by Lucy Foley
Don't miss Lucy Foley's new book, The Midnight Feast, coming June 18th!
A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BEST THRILLERS OF THE YEAR
"I loved this book. It gave me the same waves of happiness I get from curling up with a classic Christie...The alternating points of view keep you guessing, and guessing wrong." — Alex Michaelides, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Silent Patient
"Evok[es] the great Agatha Christie classics...Pay close attention to seemingly throwaway details about the characters' pasts. They are all clues." — New York Times Book Review
A wedding celebration turns dark and deadly in this deliciously wicked and atmospheric thriller reminiscent of Agatha Christie from the New York Times bestselling author of The Hunting Party.
The bride – The plus one – The best man – The wedding planner – The bridesmaid – The body
On an island off the coast of Ireland, guests gather to celebrate two people joining their lives together as one. The groom: handsome and charming, a rising television star. The bride: smart and ambitious, a magazine publisher. It's a wedding for a magazine, or for a celebrity: the designer dress, the remote location, the luxe party favors, the boutique whiskey. The cell phone service may be spotty and the waves may be rough, but every detail has been expertly planned and will be expertly executed.
But perfection is for plans, and people are all too human. As the champagne is popped and the festivities begin, resentments and petty jealousies begin to mingle with the reminiscences and well wishes. The groomsmen begin the drinking game from their school days. The bridesmaid not-so-accidentally ruins her dress. The bride's oldest (male) friend gives an uncomfortably caring toast.
And then someone turns up dead. Who didn't wish the happy couple well? And perhaps more important, why?
Don't miss Lucy Foley's new book, The Midnight Feast, coming June 18th!
A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BEST THRILLERS OF THE YEAR
"I loved this book. It gave me the same waves of happiness I get from curling up with a classic Christie...The alternating points of view keep you guessing, and guessing wrong." — Alex Michaelides, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Silent Patient
"Evok[es] the great Agatha Christie classics...Pay close attention to seemingly throwaway details about the characters' pasts. They are all clues." — New York Times Book Review
A wedding celebration turns dark and deadly in this deliciously wicked and atmospheric thriller reminiscent of Agatha Christie from the New York Times bestselling author of The Hunting Party.
The bride – The plus one – The best man – The wedding planner – The bridesmaid – The body
On an island off the coast of Ireland, guests gather to celebrate two people joining their lives together as one. The groom: handsome and charming, a rising television star. The bride: smart and ambitious, a magazine publisher. It's a wedding for a magazine, or for a celebrity: the designer dress, the remote location, the luxe party favors, the boutique whiskey. The cell phone service may be spotty and the waves may be rough, but every detail has been expertly planned and will be expertly executed.
But perfection is for plans, and people are all too human. As the champagne is popped and the festivities begin, resentments and petty jealousies begin to mingle with the reminiscences and well wishes. The groomsmen begin the drinking game from their school days. The bridesmaid not-so-accidentally ruins her dress. The bride's oldest (male) friend gives an uncomfortably caring toast.
And then someone turns up dead. Who didn't wish the happy couple well? And perhaps more important, why?
Reviews-
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March 30, 2020
Set on a remote island off the Irish coast where a massacre once occurred, this entertaining if uneven mystery from Foley (The Hunting Party) opens just after the high-profile wedding of Will Slater, the star of the reality TV show Survive the Night, and Julia Keegan, an online magazine editor. During the reception, the lights go out, prompting a “scream of terror,” which turns out to have come from a server, who reports having seen a lot of blood. Flashbacks from various perspectives, including the bride and her sister, the maid of honor, recount what preceded the server’s grim discovery—a body. Meanwhile, Julia is on edge after having received an anonymous note warning her not to marry Will, because he’s not who he seems. Foley defers disclosing the murder victim’s identity until quite late, but she undercuts the suspense with obvious indications of who it is. The tension of the setup isn’t quite matched by the reveals, though the nicely creepy setting compensates somewhat. Readers seeking thrills will find plenty. Agent: Alexandra Machinist, ICM Partners. -
April 1, 2020
This is one guest list no one would want to be on, just as no one would have wanted an invitation to the New Year's Eve party in Foley's previous novel, The Hunting Party (2019). Lives unravel amid the revelry on an eerie and remote island as family and friends assemble for a glam wedding in an updated Murder on the Orient Express. Each of the principal characters has a reason to want one of their number dead. The narcissistic bride, the unstable bridesmaid, the odd wedding planner and her husband, the resentful plus-one, the groom and his former schoolmates, with something dark and cruel hiding behind the schoolboy manners, who are revealed to be a pack of sadistic bullies. By the time the worst of them is found murdered, readers will not be sorry and might, in a Christie moment, have wanted to kill her or him themselves. At times the story threatens to overwhelm itself with a bit too much ominous darkness and anxious distraction, but fans of the genre will enjoy the proceedings, imagining just how good that sumptuous wedding cake might have tasted.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.) -
Starred review from May 1, 2020
Foley (The Hunting Party) outdoes herself again with this page-turning thriller; it's like experiencing Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express and And Then There Were None rolled into one. A wedding taking place between an ambitious magazine publisher and a reality television star on an isolated island off the coast of Ireland, with friends and family in attendance. They all have secrets, and it only takes a few days of drinking games, isolation, and resentments to bring every murky feeling to the surface. The island and the ancient folly where the wedding party stays are themselves characters, adding to the feeling of almost supernatural mystery and the unease that something is lurking in the shadows and getting ready to strike. VERDICT Only a handful of thriller writers can accomplish what Foley does here: weave a complex plot from the perspectives of eight characters plus an omniscient narrator without causing confusion or reader exhaustion when the plot bounces from one person to the next. Fans of Christie, Louise Penny, and Ruth Rendell will absolutely love this book, which doesn't reveal its secrets until the very last page. [See Prepub Alert, 11/25/19.]--Adriana Delgado, West Palm Beach, FL
Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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New York Times Book Review
"Evoking the great Agatha Christie classics And Then There Were None and Murder on the Orient Express, Lucy Foley's clever, taut new novel, The Guest List, takes us to a creepy island off the coast of Ireland...Foley builds her suspense slowly and creepily, deploying an array of narrators bristling with personal secrets...Pay close attention to seemingly throwaway details about the characters' pasts. They are all clues." — New York Times Book Review
"I didn't think Lucy Foley could top The Hunting Party, but she did! I loved this book. It gave me the same waves of happiness I get from curling up with a classic Christie. A remote, atmospheric island, a wedding no one is particularly happy to be at, old secrets—and a murder. The alternating points of view keep you guessing, and guessing wrong. I can't wait for her next book." — Alex Michaelides, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Silent Patient
"A swank celebrity wedding on a remote island with spotty cell service? What could go wrong? Lap up the luxe details, then hold your breath for dark twists as a guest turns up dead." — People
"Lucy Foley gets better with every book...The characters leap off the page, the twists are darker and more unexpected, and the setting is straight out of a Gothic novel...Yes, there's a murder, but there's so much more than that. (The twists, I admit, are pretty good too.)" — Marie Claire
"Murder on the Orient Express and And Then There Were None rolled into one...Fans of Christie, Louise Penny, and Ruth Rendell will absolutely love this book." — Library Journal (starred review)
"Lucy Foley has done it again....Cozy up with this whodunnit and watch the hours fly by." — Good Housekeeping
"An updated Murder on the Orient Express." — Booklist
"Wedding season means a thrilling web of mystery in The Guest List." — Parade
"[Foley's] puzzle is solid, she plays fair with the reader, and overall her story is swift and entertaining." — Seattle Times
"Easily my favorite book of 2020 so far...Will keep you guessing until the very end." — Better Homes & Gardens
"No one may have come to the island intending to murder, but this destination wedding spirals into mayhem when it's slowly revealed that most everyone in attendance is capable of becoming a lusting-for-revenge killer."
— Washington Post"This thrilling page turner will have you guessing until the very end." — OK! Magazine
"This juicy murder mystery is a perfect Agatha Christie–esque summer read." — Afar Magazine
"An Agatha Christie-like thriller." — Huffington Post
"Foley delivers another atmospheric, Agatha Christie-style whodunit with The Guest List. The multiple points of view will keep you guessing right until the end." — Buzzfeed
"Lucy Foley has honed her unique brand of reverse-whodunit suspense down to a science—and thank goodness for that. ... The Guest List—set at a ritzy wedding-gone-wrong on a remote Scottish isle—starts with a murder, and then plays a game of keep-away with the victim's identity until the very last pages." — Harper's Bazaar
"There's clues on nearly every page, but no spoilers here. Needless to say, you'll be up late flipping through your Kindle until all is revealed." —...
