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Billionaire Island #1-3
Kiss Heaven Goodbye
A delicious cocktail of glittering escapism and gripping entertainment, KISS HEAVEN GOODBYE is Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller Tasmina Perry at her sizzling best...A hot summer. A private island. A dark secret...On the luxurious private island of Angel Cay, four privileged students toast the end of their exams, but one dark night will change their perfect lives for ever. As the friends move into their glamorous careers -- fashion, music, politics -- each tries to put the past behind them. But no matter how high their stars climb, they cannot escape the dreadful truth. And when the consequences of that fateful night finally catch up with them, for one of the four, there is a terrible price to be paid...From the sugar-white sands of the Bahamas to Australia's Coral Sea; from London's glittering society scene to the lavish decadence of Hollywood, Tasmina Perry travels the world and turns up the heat in her most spectacular novel yet...
652 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2010
235 people are currently reading
942 people want to read
About the author
Tasmina Perry
45 books508 followers"Tasmina Perry left a career in law for the more glamorous world of women’s magazine journalism.
She has written on celebrity and style for many national magazines including Marie−Claire‚ Glamour and Heat and was most recently Deputy Editor of InStyle magazine. She has also found time to launch her own travel and fashion magazine Jaunt. All of her four novels have been Sunday Times best-sellers and her books have been published in seventeen countries.
She lives in Surrey with her husband and son." (Source: http://www.tasminaperry.com/the-autho...)
She also writes under the pseudonym J.L. Butler and with her husband John Perry under the pseudonym Mia James.
She has written on celebrity and style for many national magazines including Marie−Claire‚ Glamour and Heat and was most recently Deputy Editor of InStyle magazine. She has also found time to launch her own travel and fashion magazine Jaunt. All of her four novels have been Sunday Times best-sellers and her books have been published in seventeen countries.
She lives in Surrey with her husband and son." (Source: http://www.tasminaperry.com/the-autho...)
She also writes under the pseudonym J.L. Butler and with her husband John Perry under the pseudonym Mia James.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 104 reviews
February 5, 2024
Really good book, even to the last 30 pages I could not predict the ending.
A real page turner.
Four stars.
A real page turner.
Four stars.
July 7, 2013
2 1/2 stars. Way too long. But for the first 300 or so pages I was into it. Then I got tired of it and just skimmed the next 300. I read the last 100 and caught up just fine.
July 29, 2022
the plot was good
January 27, 2018
I've spent a good chunk of my Saturday finishing this book and MAN was it a huge waste of time.
This book has a great blurb - makes the story sound like it would be mysterious, set in summer on a private island - Gossip Girl but darker. It's not. We LITERALLY spend the first 90 pages on the island and then the last 40 pages back there for the "big reveal" (even the reveal was rubbish, sorry not sorry). And the rest of the time is spent across the globe in various "glamorous" locations, following these four characters as they waste money, take drugs, sleep with people, cheat on people and complain.
All four characters are poorly written and TOTALLY undeveloped. Grace was the only one with potential to be a nice person, but she was written about least and the biggest storyline she was given was her daughter turning into a nightmare and sleeping with her mother's boyfriend...I just have no words. Alex, I suppose, had a little potential to be nicer, too but he literally spends the entire book snorting cocaine, sleeping with various women and running back to Miles for help. Miles and Sasha were both just completely selfish, cruel, greedy & superficial characters with NO redeeming features. Even Miles's sexuality wasn't fully explored and developed to give him a sense of being a full, complete character, it was just left as this sordid thing that he was ashamed of.
I'm not sure why it was necessary to mention cocaine on every other page; like, we get it, these people are too rich and too stupid, but it isn't shocking or cool or exciting, it's just mind-numbingly boring to read about. On that note, the sex scenes were poorly-written, far too frequent and repetitive.
So, yeah. I really disliked this book. On every level. I literally skim-read the last like 300 pages and yet I KNOW I didn't miss anything important. HUGE letdown.
This book has a great blurb - makes the story sound like it would be mysterious, set in summer on a private island - Gossip Girl but darker. It's not. We LITERALLY spend the first 90 pages on the island and then the last 40 pages back there for the "big reveal" (even the reveal was rubbish, sorry not sorry). And the rest of the time is spent across the globe in various "glamorous" locations, following these four characters as they waste money, take drugs, sleep with people, cheat on people and complain.
All four characters are poorly written and TOTALLY undeveloped. Grace was the only one with potential to be a nice person, but she was written about least and the biggest storyline she was given was her daughter turning into a nightmare and sleeping with her mother's boyfriend...I just have no words. Alex, I suppose, had a little potential to be nicer, too but he literally spends the entire book snorting cocaine, sleeping with various women and running back to Miles for help. Miles and Sasha were both just completely selfish, cruel, greedy & superficial characters with NO redeeming features. Even Miles's sexuality wasn't fully explored and developed to give him a sense of being a full, complete character, it was just left as this sordid thing that he was ashamed of.
I'm not sure why it was necessary to mention cocaine on every other page; like, we get it, these people are too rich and too stupid, but it isn't shocking or cool or exciting, it's just mind-numbingly boring to read about. On that note, the sex scenes were poorly-written, far too frequent and repetitive.
So, yeah. I really disliked this book. On every level. I literally skim-read the last like 300 pages and yet I KNOW I didn't miss anything important. HUGE letdown.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 4, 2017
I'm embarrassed to say I read this to the end -- but didn't need to, since the conclusion was obvious from the first chapter. The ultimate in summer time-waster. Dumb, predictable, filled with grammar errors, cardboard characters, ridiculous plot -- everything for a pointless read.
May 14, 2014
Extremely annoying characters, and still I couldn't put it down. A somewhat reluctant 3 stars therefore.
June 13, 2018
Entertaining fluff that goes on a little too long.
January 18, 2022
Good story line but ridiculously long and drawn out with an abrupt ending.
September 10, 2010
Alex Doyle, Miles and Grace Ashford and Sasha Sinclair are toasting the end of their exams with a decadent vacation on the private island of Angel Cay. The whole world is at their feet when a horrible tragedy threatens to ruins their lives. Kiss Heaven Goodbye explores the repercussions of that fateful night as the four go on to glittering careers - will their dark secret ever come to light?
Kiss Heaven Goodbye is the perfect beach read - five hundred odd pages whip past before you know it as you're sucked into the lives of the four privileged students and watch how they become successful. Perry uses an excellent format - showing us first that twenty years down the line the secret is about to be uncovered, then taking us back to that night and introducing us to Miles, Grace, Sasha and Alex. The rest of the book uses dates as chapter headings to show time unfolding, which meant reading compulsively in the knowledge that, however right their lives might be, everything is about to come crashing down.
My main complaint with this manner of dipping in and out of the characters' lives over twenty years is that often key events would be skipped over and we'd simply be shown the aftermath. I think at times Perry used this technique almost lazily so that she wouldn't have to write difficult scenes - much easier to show a fait accompli.
I also found it far too cutesy that in the book a film being premiered was called "By Midnight", the novel that Perry has released under the nom de plume Mia James. We also visited Highgate Cemetary in this novel, which features prominantly in By Midnight. To most of Perry's regular readers, this won't have any impact at all so it is far from a negative point but it jumped out at me.
Kiss Heaven Goodbye is as predictable as you would expect, although Perry threw up a successful curveball at the end which, I have to confess, I didn't see coming and that I enjoyed immensely. It's always nice to be surprised by this sort of novel!
All in all, Kiss Heaven Goodbye was a blistering read - fast, sexy and glamourous with larger than life characters. If you're heading on holiday, you can't go far wrong packing this novel. Perry knows how to write the perfect beach read.
Kiss Heaven Goodbye is the perfect beach read - five hundred odd pages whip past before you know it as you're sucked into the lives of the four privileged students and watch how they become successful. Perry uses an excellent format - showing us first that twenty years down the line the secret is about to be uncovered, then taking us back to that night and introducing us to Miles, Grace, Sasha and Alex. The rest of the book uses dates as chapter headings to show time unfolding, which meant reading compulsively in the knowledge that, however right their lives might be, everything is about to come crashing down.
My main complaint with this manner of dipping in and out of the characters' lives over twenty years is that often key events would be skipped over and we'd simply be shown the aftermath. I think at times Perry used this technique almost lazily so that she wouldn't have to write difficult scenes - much easier to show a fait accompli.
I also found it far too cutesy that in the book a film being premiered was called "By Midnight", the novel that Perry has released under the nom de plume Mia James. We also visited Highgate Cemetary in this novel, which features prominantly in By Midnight. To most of Perry's regular readers, this won't have any impact at all so it is far from a negative point but it jumped out at me.
Kiss Heaven Goodbye is as predictable as you would expect, although Perry threw up a successful curveball at the end which, I have to confess, I didn't see coming and that I enjoyed immensely. It's always nice to be surprised by this sort of novel!
All in all, Kiss Heaven Goodbye was a blistering read - fast, sexy and glamourous with larger than life characters. If you're heading on holiday, you can't go far wrong packing this novel. Perry knows how to write the perfect beach read.
May 8, 2015
This is a long but highly entertaining story only knocked down a star for so many missing apostrophes !! Another reviewer remarked upon Laces and Scruples, those great blockbusters of the 80s and it easily falls well within those realms. Rich people leading glamorous lives but keeping secrets. It kept me occupied and I got it free as well !! I'll certainly be happy to buy one of her stories in future, though. I'd not heard of her before seeing this one pop up on my freebie listings.
There were a few missing words in sentences at times like he or of and some "ouch" moments of misspellings-Lynn not Lynne Franks, writing Oliva and not Olivia at one point, bonuses spelt as bonusess and contry's and not country's.
There were some real laugh-out-loud lines and little asides in it as well !!
One mention made me cringe a little-of the actor David Robb starring in a film about lovers where one kills themselves.....maybe the author doesn't know about poor David Robb's wife but it did make me wince nonetheless.
However, overall an easy read with intrigue and designer labels and it's nice to have a bit of escapism at times.
There were a few missing words in sentences at times like he or of and some "ouch" moments of misspellings-Lynn not Lynne Franks, writing Oliva and not Olivia at one point, bonuses spelt as bonusess and contry's and not country's.
There were some real laugh-out-loud lines and little asides in it as well !!
One mention made me cringe a little-of the actor David Robb starring in a film about lovers where one kills themselves.....maybe the author doesn't know about poor David Robb's wife but it did make me wince nonetheless.
However, overall an easy read with intrigue and designer labels and it's nice to have a bit of escapism at times.
February 25, 2015
I'm a big fan of Tasmina Perry, but this one took me a long time to get into. So much so, I started and restarted it quite a few times! Perry's books are always long - and I love a long book as much as the next person - but the build up to this one was much slower than others I've read from her.
Deciding it was finally time to finish Kiss Heaven Goodbye, I stuck at it this week and found myself really starting to get into it. By the end, I was pleasantly surprised by an unexpected twist and really happy with the outcome for all the main characters; Miles, Sasha, Alex and Grace.
Another one of Perry's reads I've really enjoyed - and another to leave me slightly envious of extravagant lifestyles, too!
Deciding it was finally time to finish Kiss Heaven Goodbye, I stuck at it this week and found myself really starting to get into it. By the end, I was pleasantly surprised by an unexpected twist and really happy with the outcome for all the main characters; Miles, Sasha, Alex and Grace.
Another one of Perry's reads I've really enjoyed - and another to leave me slightly envious of extravagant lifestyles, too!
October 3, 2013
A little bit too long and gets boring at some point. Hardly finished it.
April 11, 2021
I really enjoyed this book! I was a little hesitant at first. I had read only one other of Tasmina Perry’s books, and I was very underwhelmed with the character development. However I really felt much more connected to the characters in Kiss Heaven Goodbye - even if I didn’t always like them. I enjoyed the snippets into each of the four characters’ lives over the twenty-year span. I found myself genuinely interested in their stories, rooting for them, hurting for them, or being disgusted with them.
I noticed several reviews saying the book was too long, but I didn’t feel that way. I was actually pleased to see it was long, and I was sad when I realized I only had about 50 pages left.
The twist at the end definitely caught me off guard, and I enjoyed the way it was found out. However, while I excepted the “how” of the twist, the “why” behind it seemed forced.
My biggest problem was the editing. There were several grammatical and punctuation errors. Not sure if that’s due to reading it on the Kindle format? Either way it was far too many to overlook.
I noticed several reviews saying the book was too long, but I didn’t feel that way. I was actually pleased to see it was long, and I was sad when I realized I only had about 50 pages left.
The twist at the end definitely caught me off guard, and I enjoyed the way it was found out. However, while I excepted the “how” of the twist, the “why” behind it seemed forced.
My biggest problem was the editing. There were several grammatical and punctuation errors. Not sure if that’s due to reading it on the Kindle format? Either way it was far too many to overlook.
September 20, 2023
Terrible. Everyone was a caricature, everything was bland and the end was so disappointing. I thought there might be a dramatic twist to make up for the boredom but it was barely a twist. I hated all the characters - Alex was dull and stupid, Sasha was dull and selfish, Miles was dull and arrogant, Grace was dull and dull again. Then there was all these extra characters and relationships that added nothing to the story. The only vaguely intriguing characters were Olivia the psychopathic daughter, who is explained away with no lines of her own, and the boatboy who gets killed off/locked up. I really wanted him to get his revenge. There was so much shop talk, but the author had clearly just googled buzzwords from different industries - they may as well have been Vincent Adultman from BoJack Horseman saying "I did a business". I don't care about investors in made up companies by unlikeable characters! Bleh
April 9, 2025
It was a good book - I can't say I love it or it was a real page turner, and I nearly had to force myself to get to the end. It was juicy, and there was some "oh shit!" Moments. I think if it was a little shorter just to get to that conclusion of the mystery that was clouding the book, then I would have loved it. It ended ok... I was glad Grace and Alex finally got together - I just was disappointed we didn't get a clear idea about Sasha's and Miles' ending... it would have been great if the book finished with a happily ever after epilogue that was 10 years down the track...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 9, 2022
I really enjoy Tasmina Perry's books and this one is no different. I've written many book reviews and I've always mention that if a book doesn't grab me by the 4th or 5th chapter I move on. With that said, most of her books are VERY SLOW starts (for me) and veer off in all directions. It takes forever to get to the excitement of the story but once it does....LOOKOUT! So I'm more than willing to go through her prolonged natter because in the end she definitely comes through!
April 28, 2019
Really enjoyed this book used to read Tasmina Perry years ago, this book reminded me exactly why she was a favourite. Didn't expect the ending, but left me with unanswered questions and feel there could/should be a sequel! Think I will be looking out for more of her books, perfect holiday/beach reads!
April 18, 2022
A lot of fun
I am a big fan of her work, and I am glad I can read more of her books on Kindle. I read this a few years ago, I enjoyed it this time as much as I did the first time. Now that there are more to choose from…I’m going to start another. Why wait for the beach, get your guilty pleasure right now.
I am a big fan of her work, and I am glad I can read more of her books on Kindle. I read this a few years ago, I enjoyed it this time as much as I did the first time. Now that there are more to choose from…I’m going to start another. Why wait for the beach, get your guilty pleasure right now.
November 14, 2017
I love tasmina perry but this book was not my favourite. Time lapse are tiring and even though we get to know each character, some chapters are just really boring. The last few pages are really really interesting but the rest of the book is not her best work...
September 22, 2018
I really enjoyed this book, I found it hard to put down. I’ve seen a couple of reviews saying the book was too long but I disagree. It was nice to get the whole story of everyone involved. Big plot twist that I didn’t expect at all near the very end kept this book exciting for me.
October 3, 2020
This book reminded me of a Jackie Collins book with several characters as they grow up from high school, jobs, success, marriage, kids, etc. I really enjoyed it and would never have guessed the ending.
January 3, 2022
Quite an epic modern day story telling of the maturing rise of some mega rich siblings. An interesting cast surrounds a mysterious beach incident keeps the reader glued to every page and there are many. Very entertaining read.
November 13, 2023
Not a bad read but just too long. Four friends, three from very wealthy backgrounds celebrate end of exams by staying on a very luxurious island. Something happens late one night that each will carry with them for ever. Each one of them however does go on to lead a very glamorous career.
July 19, 2017
I wasn't a huge fan of this Tasmina Perry book. I felt the twist was underwhelming and the characters were not great which is a shame as I love quite a few of her more recent books
October 5, 2017
Not as good as Private Lives. It gets me bored.
October 11, 2017
Didn't finish
Not for me just couldn't get into it, so didn't finish the book. Not read anything by this author before, not sure if I will again.
Not for me just couldn't get into it, so didn't finish the book. Not read anything by this author before, not sure if I will again.
July 3, 2018
Absolutely brilliant first book I have read by Tasmina Perry would reccomend as a holiday read
September 22, 2018
Excellent
Wow intense story writing. Characters alive and believable couldn't put it down . Thank you for having a beginning a middle and an end!
Wow intense story writing. Characters alive and believable couldn't put it down . Thank you for having a beginning a middle and an end!
January 29, 2019
An easy read, some strong characters and story line. Light and enjoyable
July 17, 2019
Fab book. Couldn't put it down
Displaying 1 - 30 of 104 reviews