Slow burn thriller which I found just ok. Some plot points felt a little unbelievable and the killer’s motive felt a bit off to me. Overall, this thriller was just ok

Predictable, but gotta love a locked room (or island) plot. I could put together generally how each character was going to be involved, so nothing was very twisty. The ending was very dramatic and probably didn't need to be so much. I wish we got a little more into the scandal Tessa was involved in. Overall though, an easy read with enough going on to keep it entertaining

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!

I have mixed feelings on The Bachelorette Party by Camilla Stein. I typically love the alternating views, but it didn’t work for me on this one. I didn’t find the characters interesting enough to feel a connection with. Typically I get aggravated with a character’s choices, feel pity for them, I didn’t feel anything for Tessa or Anneliese.
The ending was not a shock, I am not sure if it was supposed to be a great twist. I was a little bored with this one.

The beginning of this book was so good and creepy! I love that it took place on an abandoned island during the night!

I didn't find the storyline that took place ten years into the future to be as exciting but that could be because I didn't care much for any of the characters and at times it didn't seem like much was happening. I did like that there was some mystery surrounding Tessa's past and I thought that was a great twist when it was finally revealed!

I had to suspend disbelief a good bit at the end of this book because it was way too over the top.

Overall, this was a pretty quick locked-room thriller and I think a lot of readers will enjoy it!

Thank you, @netgalley, and @minotaur_books for the #gifted e-arc and physical copy!

I just finished The Bachelorette Party by Camilla Sten and here are my thoughts.
Childhood friends meet on a remote island for a bachelorette party… A remote island where a true crime took place… Tessa knows if she can figure out what happened there… She could reignite her true crime podcast… But someone has a lot more to lose than Tessa stands to gain.

This was her best yet! Camilla Sten absolutely nailed this book. She bought the creepy atmosphere. She totally wrote the kind of thriller I love to read.

Tessa has spiralled. She doesn’t want to bring down the fun but knowing her friends are going to a crime scene… a place where a mystery went down that hasn’t been solved… She can't help herself and goes. I liked how she was written. She was struggling with herself and it really showed. Being around happy people sucks when you are unhappy!

I loved the big ending twist! It was perfect! A bit outlandish but who cares! It was well done, well written and deliciously satisfying. I like really dark… gentle twists with a great ending and that's what this one brings. The pace was excellent. She is a master of her craft that is for sure!

The side characters were all annoying. That was probably my only gripe. I was kinda ok if they were going to die haha..

4.5 stars

Thank you to @netgalley and @stmartinspress for my gifted ALC

There were parts of this book that worked for me, especially the way the two timelines wove together. I was pulled in early, curious about both the bachelorette weekend and the older mystery. But the further I got, the more predictable it all became. I wasn’t surprised by the ending, and the way it played out felt a little too theatrical to really land. Not a total miss, but also not one I’d rush to recommend.

The cover is absolutely gorgeous and immediately drew me in. It’s a bonus that it’s a mystery/thriller, which I love! The Bachelorette Party revolves around a true crime podcaster who’s trying to hold on to her career and uncover a juicy old mystery about four missing women.

I was eager to love it, but the story’s complexity, with its numerous characters and shifting timelines, left me feeling lost. Sometimes, I was confused about who was speaking. There were two groups of women, friends with extremely similar names.

The setting, a craggy, old island off the Swedish coast now home to a resort, was great. The feeling of isolation and abandonment was effective, but there were way too many leaps in the story. It didn’t feel realistic, and many times, the plot was predictable. It was slow to building the suspense. The concept was there, but the execution fell short for me.

The Bachelorette Party is a fun twisty thriller that shows us that we can never escape our past. 5 friends attend a bachelorette party on a remote island that promises fun, relaxation, and a chance to reconnect. But this island holds secrets and a desire for revenge. No one is safe.

The Bachelorette Part was so fun to read. It was everything I need in a good thriller; mystery, chaos, and the classic who done it. I read this book in about 2 days and didn't want it to end. I highly recommend this book to all thriller lovers.

I enjoyed The Bachelorette Party! The plot twist really surprised me — I didn’t see it coming at all. That said, I’m not sure I agree with the comparisons to Scream. It had suspense, but the tone didn’t quite match, and the frequent changes in narrators made things a little confusing at times.

Overall, it was a solid read, just not one of my favorites. I usually buy a physical copy if I really love a book, and I don’t think I’ll do that with this one. Still, worth checking out if you enjoy twisty thrillers.

Every year, four childhood friends retreat to a secret island off Sweden—until one trip ends in their mysterious disappearance. A decade later, true crime podcaster Tessa, obsessed with the unsolved case, joins a bachelorette party on a nearby island eerily similar to the one from the tragedy. It’s her last chance to uncover the truth—and someone else’s last chance to seek revenge.

I really enjoyed this read! The atmosphere was eerie and immersive, and the mystery kept me hooked from start to finish. Just like Tessa, I was completely convinced I knew who the murderer was—and I loved how the story played with those expectations.

I also really appreciated the back-and-forth POVs, which added depth and tension. Tessa’s dynamic with the group—how out of place and disliked she was—mirrored the original group of missing girls in such a clever, unsettling way. It felt like history was repeating itself, and that parallel made the story even more compelling. A chilling, twisty thriller I couldn’t put down!

Rating: 4/5
Spice: 0/5

Tropes:
Locked Room
Multiple Timelines/POVs
Best Friends
Strong Women
Isolated Location
Amateur Detective

Thank you so much NetGalley, St Martin's Press, Minotaur Books, and Camilla Sten for an eARC. All thoughts are my own.

This one was fun. A nice mystery as people keep disappearing all while so many people are trying to keep their pasts a secret. No way I saw that twist coming.

Thank you to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for an ARC of the psychological thriller that should be titled, The Bachelorette Party from Hell. There's quite a bit of graphic violence, especially in the last few chapters.
This is a dual timeline story about two different girlfriends' trips to a remote island off the coast of Stockholm. The first story takes place in 2012 and is mainly told in third person from the POV of Matilda, one of the Nacka Four—a group of four friends who went to a secret location every year to party and bond. Only this time, they never returned. Their deaths were ruled accidental drowning after their empty boat washed ashore, but some people believe the women were murdered.
The other part of the story takes place in 2022 and is told in first person from the POV of Tessa, a former true-crime podcaster who recently made a terrible mistake that cost her job and relationship. Her sister, Lena, and best friend, Annaliese, persuade her to come to Annaliese's bachelorette party at a yoga resort on Isle Blind, believed to be the site of the infamous Nacka Four demise. Although Tessa is not feeling very sociable, she's intrigued by the opportunity to visit the location and possibly crack the cold case.
Coincidentally, the resort owner, Irene, is Matilda's sister, but Tessa can't get her to talk much about what happened to the Nacka Four. However, the chef, Adam, lets it slip that he believes the women were murdered.
Annaliese and her friends play drinking games, eat delicious food, take walks, do yoga, tell secrets, and seem to have fun—until it all goes terribly wrong.
It was quite obvious to me who was the perp in the 2022 story; the 2012 killer was a bit more of a surprise.
The writing and descriptions were good. Fans of psychological thrillers and locked room mysteries might enjoy this.

I was torn with this one until I got to the ending. Told in two timelines, I figured out the current time’s twist before it was revealed. I hadn’t guessed the earlier timeline’s twist though. This turned out to be a story about survival which I liked.

NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press, thank you for this copy of the story. I did enjoy it.

Fans of thrillers set on an island will love this one!

Tessa is a true crime junkie with her own podcast and her investigative ways get the best of her during her best friend's bachelorette party.

"The Bachelorette Party" is a story with two mysteries across a decade's time. It is up to Tessa to solve the initial mystery before there is dire consequences for her friends.

I feel that this was definitely a fast-paced read with plenty of twists and turns to keep readers entertained.

Thank you Minotaur books for selecting me for this ARC. I am excited to see what is next for Camilla Sten.

This is a solid thriller! Told from Tilly (aka Matilda)’s perspective in the past and Tessa’s in the present we get the story on what happened on the same island to a group of girlfriends years apart. The first, a mystery to everyone as they disappeared, the second seemingly just a normal bachelorette weekend but Tessa has always been drawn to the mystery of the 4 girls and has a last ditch hope to figure out what happened and revive her podcasting career.

I enjoyed the listen even if I guessed a couple of the big reveals lol. I could’ve done without all the suspense leading up to the reveal of what killed Tessa’s career but I can see that maybe the author was trying to shed a light on the dark side of true crime. I’m always down for an isolated island thriller and this one absolutely fits that bill!

Not my favorite story.
Very slow-paced thriller genre maybe?
Lacked true suspense although has some drama.
I had a hard time connecting to the characters with this one.
If you enjoy show burns, thrillers with women characters... this could be for you

On a remote island off the coast of Sweden, four friends—Tilly, Anna, Linnea and Evelina—meet every year. Best friends since childhood, they love the time away from the world in a secret place each year. But one year, they go away for the weekend and never return. This cold case remains a mystery.

Ten years later, we meet Tessa, who has been consumed since she was a teen by the story of the four friends who disappeared on their annual trip to a remote island together. As her love for true crime turned into a popular podcast, Tessa covered Sweden’s most gruesome cases, but could never find the answers behind what happened to these women who disappeared. Now Tessa’s podcast has crashed and burned, any chance she had at uncovering the truth vanishing with it.

Anneliese is Tessa’s best friend, and before she walks down the aisle, she wants to have a bachelorette party. The Baltic Vinyasa, a sleek, sophisticated yoga retreat on a small island off the coast—one with such similar characteristics to the tragedy years ago that it raises the hair on Tessa’s neck. The idea is to drink gallons of cava, do sunrise yoga, and get in their last chance to bond with the bride. Tessa will not pass this up. It’s her last chance to find out what happened to the four women, once and for all.

I really enjoyed this book with its twists and turns. It definitely held my attention and made me curious about how the events had all played out and what the motives behind it all were. I think this was a great summer read and a great suspenseful tale.

My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for this advanced reader copy. All opinions are my own.

This was my first Camilla Sten book & will definitely not be my last!! I loved her writing. It was so atmospheric and beautiful, all while keeping my heart rate high and my teeth clenched.

I really enjoyed the dual timelines and learning how these stories came together. There were some twists that I spotted out and some that left me gaping! This is the perfect bingeable thriller for the summer.

The feeling while reading this book felt akin to those middle school scary movie nights with friends & that made the reading experience all the better.

I'm almost always guaranteed to have a good time with an isolated, closed circle mystery. And I did have a good time with this read. However, I did lose some steam when the mystery solving was happening so far after the actual mystery event occurred. We do get some flashbacks but this felt very much more of a straight up mystery rather than a mystery/thriller which is where most isolated, closed circle mysteries end up for me. I still had a good time and I enjoyed the reveals, but overall there was less tension and it felt like the stakes were pretty low most of the time.

The structure of the beginning did throw me off a bit. The opening chapter introduces to the reader to the four friends who meet their demise at the end of the first chapter. Then, we switch to follow Tessa for the rest of the book (minus the flashbacks we get). I didn't love this as I was drawn into the initial four friends dynamic way more than Tessa and the other women attending the bachelorette weekend. That first chapter certainly got the book off to a very exciting start, but then all momentum felt like it was lost as we then had to be introduced to the new characters and have a much longer wind up to the new plot. I did like that we mostly got to see what happened to the four women on the island so we had some touch point for Tessa's investigation.

I do think Sten does a great job with the individual interpersonal conflicts and tensions. Each of the two groups of women have their own little rifts and issues that come into play throughout the book. I loved the constant playing off of the issues between the characters in order to keep the peace. There's also some wonderful passive aggressive or at the very least foot-in-mouth situations that were expertly done. I think the awkward stage of weddings where old friends and new friends are combined and aren't meshing as well as expected was really well developed. There were more than a few awkward moments that I felt the cringe in my bones.

I did find the mystery investigation to be lacking. There was so much build up that Tessa is going to use this bachelorette weekend to get to the bottom of the mystery of the missing women. And while she does a lot of thinking about investigating, there just doesn't feel like there was enough time and space for her to dig around. We get maybe 3 instances of her doing some light looking-around before the finale of the book. And it does feel like the events of the finale (which would have happened without her investigation so it ended up feeling even more pointless.

Overall, this was a pretty entertaining read. It wasn't my perfect isolated, closed circle mystery but I enjoyed a lot of the character elements and I had a great time once the pacing picked up in the last 25%.
Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC. Publication date was June 10, 2025.

A creepy island, a bachelorette party, and a cold case is the premises of this book

This one took a bit to get going, but once it did—so addictive. Dual timelines, messy characters, and a mystery I mostly figured out… Dark, twisty fun with just enough surprises to keep me hooked

I would like to thank St. Martin's Press , Minotaur Books & NetGalley for providing an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest and fair review