With an island setting, a celebrity wedding, and a body count, The Guest List would be this summer’s hot beach read if any of us could to go the beach. British author Lucy Foley wrote three unremarkable historical novels before switching genres and landing on the bestseller list with her crackling 2019 thriller The Hunting Party, which read like a cross between Agatha Christie and Donna Tartt. The Guest List wisely sticks to the formula that propelled The Hunting Party to its shocking conclusion: old friends (and frenemies) reunite in a scenic, secluded locale, where they reveal long-buried secrets and avenge ancient grudges over a few action-packed days.

Though The Guest List is not as tightly wound as its predecessor, Foley stokes the same tensions between locals and outsiders, nature and civilization, history and memory, while changing enough details to keep readers guessing. Instead of getting snowed in at a hunting lodge in the Scottish Highlands, the large cast of characters find themselves marooned on an Irish island, the venue for a no-expenses-spared destination wedding. Instead of a posh university, a prestigious boy’s boarding school, where Something Bad happened years before, links them together.

The groom, Will, has gone on to television fame as a Bear Grylls-esque survivalist. His bride, Jules, is a career-minded lifestyle editor and Internet influencer. But they’re less of an odd couple than they initially seem; “I remember being a little surprised when I realized his permanently brown face wasn’t actually due to the constant exposure to the elements but to Sisley’s self-tan, the same one I use,” Jules says of her intended. Their registry includes a £200 scented candle, a delicious detail.

Inis an Amplóra—Cormorant Island, to the English guests—is no tropical paradise. It contains quicksand-like peat bogs, treacherous sea caves, ghost stories, and, of course, cormorants, those avian avatars of greed, bad luck and evil. All three abound on this two-mile-long “lump of granite” moored off the Connemara coast. There’s no cell service, and, while the isolated venue offers every luxury and modern convenience, actual civilization is a turbulent ferry ride away.

The perspective switches between unreliable (and frequently drunk or high) narrators, including Aiofe, the all-seeing wedding planner; Johnno, the loose-cannon best man; Olivia, the emotionally fragile bridesmaid; and Hannah, the middle-class outsider who knows exactly one person among the 150 fur-coated and top-hatted guests. “I’m fascinated by—and a little bit suspicious of—people who have made loads of money,” she confesses. “To me they’re like another species altogether, a breed of sleek and dangerous big cats.”

Everyone’s a potential murderer or murder victim, and the question of whodunit—and to whom—keeps you reading despite some clunky prose and dizzying flashbacks-within-flashbacks. Foley gleefully infuses the familiar apparati of the wedding industrial complex—a debauched stag party, for example, or a cake knife—with foreboding menace. “The bride asked for it to be sharpened specially—madness really, as a knife like this is really meant for cutting through meat,” the chef complains. “It’ll go through that sponge like it’s butter.”

At a time when weddings, vacations, and beaches are off the table for many readers, The Guest List offers a vicarious plus-one. But the novel’s mood of physical and psychological isolation, and the vertiginous house-of-cards atmosphere of carefully cultivated beauty teetering on imminent collapse, feels strangely appropriate for our times.

“Mine is a profession in which you orchestrate happiness,” Aiofe muses. “You can’t control more than a single day. But you can control one of them. Twenty-four hours can be curated. A wedding day is a neat little parcel of time in which you can create something whole and perfect to be cherished for a lifetime, a pearl from a broken necklace.” It’s a fitting metaphor for the fiction writer’s art: holding joy and sorrow, life and death in one’s hand–and getting paid for it.

Foley maintains her crown for being the queen of world building, creating interesting characters who butt up against each other, and absolutely rocking the atmosphere. Didn't think I would love anything more than The Hunting Party, but this did it for me!

I started and stopped this one several times, it took me a bit to get into but once I did I couldn't put it down. The characters are a bit unlikable which was why I had a hard time getting into it but each character has hidden secrets that come out during an exclusive wedding on a remote island. There are sudden twists that surprise the reader and keep you guessing until the end!

This book is great! Would definitely recommend. Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Absolutely loved this suspense. Kept me guessing the entire time, first who was going to end up dead, and then who did it. Very well written.

What a fantastic book. I have been reading a few books lately set on an island, but none used the isolation, the landscape, the dread, as well as The Guest List. It gripped from the very first chapter, and the POV work very well. A posh magazine editor is getting married on a desolate Irish Island to a Bear Griles-like man, a handsome television adventurer. They have invited his mates from his boarding school days. The bride's best man is her friend, with whom she's a little too close—tormenting his wife, an outsider who feels ill at ease and gets nothing but the cold shoulder from these upper-class bores. After watching the bride getting too close and flirting with her husband, she clings to the bride's sister, a gorgeous skinny girl with many problems of her own. So you have the bride, groom, groomsmen, the best man, his wife, the sister, and the woman who owns the island and organizes the party, each telling their story of this wedding weekend, where one of the guests ends up dead. At first, and for a long time, we don't know who the victim is. But we certainly have our preference, because a lot of these people are awful. I loved how this slice of the British upper class was described; it is accurate. Regardless of this thriller never feels exclusive British, you could say that putting a bunch of people on an island and letting a murder take place sounds very Agatha Christie, but that is not how the story is told. It is an exceptionally emotional narrative, delving deep into very recognizable social emotions: envy, jealousy, shame, ambition, shock, self-loathing, stupidity, rage, and revenge. I would so recommend this!

So so so predictable. From the get go, I could see where this was going. I really was hoping for more but was disappointed. Not sure I will read her next book/

Spooky and atmospheric, kept me on my toes the whole way through! Great cast of characters and loved the set up of the wedding bringing the story together. An updated mystery for fans of Agatha Christie for sure.

Foley's story set in Ireland (my favorite place) kept me reading way past my bedtime! I enjoyed the teasing out of each character's secrets. I will definitely be looking forward to reading more of her books.

Nothing is as much fun as a "locked room" mystery, in this case a small, destination island for weddings that has several storms brewing, literally and figuratively. Told from quite a few different point of views plus a changing timeline, the reader learns that everyone has something to hide, and quite a few of the characters are wealthy as well as unsavory and unlikable.. This has a clever plot, great atmosphere and is a fun read, with several twists that leave you guessing til the end.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy for an unbiased review.

This book was absolutely brilliant. I love Lucy Foley's work and I think this is one of her best. Crazy twists and turns and an unexpected ending. Written well. A must read.

The Guest List was my first time reading Lucy Foley, and I plan to read more from her now! I loved virtually everything about this book, from the atmosphere to the characters to the writing itself. Just everything. It was tense and twisty, and I loved not knowing what was coming next. I absolutely did not see the end coming, and I loved being shocked the way I was.

My first Lucy Foley novel will not be my last. A thriller with all the burners turned up to high, this was a very fun read. The narration switching from person to person upped the ante and kept me in suspense throughout. Nearly every character having some sort of secret hidden in their past allowed for plenty of twists and turns leading into the shocking ending. A perfect summer read!

I want to start this one out by saying thank you to @netgalley for the chance to read an ARC of #TheGuestList. I finished this one back in April and am just now posting the review. I blame COVID. So by now, I’m sure you’ve seen this one all over #bookstagram singing its praises. This review is not one of those. This was, unfortunately, just not for me. I normally love a good whodunnit. The atmosphere was there for The Guest List, but I just couldn’t get into the characters. I kept reading hoping it would get better, but it ended up just being “meh” for me. I didn’t even want to pick up my Kindle most of the time to even finish it. It wasn’t exciting. It didn’t get my heart-pounding and wanting to keep turning pages. Just a bunch of unlikable characters that I didn’t care what happened to them. Needless to say, I wouldn’t recommend it.

I loved Foley's book The Hunting Party and this sophomore novel did not disappoint. I highly recommend for those who love the "locked door" mystery.

Meeeeeh. I’d been looking forward to this one, even more so after it was picked for the Reese Witherspoon book club. I found a lot of the characters to be unlikeable and a few of the twists showed their hand a little early (although one late in the game was so surprising that I was like yes it’s not going to be totally predictable but then it was a red herring). Didn’t anyone else feel like it ended with so many unanswered questions?

I was hooked from page one. What do you get when you put a gorgeous bride and her semi-famous husband on a remote Irish island for a dream wedding, and throw in lots of alcohol and some hard feelings? A dead body, that's what.

The question is....who was responsible? Did the bride or groom perhaps have some skeletons in their closet that were itching to pop out? What about the bride's half-sister, acting in her role as bridesmaid? She seems to be hiding something,....but what? The groomsmen all seem to have a history that they would like to keep hidden, but at what cost? Even the mother-of-the-bride and the catering staff seem to be harboring secrets. Who has a secret that they would ultimately kill to keep hidden?

If you like Agatha Christie, you will LOVE this book! I raced through it one rainy afternoon, and I never saw the end coming. Lucy Foley is a master of suspends, and guarantees that you will be guessing until the culprit is finally revealed. Don't walk, race to your library or bookstore and grab this gem now!

Book Review

What do you get when you pair a wedding on a remote, wooded island that comes with chock full of ghost stories with Lord of the Flies reminiscent private school chums who hold a secret of their own? Lucy Foley’s “The Guest Book”!

Oh my goodness! This book had me on edge from the first paragraph! I love when an author writes a story that makes you to automatically feel an uneasy tension even though you have no idea why you’re feeling it. From the rocky boat ride to the island, you knew things were not quite right and that you were going to be in for a ride! The sense of unease carries throughout the book thanks to some creepy history on the island, knowing something is off with these frat boy types who can’t seem to shake their private school days, their back stories, and what happened all those years ago until it culminates on the night of the wedding.

Told in flashbacks from the evening before the wedding and the wedding day itself, and from different perspectives, this story slowly unravels, bit by bit, until it the end.

The writing was very haunting and unsettling. You could feel the creepiness that pervaded the island and it made this story just sing. And, like any good mystery, it kept me guessing right to the very end.

I'm afraid I only have vague memories of this one. I think it reminded me a lot of her other book, The Hunting Party, with a bunch of unlikable characters behaving like jerks. I liked having the point of view of wedding planner Aoife, because I can relate as someone who worked weddings for three years and watched people behave in all manner of terrible ways - though nothing like this group! A fine genre read, but I think I'm just tired of horrible characters (notto be confused with horribly written characters).

The fine print: I was already behind and didn’t write reviews for a huge chunk of the pandemic, so anything I read from February-July was reviewed in August or later… hence the lack of details!

While I was shocked by some of the twists and turns, it all seems a little contrived. Lucy Foley builds an amazing tense atmosphere, and I love the multiple povs.