Big thanks to Bookouture for a copy on Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
A remote island, no escape and a killer on the loose……. get ready for mayhem!
The Wedding Party is a slow burn, tension filled locked room mystery where all the suspects are in a stranded location.
Soon as the guests gather for the weekend for a wedding, danger erupts.
Friends of the bride and groom have come to celebrate but a murderer is among them.
Before the honeymoon has even begun, one of the newlyweds will be dead.
What is everyone’s secret….
Who is the killer…..
A smart plot told from the point of views of Sarah and Diane and unbeknownst to the reader the killer.
I thought I had this one worked out but boy was I wrong, I didn’t pick it at all.
A entertaining, suspenseful and fun read.

The Wedding Party is a psychological thriller that keeps readers on edge with its intricate web of secrets and suspense. Set on a remote Scottish island, the novel follows a group of friends gathered for a wedding—only for the celebration to take a dark turn when one of the newlyweds is found dead.

The story is told from multiple perspectives, each character harboring their own secrets that threaten to unravel. Sarah, Diane, Ethan and Pete all have their own reasons for attending, but their pasts intertwine in ways they never expected exposing years of toxic friendship. As the death count increases, The Wedding Party explores themes of trust, deception, and the lengths people will go to protect their secrets.

If you enjoy psychological thrillers that delve into the complexities of human relationships and hidden truths, The Wedding Party is worth adding to your reading list

What just happened!? This was a gripping thriller and the twist was shocking!

Thank you NetGalley and Bookouture for a digital copy.

A group of university friends head to a remote Scottish island for a wedding. While the rest of the guests leave and the bride and groom head for honeymoon, they plan to enjoy a week of internet-free nature and reminiscing. But beneath the surface celebration old grudges and tensions run deep.

Told from different POVs, it’s impossible to know who to trust. The timeline also switches between university where the friendships are formed, to the present day. Slowly the truth about people’s relationships and their possible.motoves are revealed.

This definitely gave me ‘And There Were None’ vibes, with one of the characters reading Agatha Christie mysteries this was acknowledged in a clever way.

None of the characters are particularly likeable and they are all suspicious. At different points I suspected several of the characters.

There’s a lot of tension and a few twisty that wind towards a satisfying conclusion.

Wow what a read
Had me hooked from the first page to the last
Lots of twists and turns
You won’t want to put it down
Thanks Netgalley

Whirlwind romance ✅

Romantic remote wedding location ✅

Family and old friends in attendance for the big day ✅

A body the day after the wedding ✅

Sounds like a nightmare start to a new life for the happy couple!! This is before the wedding location is a remote island with no transport to civilisation for five whole days!!!

This is a hotch potch of a friendship group, I didn’t quite see why they were friends other than habit. They’re brought back together by a wedding which none of them really wanted to be there. From the stories they gave me from their house sharing days, they were quite cruel to the bride so why she invited them flummoxed me. None of them were particularly likeable characters to be honest.

As the narrative circled between characters and timelines, I didn’t know how much Dounaeva was telling me to distract me from working out what the hell was going on . Some chapters felt like they were plugging gaps in the history of the quintet and weren’t aiding me in my quest to fathom out the twisted culprit in the perturbing events on the Scottish isle.

The Wedding Party is an unsettled locked room kinda book of thriller. The remoteness of the island created a disturbing backdrop to proceedings. Dounaeva has curated a tense read based around such a happy event with such horrific consequences.

Wonderful! Packed with twists I didn't see coming. Very intricately plotted. A treat of a read, one I will be recommending to all.

A few months away from my upcoming wedding, and I'm obsessed with reading books about wedding, even thrillers!
I enjoyed this book, my first by the author. It had fast pacing, with different timelines and 2 different narrators. This kept me reading and wondering what would happen next.
This is a great easy read, perfect for a afternoon with a coffee in the sunshine!

Favorite Quotes:

He was thin back at uni, but now his eyes have sunk into their sockets, making them look like the marbles in a pinball machine.

I know the people they used to be. But they’ve all changed. It’s like someone took a magnifying glass and ramped up all their worst qualities, making them clearer, brighter, louder.

All at once, she can’t bear the thought that she has touched a dead body. She imagines all the germs, all the flies and maggots, and feels desperate to scrub it off her skin. She fears all that death is catching.

The sympathy she once had for him is wearing thinner by the day, like a big ball of string that is being stretched and stretched until it’s just the thinnest fibres left.

...she sees the shadow of death hovering over her like a grey cloud. It’s an icy, unnerving presence that seeps into her bones. At times, the pain is so relentless, she hears their voices– the dead ones– all shouting at once, making it impossible to pick out what any of them are saying. It’s as if they’re trapped in a never-ending loop, their voices echoing and overlapping. She tries to block them out, but their presence is impossible to ignore. Their spirits refuse to rest in peace.


My Review:

These were horrible people thinking horrible thoughts about and doing horrible things to each other, over many years, until it ended, horribly.  I did not like them at all.  They were immature, selfish, warped, and just toxic creatures.  Yet this devious scribbler planted a worm in my gray matter, and I was hooked.  The little pea in my brain needed to know what was going to happen to them and who was killing them off one by one, and who would be the last one standing, as there always has to be at one left to tell the tale.  I would never have guessed this outcome, my hypothesis went in a different direction.  I love it when that happens.

The Wedding Party by Lorna Dounaeva was an excellent dark thriller with a jaw-dropping twist - Superb! which was full of lies and secrets that every character was trying to hide.

Wedding of the year is fast approaching, and five friends from university are looking forward meeting again especially as they are all meeting up on a remote Scottish island. This should be a great catch up, the last time they were all together was eight years ago and this was overdue. But, something is wrong the body of the groom is found and Asha the bride has gone missing. . , . . they realise that everyone is concealing some type of secret.
What are they hiding?

The bodies pile up, Now, can the remaining wedding party - so called friends make it off this island alive? and live to tell their story?

WoW. . . . . One thing I loved about this book was it's great short chapters and the book cover caught my eye, - just beautiful, perfect cover for a excellent book.

I highly recommend it and a great read for your holidays etc.

Big Thank You NetGalley and Bookouture for my ARC.

The Wedding Party by Lorna Dounaeva is a suspenseful and intriguing story.
A very twisty book which kept me interested all the way through. A clever story full to the brim with twists and turns so much so I didn't want to finish it.
This book is such a page turner. It grips you right from the beginning all the way to the very end with lots of twists and turns.

Thank You NetGalley and Bookouture for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

Thank you NetGalley the publisher for the opportunity to read this intense thriller. Five former housemates from university years accept a wedding invite from one of the former housemates. It will be held on an island in Scotland and only accessible by ferry. Everyone attending plans to leave after the wedding, but the four other friends decide to stay for a week, and the ferry will come back for them at the appointed time. It's a mysterious story as the secrets keep exploding and someone seems to be a killer. I found myself reading late into the night to discover who was the killer only to be disappointed at the end. The loose strings were left hanging. I enjoyed the book until the end.

Reading in Between the Wines book review #45/125 for 2025:
Rating: 3🍷🍷🍷
Book: The Wedding Party
Author: Lorna Dounaeva
Available now!

Sipping thoughts: Friends, frenemies, secrets, and deceit. If you are looking for those things, this book brings it and more. A wedding is supposed to be a fun time with people you love, but this reunion turns out a little different than expected. There were so many twists and turns, some I expected, but many I didn't. I really enjoyed this book.

Cheers and thank you to @Netgalley and @Bookouture for an advanced copy of @TheWeddingParty.

#TheWeddingParty #LornaDounaeva #Bookouture #NetGalley #ARC #advancedreader #Kindle #Booksofinstagram #readersofinstagram #bookstagram #nicoles_bookcellar #bookworm #bookdragon #booknerd #booklover #bookstagrammer #bookaholic #bokreview #bookreviewer #IHaveNoShelfControl #ReadingBetweenTheWines #fiction #thriller #suspense #mystery #MysteryAndThrillers #GeneralFictionAdult

The Wedding Party by Lorna Dounaeva.
This was a really good read. I loved the cover and blurb of this book. I loved the short chapters. I liked the writing style and the story. The story was twisty and gripping. Lots of action. I definitely didn't see that coming. Very surprised.

"The Wedding Party" by Lorna Dounaeva is an enjoyable 4-star read! Years after sharing a house together during university, Diane, Sarah, Peter, Ethan, and Asha reunite on a remote Scottish island for Asha’s wedding. The day after the wedding, disaster strikes, and the group must pull together to survive for a week until a boat is scheduled to return to the island.

The story is told from both Diane’s and Sarah’s perspectives, with flashbacks to various points in time. These flashbacks help us better understand the complex dynamics between the friends. While the story is well told, the pacing does slow down at times. There are so many secrets between the characters that it's hard to believe they would even agree to reunite. The author does a great job maintaining suspense, revealing one betrayal after another—right up until the killer is finally unmasked.

If you enjoy slow-burning thrillers full of deceit, secrets, and shifting alliances, this one is definitely worth the read.

Thanks to Bookouture, Lorna Dounaeva, and NetGalley for providing me with the opportunity to read this ARC and share my honest review.

BOOK REVIEW

This was nerve-racking and filled with tension. This is the story of four former housemates who arrive a remote Scottish Island for the wedding of the friend.

This starts with a bang and then alternates between the past and the present. Secrets are revealed, trust betrayed and someone is murdered.

The author did not give anything away. Everyone was a suspect and they had a motive. Told from the points of view of two women and the murderer, we are taken on a journey of fear, distrust, tension, nerves and fear.

I was completely blindsided and didn’t see anything coming. If you are looking for a thrilling adventure filled with secrets and keeps you guessing till the end then this is your book.

The wedding party boasts a gorgeous cover that definitely grabbed my attention. I didn't even read the blurb... just saw the cover and was like "Yep, I want to check that out!".


The only reason I'm giving this 4 * instead of 5* was the pacing. I love the storyline itself, it's tense and unnerving. The revelations are great... it was just a little slow at times for me. And I loved reading from the varying perspectives, especially those told from the murderer.

Another win for thriller lovers, definitely gonna recommend this one.

I received a copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Wedding Party by Lorna Dounaeva is a gripping thriller that makes you question how well you really know the people you love.

When five old friends from university are reunited on a remote Scottish island for a wedding, it should have been the perfect time to catch up with one another. The friends were last together eight years ago, so a get together is long overdue. But very quickly it seems not everyone is as excited as Asha the bride is. And then when the body of the groom is found and Asha goes missing, the friends realize that everyone is concealing some type of secret. As the bodies pile up, can the remaining wedding party make it off this island alive?

This was the first book by Lorna Dounaeva that I have read and I loved it! I really enjoyed the multiple POVs and the alternating timelines, it goes back to the University days and then forward to the present. I enjoyed how we are given little snippets that lead to the motive of the murderer throughout. An unreliable narrator, plenty of twists, and suspense, this book had me hooked and questioning everyone! Perfect beach read that will hit the mark with fans of Emily Shiner, Shari Lapena, and Lisa Jewell!!

Thank you to NetGalley, Lorna Dounaeva, and Bookouture for this ARC!! Publication date: May 6th 2025.

The Wedding Party was a slow-burning thriller that involved four friends visiting a remote island to attend their old housemate’s wedding, which is meant to be a joyous occasion, but soon turns into something sinister.

I liked that the book flicked from past to present, so we got to know what the friends were like back in their Uni and house sharing days and onwards and what may have been the reason for the resentment and dislike of some people.

I didn’t particularly like any of the characters; the one I did like turned out to be an awful person, too.

I didn’t guess who the murderer was, I was a little surprised by it.

This is the first book I have read by this author. It was a good read, even though I used a few curse words when reading it; the characters annoyed me quite a lot.
I will definitely pick up another book written by Lorna Dounaeva in the future.

Twisty thriller by a new-to-me-author. Old friends arrive on an island to watch their own getting married - until one of them is dead! One of the newlyweds is on the run while bodies keep piling up. Atmospheric and interesting!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Bookouture for this ARC!