Thank you to my partners, Thriller Book Lovers Promotions and NetGalley, and the author. I appreciate the gifted eARC, and I am leaving this review voluntarily!

1. 𝑰𝒔𝒐𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝑺𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 - The island setting was perfect for this twist on a locked-room thriller. A raging storm stranding a group of friends on an island with a killer - does it get better?!

2. 𝑲𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒓 𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑳𝒐𝒐𝒔𝒆 - This is the heart of the story. Who is running around the island killing people who weren’t supposed to be there in the first place and antagonizing everyone else. Even when we figure it out, we actually don’t!

3. 𝑭𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒔 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝑺𝒆𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒕𝒔 - The enormity of the secrets that this group of friends held for so many years is enough to make anyone feel overwhelmed. As the truths are revealed, we see some closure happen.

4. 𝟖𝟎𝒔 𝑯𝒐𝒓𝒓𝒐𝒓 𝑴𝒐𝒗𝒊𝒆 𝑽𝒊𝒃𝒆𝒔 - I mean there are six of you and one “cop,” and you just all zip tie your hands together because he asks. Not likely.

5. 𝑭𝒂𝒕𝒂𝒍 𝑫𝒆𝒄𝒊𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔 - Sometimes bad things happen when they are not intended to get to certain points, and oftentimes, these things haunt people for life. It is quite apparent in this story that this is the case until it all comes to a tumultuous ending.

The Engagement Party is a closed door mystery with atmosphere that keeps turning the pages.

The book is told from multiple pov's and has you guessing if anyone of the college friends are telling the truth about what happened 12 years ago when one of their group vanished on graduation night.

The characters for the most part were unlikeable but I thought why would be they be likeable hiding a secret as to who killed Emily all those years ago.

All of them have something to lose.

Trust no one.

Its a wild read that keeps the pages turning and the reader guessing.

Thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow, William Morrow Paperbacks for thrilling read.

4.5/5 stars (rounded up to 5 on here)

Thank you Thrillerbookloverspromotions , Darby Kane , and William Morrow for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review!
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Okay this cover drew me in immediately. There is just something about a house on a cliff near water that just draws me in and makes me want to read the book! I absolutely loved locked room thrillers because I feel like when an author does it justice (and Kane definitely does it justice), they create an ambiance and atmosphere that is just so suspenseful and keeps the reader on their toes the entire time. Kane definitely knows how to create the characters in a way that the reader becomes invested in learning more about them and figuring out what actually happened all those years ago. I also loved how she used multiple character POV because you could definitely get in their heads more and understand what they were experiencing. Overall, if you love a good suspenseful thriller, make sure to pick this one up!

What a wild, twisted ride this one was. And THAT ENDING! I know readers sometimes complain about reading so many books they forget what they've read but that ending is forever imprinted on my mind. As you can see - Oh The Engagement Party how I loved thee, let me count the ways.

Overview of my favorites:

- gorgeous cover (check)
- isolated island/locked room mystery (check)
- a bunch of unlikable liars stuck together on the said island (check)
- elements of slasher movies (check)
- an unsolved mystery from their college years (check)
- outlandishly wild but also wildly entertaining things keep happening (check)

Lets start with this beautiful, dark, gloomy cover. It captures the vibe of the story perfectly. A group of old college friends very reluctantly accept the invitation to attend an engagement party on a very isolated island and of course get stuck there, cut off from the rest of the world with a killer on the loose.

Darby Kane just knows how to entertain. If like me, you find joy in unlikable characters who do really dumb and awful stuff, you will definitely enjoy this one! Best read in one sitting, while ignoring life and responsibilities! And again - THAT ENDING! That alone made it a 5 star for me!

A huge thank you to William Morrow, Thriller Book Lovers Promo & netgalley for getting this ARC into my hands in exchange for an honest review.

This twisty locked room mystery takes place on a private island in Maine. Six college friends have gathered for an engagement party and it's all fun and games until a body is found in the trunk of a car. One of the guests knows exactly who this uninvited person is, and knows their sketchy past! This thriller has all the good stuff with unlikeable characters, dark secrets and lies, questionable motives and a massive storm all set in a perfect atmospheric location! This is my second read by @hkdimon and I'm excited to read more!

This was a fun and fast paced "thriller lite" kind of book. Some of the twists I saw coming and some I didn't and for that, I appreciate the writing style and way she kept the reader fully engaged until the bitter end!

This book was action packed from start to finish and loaded with unreliable characters. We start off by being introduced to the characters while also receiving glimpses into the life of their friend who died on their graduation day. With all of the characters, and multiple POVs there were times where I found myself a bit confused. I was able to guess the ending but there were so many twists throughout that you are left guessing the whole time. Even in the last few chapters, the twists did not stop coming. This was my first Darby Kane book and I found it to be a suspenseful, fun, quick read!

Not for me. I would have given it 2 or 2.5 stars, but it was written well enough for me to finish it. I found it annoying. The characters were not likeable at all - I did root for Mitch and Sierra to end up together, but I didn't even really care about that. All the decisions they made were dumb and not believable. There was no real mystery or twist.

What a wild ride this one was! A group of friends who gather on a remote island with no escape during high tide.Throw in a major storm, and you have the perfect setting for revenge and murder. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time as the chapters alternated between Book Notes and the present. It was hard to know who to believe, but it wasn’t hard to root for two of the characters.
If you like fast paced suspenseful reads then look no further!

Locked room thrillers are my favorite genre. Add in a remote island in Maine and a raging storm, and you've got the perfect setting. Add in a group of old college friends with a secret they're desperate to keep hidden, and that's when the real fun begins. Darby Kane's latest is a thoroughly entertaining, atmospheric experience that kept me flipping pages long past my bedtime. The book's tag line really is the best way to describe it...the Engagement Party. The guest list is a real killer.

🤐 TIME TO TELL THE TRUTH 🤐 - A remote island, a group of liars and a raging storm makes up the perfect recipe for a dark and twisty thriller! “The Engagement Party” by Darby Kane is a fast paced locked room thriller that is action packed, full of suspense and wickedly atmospheric ⛈️!!

BOOK REVIEW: 🖤🖤🖤🖤/5

12 years ago on college graduation weekend, Emily was found dead washed up by the river. Another student who no one really knew much about was also found dead due to suicide. The two bodies were linked by a text message and the cases were closed by the police!

However, Emily’s College friends all hold on to a deep DARK SECRET that will link them together forever. The TRUTH about graduation night.

Fast forward to the present day, and this group of 6 will come together to celebrate an engagement. One of the crew has gotten suddenly engaged and invited them all to a remote island in Maine for a weekend getaway. As a raging storm approaches, they find a dead body in the garage and a note demanding that they tell the truth about THAT night. Someone is TAUNTING them and they are all STUCK on a remote island that gets disconnected from the mainland during high tide. IS this a sinister set up?? And WHO is seeking revenge??

Thank you kindly to @hkdimon @williammorrowbooks @harpercollinsca @netgalley for my advanced digital copy! This book releases on December 5, 2023!

I enjoyed the latest from Darby Kane, a thriller that has the most perfect “I Know What You Did Last Summer” vibes.

There isn’t much lead up before the action hits. There are a good number of characters, so while I had a good grasp on them, there were times where I felt like I was missing something. I had to re-read some things a couple times.

I predicted the ending; however, I loved what Kane did with the last chapter. I asked her if she was planning to write a sequel and she said that it’s a standalone...which I’m totally here for.

Overall, I’d recommend if you don't mind a book where there are few likeable characters! But, it’s an easy read and makes you feel like you’re watching a movie.

Thank you to Netgalley and William Morrow Books for this ARC in exchange for my nonbiased review.

Thank you William Morrow and Netgalley for the arc of THE ENGAGEMENT PARTY. Darby Kane’s debut thriller - PRETTY LITTLE LIFE - was a favorite of mine, but unfortunately all her books since have been a bit of a letdown.

THE ENGAGEMENT PARTY is a locked room whodunnit mystery with unlikeable characters, an island setting and multiple POVs. It is a quick read if you enjoy any of the above mentioned, but imo it was just lacking uniqueness and is an overdone storyline.

I am thinking going to an island is not a smart idea based on a lot of the books I have been reading lately. Nothing good ever seems to happen on an island. Especially one filled with people who have been hiding a deep dark secret for years. Secrets can bind people together, but it can also break them. And this friend group is so tied together with secrets it will take a master to unravel all them. Can it even be done or are there more secrets at stake than just what happened to their friend Emily in college all those years ago. This is a very fast paced book. All the friends are unique though none of them are guilt free. Secrets are exposed right up the very last page of this book. The reader is in for a wild ride.
Thank you to William Marrow, and Netgalley for allowing me to read an advance copy of this book.

Still tormented by the twelve-year-old memory of their murdered college classmate, Emily Hunt, old friends reunite to celebrate a betrothal. Never successfully putting the traumatic event behind them–each having endured whispered allegations and blatant finger pointing over the years, the reunion isn’t something to celebrate, but rather a throbbing, caustic wound defying debridement. When one of them is murdered, a cryptic note discovered alongside the body, the scenic, isolated island quickly loses its appeal and suggests a hair-raising adventure.

Or does it?

Believe me when I say I do not enjoy writing less-than-glowing reviews. I even flirted with the notion of tossing the book aside and sending the publisher a kind but candid note in lieu of a critique. But because a promise is a promise, here we go: Thin descriptions and nondescript characters further hamper a tedious plot, which may tempt diehard mystery fans to throw in the towel long before the midway mark. I also found the ending conveniently obscure.

While the author is incontestably a seasoned professional, even a veteran writer can’t always knock one out of the park. Sorry to say, I found this the case for THE ENGAGEMENT PARTY. Because many readers have championed so many of Ms. Kane’s other titles, I look forward to diving into one of those. Much appreciation to the author, William Morrow, and NetGalley for the ARC.

Short synopsis: Emily is found dead the night of graduation, now 12 years later the remaining friends meet up on a remote island to celebrate an engagement.

My thoughts: This is my first Darby Kane, and it was a fun one. It’s described as And then there were none meets I know what you did last summer and I think that description is very accurate.

It did take a couple minutes for me to get all the characters straight in my head, but once I did this was such a fun remote island mystery that had me guessing until the very end. And the twists and unexpected moments just kept coming!

Read if you love:
- Remote island settings
- College friends
- And then there none
- Alternating perspectives
- Hidden truths and secrets

I love a good locked room troupe and this remote island is the perfect setting for this fast paced thriller! With multiple POV’s, secrets, lies and twists mixed with a host of unreliable characters, this book will have you trying to figure out what will happen next!

Thank you to @thrillerbookloverspromotions and @hkdimon for the opportunity to read and review an advanced copy! I loved it!

Emily Hunt went missing from her affluent liberal arts school on graduation weekend. Her body was found floating in a river, and a quiet loner who most people on campus really didn’t know committed suicide. A tenuous link—one text—bound the two dead students together and was enough for law enforcement to close the case. But they got it wrong and now someone is determined to set it right.

Twelve years later, college friends gather to celebrate an engagement over a long overdue getaway on a swanky private island in Maine—with only one way in and one way out. Sierra Prescott, invited as a guest and unconnected to past events, is the only person who soon senses not all is what it seems.

The tension in the air is ignited when they find a dead man in the trunk of a car with a note: time to tell the truth. And things only get worse. As a torrential storm strands them together, the group’s buried stories begin to surface and secrets are bartered. To survive this deadly party, they’ll need to stop a killer before they become prey.

Locked room mysteries can be challenging (keeping the pace, believable actions and storylines) but Darby Kane does not disappoint! This story about a group of friends reuniting for a weekend centres around a death from their past - and then the bodies start piling up in the present. Loved the little twists and turns that made me second guess who was telling the truth, who would make it out alive, and how it would end.
Thanks to NetGalley and Killer Crime Club for an ARC!

Five friends arrive on a secluded island to celebrate an engagement. The only one missing is Emily, who died under mysterious circumstances after college graduation. But someone has orchestrated this get together in order to determine the truth about Emily’s murder. And as people start dying, and a storm takes out electric power, old loyalties are questioned. Is there any way to get off this island alive?
Full of plot twists and misdirection!

From my blog: Always With a Book

Somehow this is the first book I’ve read by Darby Kane but it will definitely not be the last one I pick up. It was such a thrilling ride from start to finish and one I read in a matter of hours…that’s how addicting and wild this one was! Once I started it, I just couldn’t put it down!

The locked-room trope is one of my favorites in a thriller and when you set it on an island in the middle of a storm, I’m all in! Talk about atmospheric and suspenseful!!! And then you have a group of people coming together for the first time in years and that just brings another layer of tension and to add to that, these characters aren’t the most likeable. And things just go down-hill from there. This book is so twisty and I loved that each character has their own set of secrets that you just cannot wait to find out. This book definitely gives off some major And Then There Were None vibes, so if you have read that, you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t read that, no big deal.

I loved that even though I had some suspicions about a few characters, I still had no idea where this one was ultimately headed. And that kept me flipping the pages at a furious pace. There is clearly something that happened in the past that these characters do not want coming out and someone wants justice. It’s such a good mix of a cat and mouse game along with a revenge story and I couldn’t get enough of it.

This is a fast-paced, twisted story that I definitely recommend. And lucky for me that I have the rest of Darby’s backlist to read while waiting for her next book to come out!