The Guest List by Lucy Foley ★★★★★

Published : 20th February 2020

Publisher : Harper Collins Publishers

Format : Kindle, Paperback, Audio, Hardback

Genre : Thriller

Synopsis

On an island off the windswept Irish coast, guests gather for the wedding of the year – the marriage of Jules Keegan and Will Slater. Old friends. Past grudges. Happy families. Hidden jealousies. Thirteen guests. One body. The wedding cake has barely been cut when one of the guests is found dead. And as a storm unleashes its fury on the island, everyone is trapped.

All have a secret.

All have a motive.

One guest won’t leave this wedding alive . . .

My Review

First and foremost, thank you so much Harper Collins for this beautiful hardback gifted copy and also a big thank you to Anne Cater for the blog tour spot.

Ok, so W O W!! Where do I even begin to start. I L O V E D this book. my most favoured reads are those told over a whole array of different perspectives and this one certainly did not disappoint.

The story opens on the wedding day of Jules and Will, on a remote island in the middle of the sea. The lights have flickered out once again due to the storm raging outside and the longer they are off the more nervous the guests become until all of a sudden the lights are back and everyone is feeling rather silly in there cowered positions so they all make there way back to more dancing and even more alcohol. No one notices the bloody footsteps on the floor and everything is going back to normal until they all hear a blood curdling scream, one of the waitresses stumbles in to the marquee and has a look of pure utter terror in her eyes.

If that doesn't grab you then I do not know what will. From that point on you read every chapter from a different guests perspective, the story takes you back to the day before the wedding and then onto the wedding day with the odd chapter going back to the actual night of the scream until you are completely caught up.

Lucy Foley is a master writer. Every one of her characters has something unique to them and something dark going on that you are constantly guessing about but are drip fed throughout so you are always kept guessing to what is going on.

In the mix of all the different personalities of guests you have a best man who knows far to many dark secrets about the groom’s past, an extremely emotional and fragile bridesmaid, an assemblage of obnoxious ushers who attended private school with the groom and all act as if they are still there, causing havoc throughout the halls, a plus one who is mortgaged up to the eyeballs, wearing a dress she can not afford but trying to fit in as if she is just like the rest of them, skirting around the edges of conversation so she is not left standing alone, all on an eerie once deserted windswept island off the Irish coast.

Jules is a strong, confident career driven woman. She only really has the one friend, Charlie who she has a complicated past with. She isn't sure if she still loves him from her younger days and equally unsure if he likes her back. His wife Hannah is the polar opposite to Jules and is extremely kind and friendly, was that what she was lacking?

She is hiding a secret flaw from Will that she is struggling to keep under control and also is desperately trying to ignore the warning note she received anonymously through her door before she left for the island.

Will is a very handsome, charming man, slightly famous for his survival show on tv and ring leader almost to his circle of boys. All his school friends are all very close in there ways but are all hiding something from there past, a private school upbringing with the 'boys will be boys attitude' but you get the impression that something dark happened back when they was at school that was far from the accident they play it out to be, and are they really friends or just keeping that torch going because they all know to much about each other to not be friendly?

Every different chapter gives you more of an insight into the life of the guest you are reading about and you are left constantly guessing what could have happened in the past, or what is tormenting them so much now that they are hiding it from everyone?

The island itself is quite haunting, with a history of death and bad luck you can't help but wonder who would want to get married there. The owners, Freddie and Aoife are a mystery. Cleary Aoife has a deep history with the island but throughout the first half of the book you are clueless as to what it can be, just that she is connected somehow.

This entire story is extremely full of twists and turns that will keep you page turning long into the night, just when you think you understand one part of it another comes and makes you think again.

There was so many suspects that I did not expect the ending at all. It was fantastic.

This book is a massive Russian doll of whodunnits!!! if you love being completely engulfed into a story, consumed by the words written on the pages that you can not put it down, even to sleep then this is the book for you.

A must read for any bookworm.

Purchase Links

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Meet the author

Lucy Foley studied English Literature at Durham and UCL universities and worked for several years as a fiction editor in the publishing industry, before leaving to write full-time.

The Hunting Party is her debut crime novel, inspired by a particularly remote spot in Scotland that fired her imagination.

Lucy is also the author of three historical novels, which have been translated into sixteen languages.

Her journalism has appeared in ES Magazine, Sunday Times Style, Grazia and more.