The Guest List: A Reese's Book Club Pick

by Lucy Foley

* The June 2020 Reese's Book Club pick*
*The Times Best Crime Fiction of the Year pick*
*Longlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger Award*

A gripping, twisty murder mystery thriller from the No.1 bestselling author of The Hunting Party.

'Lucy Foley is really very clever' Anthony Horowitz
'Thrilling' The Times
'A classic whodunnit' Kate Mosse
'Sharp and atmospheric and addictive' Louise Candlish
'A furiously twisty thriller' Clare Mackintosh

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 . . .

• ISBN10: 0062868934
• ISBN13: 9780062868930
• Publish Date: 2 June 2020 (first published 20 February 2020)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Imprint: Collins
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 320
• Language: English

Reviews

[Marissa Lupe Author]

"The Guest List" by @lucyfoleyauthor
Woah.. I mean woah.
I did not see that coming!
Yes! Thank you for writing a mystery novel that actually had mystery in it's story.
I LOVED this book. The layout, the characters, the imagery, PERFECT. Definitely kept me guessing and on the edge of my seat. If you're looking for a quality "who done it", I highly recommend you pick this up.

[Joni Reads]

This book...where do I even begin?

I went into it with high hopes as it was so popular and talked about so much. But for me personally, when I read thrillers I need them to be high action. I want my thrillers to read like an episode of Criminal Minds pretty much. And this book, simply put, did not.

For one, there were too many narrators for me. It made it difficult to care much about any of them because I felt like I never truly got to know them. The time jumped around quite a bit also and it was frustrating because I just wanted to be in the action. I understood that all of this was being told for a reason but I didn't care- I wanted to get to the thrilling part.

But that's the thing. There really wasn't a thrilling part. The story was told and 95% was back story about the characters. The actual murder and explanation was 5% of the book.

That being said- I wasn't able to guess who dunnit. Which for me means that at least one part was done right. I would probably read another of her books just to see if this is her general writing style or if it was just the way this particular book was set up.

So it kept me guessing but at the same time I didn't really care enough to make many guesses. There was no urgency or feeling like I had to keep reading. I was interested enough to want to know what happened but I felt no need to read. I forced myself to finish in one sitting because if I would have put it down I probably wouldn't have picked it back up.

[mrs_mander_reads]

Fantastic thriller! I absolutely love the way Foley connects all the dots. She builds connections slowly, and the amount of surprise this creates is amazing. Definitely recommend for folx who enjoy Liv Constantine or Alice Feeney.
I listened to this on audio, and the full cast recording is great!

[Amber]

Accurate rating: 3.5 stars.

The Guest List was a fast-paced and intriguing thriller, which was exactly what I was expecting from Lucy Foley after I read and enjoyed The Hunting Party early last year. I’m very glad that it lived up to my expectations on that front!

I was kept engaged by the mystery of what happened on the wedding night – I needed to know who had been killed and who the killer was. The fact that the book was written in first person added to the mystery, as the characters were clearly keeping things from the reader and I knew something was amiss.

That said, I think I would have preferred for the book to have been told in third person. I always struggle when thrillers are written in first, and then the author clearly goes out of their way to keep things from the reader and has the characters omit certain information. I find it quite irritating, and sometimes it can come across as lazy writing. It wasn’t a big deal with this book, as I still thought it was written really well, but I would have preferred for it not to have happened.

I loved the way Lucy Foley wrote the different points of view. There were a lot of characters in this book, but they were all very unique and distinct. She did a really good job with those.

I didn’t find any of the characters to be likeable apart from Hannah and Olivia, but to be honest they weren’t really supposed to be!

As for the twist at the end, I thought it was really well done! I liked how we were fed little bits of information that came together towards the end. I was able to put most of it together right before the big twist was revealed, and I love it when stories do that! I love being able to piece together information just as the twist is happening. It reminded me of how I felt with The Silent Patient, as I figured out the twist right at the last minute, almost along with the characters!