Feel the burn: why holidays from hell make for blistering fiction

Family fallouts, failing marriages, sun burn, food poisoning... from Deborah Levy’s hypnotic and disturbing Hot Milk to All In, Claire Powell’s all-inclusive nightmare, Leon Craig looks at the best novels about vile vacations Every summer, we long for a much-needed break from daily life, dreaming of self-reinvention in some distant paradise. But really, holidays can be absolute hell. Instead of relaxation we encounter heaving crowds, lumpy beds, the caprices of our loved ones and the grim truth…