type of books you usually choose at home, it’s always fun to have a page-turner you can dive into when you’re at the beach.

One of the best things about being on vacation or even enjoying just a weekend away is that it gives you the chance to catch up on your reading and lose yourself in a story worlds away from your daily grind.

If you’re looking for a new book to pack into your beach bag, The Vacationers, written by the New York Times’ bestselling author Emma Straub is perfect.

The book delves into the joy-filled happiness, intense jealousies, covered-up past and deep, dark secrets that finally bubble to the surface when an American family take a two-week vacation on the Balearic island of Mallorca, Spain.

Everything starts out blissfully wonderful. The main couple decide to jet off in celebration of their 35^th wedding anniversary with their daughter, who’s just graduated from high school, and a handful of their friends and extended family to make it a real event. With its sun-kissed beaches, towering mountains and incredible tapas, Mallorca seems like the perfect place to forget about the tensions gradually rising to the surface back at home and begin with a clean slate.

But things soon start to take a turn for the worst. During the course of the vacation, terrible secrets are revealed, childhood rivalries resurface, ancient wounds are opened back up and new humiliations are experienced.

The Vacationers looks at the sides of ourselves that we decide to show, as well as the ones we choose to conceal.

Ultimately, the novel focuses on the bonds that hold us together and just how much pressure is needed to break them for good.

Through her sarcastic humor and enormous heart, Emma Straub succeeds in creating an immensely satisfying story of an everyday family battling against unforeseen, but inevitable changes and how they come out of the other end permanently transformed, yet complete and stronger than ever.

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NICOLA QUINN is a British freelance writer based on the island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands. During the week she knuckles down and gets the job done, but on the weekend she spends her time soaking up the sunshine on the little volcanic island she calls home.