Guests are called to a remote island off the Irish coast to celebrate the wedding of the year – the marriage of Jules and Will. Everything has been meticulously planned, the scene is set, old friends are back together.
It should be the perfect day.
Until the discovery of a body signals the perfect murder.
A groom with a secret.
A bridesmaid with a grudge.
A plus one with motive.
A best man with a past.
It could be any, it could be all . . . But one guest won’t make it out alive.
What did I think?
Although it's only February, 2020 is already turning out to be a year of awesome books and The Guest List by Lucy Foley is an absolute cracker. Filled with tension and unease, and crammed full of secrets, Lucy Foley has very cleverly crafted a murder mystery unlike any other I have read before. You might be wondering how it could be different to other whodunnits, well simply because the reader is kept completely in the dark as to which one of the guests is dead.
When reading murder mysteries or crime thrillers, readers turn into amateur sleuths. We sift through the evidence set out before us and examine motive of each character. It's impossible to do this with The Guest List as each character may have motive, but for different potential victims. Although naturally I did try to guess who was dead and 'whodunnit', all of the unknown variables sent my brain into a tizz so I gave up and just enjoyed the show.
I have never enjoyed a book so much with so many unlikeable characters in it. This might sound odd, but it's the individual characteristics and history of each character that drives the story. Everyone seems to have something to hide or holds a grudge against someone, so there was no way that this was ever going to be the perfect wedding to Will that Jules dreamed of. Especially not when Will's old school friends turned up and regressed into a wolfish pack of annoying teenage boys. I could've quite easily pushed any one of them over the edge of the cliff.
The Guest List may very well be compared to an Agatha Christie novel but for building suspense and holding on to all of its secrets until the last possible moment, I think it's even better than any Christie novels I've ever read. The Guest List is even better than a 'whodunnit, it's a 'you'llneverguesswhodunnit' because you don't know who 'it' is.
With a very cleverly crafted plot, The Guest List is as impossible to second guess as it is to put down. It's an absolutely sensational book that I'll be recommending to all.
I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.
My rating:
Buy it from Amazon
About 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, an instant Sunday Times and Irish Times no.1 bestseller, was Lucy’s 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.
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