My star rating on a review, much like a storyline, is based on three things: the beginning, the middle and the end.

• The beginning needs to be sharp and catchy. This sets up the whole feeling for what is to come and is when we decide as a reader how quickly we want to find out more.

• The middle needs to be consistent, both in pace and surprise. This is what keeps us reading until the end. No one likes a DNF pile!

• The ending needs to be bang worthy or emotional. This you could argue is the most important part of a storyline, as its what the reader will finish with and will be the determining factor in whether they can’t stop thinking about what they’ve read or not.

This outline is how I base all my reviews; often waiting to see how I feel emotionally after I’ve finished a book before deciding on my star rating. More often than not, the ending is the difference between 4 and 5 star scores.

In the case of ‘The Dinner Guest’ the beginning was indeed captivating. It pulled me straight in and I was ready to go. A great start for the big expectations I had set for my first read of B. P. Walter.

The middle consistently gave us more information when we needed it, kept up the pace that had been set and threw in a few surprises for good measure.

The ending just didn’t have the desired result and fell short of the mark for me. I was left with questions I still wanted answering and overall, I felt things were rushed together. It does beg to question whether this ending style was done on purpose and whether or not there will be a sequel. There certainly is potential to continue.

Overall, I enjoyed the read, I just didn’t love it – 3.5 Stars.

Thank you to #NetGalley, #OneMoreChapter, #HarperCollinsUK and #BPWalter for an ARC of #TheDinnerGuest in exchange for an honest review.

We begin in a dining room in West London. All of the book's main characters are present. Matthew and his husband Charlie, their teen son Titus, and a woman named Rachel. Titus is actually Matthew's nephew, the son of his sister who is now deceased. Rachel is a new friend, someone Matthew and Charlie met at a bookstore nearly a year ago. Nearly as soon as they met, Matthew had invited Rachel to join a small book club he organized. Since then, she's become a regular fixture in their lives. By the end of the prologue, one of the four is dead and one of the others is on the phone with the police admitting to murder even though they're not really guilty! Great beginning, right?!?!

I was obsessed with The Dinner Guest from first page to last. After the startling prologue, the book goes back 11 months to when Matthew and Charlie first met Rachel. Rachel is a big unknown. Charlie doesn't really care for her from the start, but not for any particular reason. Part of it is that he's a bit of a snob, and Rachel is from what he considers a lower class than he and Matthew. But part of it is that she just seems to pop up in their lives at random and that makes Charlie suspicious of her.

The Dinner Guest is a tight thriller, and it's not till very late in the novel that all the pieces come together. It's all very suspenseful, and I didn't guess what was coming until I got there. It's very well written, and the ending is killer. There's enough ambiguity that I want to know what happens next. Maybe another novel from B. P. Walter? I sure hope so.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review. I loved The Dinner Guest.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion and review.
I have not previously read anything by BP Walter and will for sure be adding them to my list of must read books going forward. If you like suspense than you will find this book full of twists and turns that you will not anticipate and an ending that will shock you. I loved this book and feel you will too!

The Dinner Guest was a fast-paced read that left you guessing up until the end. We know from the start that there is a dinner and one of the guests doesn't survive the evening. The story moves back and forth between the characters as well as the past and present to piece together what really happened that night. There is much drama and the story is well written. This is the first book I have read by B.P. Waller, and I really enjoyed it. Other reviewers noted that it was best read without a lot of information going in. I agree. I had no expectations for the story and got pulled in from the start. If you enjoy a fast-paced and dramatic thriller, this book is for you!

Thank you to NetGalley and One More Chapter for the ARC!

The story opens with a murder. Nothing quite like being dropped in at the deep end. The rest of the book looks at the immediate aftermath and the events leading up to the killing. Who was the guest and why was she so unsettling?

Despite the title, which suggests an Agatha Christie type whodunnit, this book is about the interlinking relationships between a group of people over a series of years. Told from the point of view of two characters, one of whom admits the murder of the husband of the other protagonist, the suspicions fall between so many of people at the centre of the story. Not even sure that everyone actually had dinner on that fateful night...

Always guessing what lies behind the motivations for some of the bizarre choices, this is a story of deception, vengeance and keeping up appearances. There is plenty of distasteful snobbery and stereotypical class behaviours that leave us with no one to root for as everyone has an ugly side. Still, the urge to find out what is going on and what has happened in the past that leads to the murder is what drives the story. Easy to read but a little incredulous in places (do the modern entitled class really talk like this?) and the huge information dump monologue towards the end made this a slightly disappointing thriller.

A quick and snappy, fun read.

This is a read where there’s 2 sides. The rich and the poor essentially. Unfortunately, the rich are just so wholly annoying and I hated the perspective of Charlie.

Rachel in the other hand, I found her plotting and way she weaves into the story interesting and is what kept me going when reading.

This was a fun, twisting thriller. A great beach reac for the summer! A really quick read! Thank you to netgalley for the Arc!

Took me a little while to get into this then when I did I was hooked.
Quite a dark story that that kept me gripped

Rounded up from 3.5 stars. I only wish I had liked the characters more!! -- because the writing was so evocative and I loved the ambiguity of the ending. It's been several days since I finished The Dinner Guest, and bits and pieces of how the relationships shifted will occur to me at random moments. The other issue that dragged the score down (for me - and others may not have the same experience) is that the big twist/reveal at the end was what I had been *assuming* the real story was.

3.5 stars

Reading the blurb, I thought "well, they just gave away the farm." Literally, we know there is a dinner, we know who was there, we know one would not survive. But....there is more to these people than meets the eye.

It all started with an invite to book club and ended over dinner.... but there is more...so much more.

This is one where one really cannot say too much without fear of giving something away. So, what I will say, is that I enjoyed this clever tale and its twists and turns along the way. Told thought the POV of two characters, this book proved to be a fast and enjoyable read. This one had me guessing and flipping the pages until the very end.

Thank you to Harper Collins UK, One More Chapter and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.

I didn’t enjoy this book too much unfortunately.

The way it started with the murder but didn’t really say what happened. Then it kept weaving in and out.
10 months before the murder, seven months after the murder etc. This was continuous and all over the place.
Yet, we don’t get to find out how the murder happened, never mind who done it till near the end.

I don’t mind going from past, to present, to future in a book, but this was too much.
I found it very irksome all the way through.

The story line wasn’t thrilling enough when it went back and forth. It didn’t make you look forward to finding out what happened next.

I found the strong too long and somewhat repetitive. I was glad when it was over.

I have just finished reading The Dinner Guest by Author B.P. Walter

This is the first book by the Author that I have read, and I found it intriguing at the beginning, however as it progressed, I started getting frustrated and annoyed with all the characters. I just did not like any of them at all and lost interest in the book quite fast. This was not a good fit for me.

Thank you to NetGalley, Author B.P. Walter and HarperCollins UK, One More Chapter. for my advanced copy to read and review.

#NetGalley

I wasn’t overly excited throughout reading this, but I also wasn’t annoyed or bored, so it’s a solid 3 stars. There were some good twists and turns, but also some I saw coming and wondered how the main characters didn’t see it.

At times I did feel for Charlie but he could also be very quick to judge; there were a couple of bits I thought were redundant in the story surrounding him too – aspects of his personality and also his parents. I was appalled by the behaviour of Titus at times and the fact he wasn’t really called out on it.

The underlying reason for everything was good and although I thought some of the details lent themselves to ambiguity, the way the characters reacted to it made that redundant – with the outcome being the only possible one. I also enjoyed the twist about the night in question.

Overall I need my thrillers to be a bit more thrilling, but otherwise it’s quite a good read.

Four people walked into the dining room that night. One would never leave.

The first line of the blurb was enough for me to want to read this heart pounding book.
The tale has Matthew, the husband.
Charlie, Mathew's spouse
Titus, their son
and
Rachel, the stranger.

Matthew had been stabbed at the dinner table. Rachel, sitting calmly with the knife in her hand, called the police and confessed to killing him. But has Rachel really killed Matthew? If not then why would she confess to a murder she didn't commit? Charlie and their son, fifteen-year-old Titus were witnesses to the murder.
But who really committed the crime?

Filled with lies, secrets, deceit and betrayal this domestic thriller keeps you engrossed in the story wanting to know what happens and keeps you guessing.

This is my first book by the author but it will definitely not be the last.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Hold on to your seat This thriller messes with your mind Which i loved. This story is a captivating murder mystery and had me sucked in from the beginning. Great plot, characters and writing. A slam dunk in my opinion. Definitely recommend.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher.

My thoughts and opinions are my own

Sometimes it's difficult to pinpoint why we disliked a book... I struggled so much to read this one! Sure, I was wondering how everything would be tied up, but I didn't feel the tension (nor anything, actually) and was bored from the beginning to the (mediocre/far-fetched) ending.

I'm really happy it was a winner for plenty of my friends! Please, read the other reviews before deciding to add this book to your TBR or not.

Many thanks to HarperCollins/One More Chapter and Netgalley for the gifted copy.

#TheDinnerGuest #NetGalley

Four people at the dinner table, one of them was uninvited, one of them ends up dead.
Matthew and Charlie have the ideal marriage in their expensive home with their perfect son.
On a chance meeting, Rachel comes into their life and things will never be the same again.

An exciting thriller with twists and turns.

Revenge is a dish best served......

I love how this story was told. The back and forth and the way it was all weaved together. I could only guess to the pieces and puzzled at how they all fit. I was shocked to learn as the story went.

Suspenseful is hard to capture when you open up with the death. However, BP Walter nailed this, as I hung on to every word trying to determine exactly how the events unfolded and ended in death.

My attention and my nerves were on the line as we follow Rachel and her sneaky ways. I wasn't sure how she fit at first other than the opening lines of her confession. Devious is the only word to describe her.

Matthew and Charles seemed like the perfect couple; only goes to show you only see what people allow you to see. Hence the Instagram account Rachel peeped thinking they were living life up to the fullest, and yeah, maybe they weren't better off emotionally than it appeared.

My only hang up was the ending, gosh, that leaves so much to the imagination and I was hoping for a more solid ending. Typically though, when I feel this way it means I'm craving more....I just want to know what happens next! I really hope a sequel follows.

Thank you to Netgalley and HarperCollins Uk, One More Chapter for providing a review copy.

Have you ever read a book in which none of the characters were likeable? This is one of those books. Honestly, all of the characters are fairly awful, selfish people with a litany of faults and you’ll spend half the book wanting them to get their comeuppance. Especially the main two characters who takes turns in voicing the story, Charlie and Rachel. I didn’t like either of them from the beginning.

You’d think this would be the death knell for a novel, wouldn’t you, but you’d be wrong. The Dinner Guest had me hooked from first page to last in a way that I meant I could not look away and I raced through the pages. To achieve this with characters for whom I had practically no sympathy was nothing short of bare genius by the author.

The book thrusts us into the perfect world of Charlie, a man who has never known a day of hardship in his life and who seems to have everything anyone could wish for. Perfect home, great job, perfect husband, perfect stepson, no financial worries. Then he bumps into Rachel whose life is the exact opposite. For some reason, Charlie’s husband decides to take Rachel under their wing and, from then on, the perfect facade starts to crack and disintegrate, as if Rachel’s appearance has infected it with rot.

The book jumps around in time, beginning with the aftermath of the murder of Charlie’s husband and then going back to the introduction of Rachel into their lives, and exploring all the characters back stories until we understand what has happened and why. The author has been extremely clever with the plotting of this novel, building the tension as facts are revealed piece by piece, but taking us off in different directions, so it is impossible to guess what is the truth and who is responsible for what until the very end. Many times I thought I had worked it out, only to be proven wrong and sent off down another path, so I had to keep reading and reading to construct another theory.

This book is a great psychological thriller, whose very ending completely chilled me and the whole thing left me shaken and excited for what I had just read. This writer is clearly very talented and I will be looking out for more of his work to pick up in the future. A great addition to the genre that I would highly recommend to its fans.

It opens with a conundrum. Four people sit down for a meal and one of them is stabbed to death, with the one holding the knife confessing to the murder. But did the confessor do it, or was it one of the other two – or is it possible there’s another answer?

The tale is told through Charlie’s eyes, he’s the husband of the Matthew, the victim. The other guests at the meal being Titus, Matthew’s fifteen-year-old adopted son, and Rachel, a girl they’d met just recently. The only female in the room is the one holding the knife. But early on it’s clear that all is not quite as it seems. When questioned by police, Charlie is evasive and his reaction to the murder is just a little strange. Also, it quickly becomes clear that Titus is a bit of an oddball, and cocksure and impudent to boot. Rachel is a something of an enigma, someone who had simply bumped into the two men at a bookshop and as a result had been invited to a reading group organised by Matthew. Seemingly, she’d subsequently inveigled her way into the family group.

As we learn more about the four main protagonists another layer to this mystery opens up: that of class divide. Charlie and Mathew had both grown up with wealth and social status, with their home being situated in a borough of London containing some of the most expensive properties anywhere in the world. Money is not a problem to them – they live high on the hog and take it all for granted. The story of how Titus came to be adopted by Mathew is eked out slowly, as is Rachel’s working class backstory. All this is entertaining in its own right, with some elements being shocking and hilarious in equal measure. But does it get us any closer to understanding what went on that fateful night?

The final section contains revelations and twists aplenty and the eventual big reveal is a surprise. Well, sort of. The clues had been spread liberally through the text and I’m sure that some eagle-eyed amateur sleuths will have worked most of it out well before the end (though not me, I have to admit). It’s a well written and skilfully constructed mystery, somewhat in the mode of an Agatha Christie novel, but with a modern makeover. I enjoyed it and would happily seek out more offerings from this author.