A mysterious host lures seven guests to a posh dinner party in Seven Reasons to Murder Your Dinner Guests. While there, they each receive an envelope that includes a card with their age at time of their death. Most think it is a not-very-clever PR stunt. Until the bodies start piling up.

I enjoyed this clever romp of a homage to both Final Destination and Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. I did figure out the solution but only just before the reveal. If you like your mysteries with a bit of snarky dark humor, Seven Reasons to Murder Your Dinner Guests is the perfect book for you. 5 stars and a favorite!

Thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for providing me with an advanced review copy.

2.7 Stars
One Liner: Interesting premise, but it became boring after a point

Seven guests meet at an anonymously hosted dinner party. Each of them gets a card with a number on it (the age of their death). Everyone thinks it’s a prank until one of them dies two weeks later, at the mentioned age.
As more guests die similarly, it’s clear that this is not a coincidence. The remaining ones have to figure out who the killer is and why they are being targeted.
The story comes in the third-person POVs of the seven guests in the present tense.

My Thoughts:
This was a fun premise, not a locked-room mystery, but inspired by Christie’s popular book, And Then There Were None.
The story takes place over a few years, so the deaths don’t occur one after another. Even the structuring is different. The chapters are big and named after places/ events. Each chapter has the POVs of the characters involved or the ones who are still alive. So, as the story progresses, the number of POVs comes down.
All seven people were deliberately made unlikeable, so it is hard to feel sad when they start to die. Moreover, one death happens too quickly to even know more about the character. The others fare a little better since we get extra details that add a few layers to their portrayal.
The planning and presentation are great. However, the plot is such that we cannot really call it a mystery. Deaths happen, someone tries a bit to investigate, more deaths, a lot of back-and-forth dialogue, and then we get to the end.
It feels very passive. This made it hard to stay interested in the plot despite the other tidbits of information about the characters. It is more of a character study or analysis than a proper mystery with clues, tension, sleuthing of some kind, etc.
I did guess things at one point and was proved correct. The last two chapters bring everything together. Does it make sense? Some of it, absolutely! But the reveal is still underwhelming. It was more like, ‘Oh, good, I finished the book,’ rather than, ‘Oh, wow, this is cool!’
And of course, we have a last paragraph that appears like it would lead to another book, but is more of a thing we see in thrillers, where readers are left to guess a few things.

To summarize, Seven Reasons to Murder Your Dinner Guests has its moments, but it dragged on almost throughout and made me just want to finish it soon. Do check out the other reviews before you decide.
Thank you, NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark, for the eARC. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

I enjoyed this book. The chapters were long in the beginning because of all of the POV's and although the many of the characters were unlikeable it made it easy to tell them apart and not to sad when the inevitable happened. The bread crumbs were small enough to slow down you figuring out the twist to soon. This would be a good full cast audio book and I am wondering if the ending was a set up for a sequel. I would be interested in a sequel as long as it wasn't a direct copy of this book.

Huge thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for providing an arc in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you NetGalley & Sourcebooks Landmark for the opportunity to read this eARC

I was so excited to get this book. I love a good locked-door mystery and trying to put all the pieces together in a murder whodunit, but I could NOT get invested in this story at all. I made it 40% through and felt so bored and uninspired and couldn't get myself to pick it back up. None of the characters were favorable and I was constantly getting stuck with trying to remember who was who and who did what. It has so many great reviews and is getting some really high praise, but it just wasn't a good fit for me at this time.

I plan to keep the eCopy and will pick it up again later this fall and see if I can give it another proper go. If so, I will gladly update my review then to reflect my latest thoughts.

Seven Reasons to Murder Your Dinner Guests is a chilling, suspenseful thriller that hooks you from the very first page. KJ Whittle masterfully blends tension, mystery, and dark intrigue as each guest faces a deadly countdown. The multiple perspectives keep the story fresh and unpredictable, heightening the sense of dread with every chapter. Gripping, clever, and impossible to put down, this book will keep you guessing until the very end.

I love a good murder mystery and the premise of this one really caught my eye, so I was excited when I got picked for an early read of this book! The book has seven central characters and alternates the storytelling from each person's point of view. Each character is invited to a dinner party - although each thinks it is a different type of dinner party. For example, Stella, a social media influencer, thinks this is another VIP event for influencers to promote various things. Vivienne, a deputy magazine editor, thinks it is a dinner party for other magazine employees. However they got there, each stays throughout the dinner, even though they never meet their mysterious host. Near the end, each guest has a mysterious black envelope show up in front of them. A few open their envelopes to find a note inside that says "You will die at age XX". Eventually, all of the guests, some not having opened their envelope. As the story continues, you learn what happens to each character and the group as a whole as they try to determine if the messages were a cruel joke, a science experiment, or were real prophecies.

STOP READING IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE SPOILERS:


I loved the concept of the seven deadly sins as the themes for each of the guests. When each started dying, prior to Vivienne realizing the seven sins theme, I couldn't figure out the link between each of them, besides the letter from dinner. And I thought it was so interesting that the letters/prophecies didn't tell each person that they would die right away. Some of the letter prophecies were more than five years away, but some were much closer. I probably would have been the Vivienne in this situation - trying desperately to figure out what was going on - instead of how Janet or Melvin handled their letter prophecies. However - once it was revealed the seven deadly sins was the theme, it did make me think it must have been one of the dinner guests. I started to question who might not be dead or who was orchestrating everything. I liked the twists at the end and how everything tied together.

The title is not doing this book any justice, because there were way more than seven reasons to murder these dinner guests. It's the story of seven strangers being invited to a dinner party where they each receive an envelope with a card inside that's announcing each character's death age. There is no host to give further explanations and the whole situation is weird in general, but everyone leaves without thinking too hard about it. But that changes when the first guest dies at the very age their card predicted.

I must give credit to the author for writing such an insufferable first chapter and still having me invested in the story later. The first chapter introduces the seven dinner guests and literally everyone read like an exaggerated caricature of a person. There's the judgy middle aged magazine editor, the whiny computer nerd, the lowkey predatory banker, the closeted gay cop, the preachy doctor with an eating disorder, the not-self-made fashion youtuber, and the thirsty businesswoman. I'm sure that they were purposefully written to be unlikable, but it made for such a rough beginning that I wanted to drop the book right away. But the author managed to give more depth to everyone as the book went one. I still didn't like anyone by the end, but it was relatable how everyone was enormously struggling with life and how they were rather affected by the deaths around them. I found it quite unique that the book didn't take place during one evening where the characters get killed of one by one. Instead the story goes on for multiple years after the dinner party and every chapter is set after another character died. There are only 9 chapters in total, but each one was split into the POVs of everyone who wasn't dead at that time. It was rather harsh how yet another POV was cut off with each new chapter and it made for an interesting structure. The setup was good, but I still have to say that this book isn't thrilling whatsoever. From the cover and the title I expected a fun and entertaining murder mystery, but it really read more like general fiction that focuses on different people throughout various points in their lives. There was basically no whodunnit element to the story and no character can be called a big investigator, not even the cop. Because of that, the entire book felt static. There was little to no progress in figuring out what's going on and I don't think that there were many clues given throughout the story. Most of the reveals happened in the epilogue and it was just a bunch of random stuff thrown together, really. It's not a mystery that the reader might try to solve while reading in my opinion. So after a rough beginning and an interesting middle part, the ending left me hanging again. Overall, this book was really missing any kind of thrill, but if you go in with the right expectations it might just work out fine anyway.

Huge thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for providing a digital arc in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 stars

Quirky and elaborately-plotted mystery featuring seven people, no common link, who are invited to a secretive dinner. When they arrive, there is no host, fabulous food and wine, and at the end each receives a small card telling them how old they will be when they die.

The rest of the book explores each individual and we get to know the characters, especially the most curious attendee, former editor Vivienne. She does a lot of exploring and research but we also follow how her life changes as a result of the dinner.

Interesting setup and an innovative scenario. I did have unresolved questions at the end that I will be pondering. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This book follows multiple characters when they all receive a mysterious invitation to a dinner and once there they all receive envelopes that gives the age they will be when they die. None of them know each other but after the first person dies at the exact age on her letter the rest start wondering if it is all true. I liked how this was told in different perspectives across timelines and seeing how each death comes to pass was interesting. I did guess a little of the end but it didnt take away from the enjoyment.

Thanks to Netgalley and Sourcebooks for the ARC.

I enjoyed this book, although I found it to be less of a traditional mystery than I expected it to be and more of a novel exploring the characters lives. Those characters lives were intriguing enough that it kept me going, but I did wish it was as "whodunnit"-y as the title implies.

Seven Reasons to Murder Your Dinner Guests delivers an irresistible blend of mystery, suspense, and clever twists that immediately gave me strong Agatha Christie vibes. The setup—a group of strangers invited to an enigmatic dinner party, each handed a chilling prediction of their death—feels like a modern twist on And Then There Were None, but with its own fresh, sinister flair. Told through multiple perspectives, the tension builds steadily as the body count rises, keeping you second-guessing motives and suspects until the very last page. Fans of classic whodunits will appreciate the atmospheric setting, intricate character dynamics, and the slow-burn unraveling of secrets that make this both a homage to Christie and a standout in its own right.

I got about 23% of the way through this book, but each time I picked it up I felt like I was doing a chore or reading it to be nice because NetGalley kindly allowed me to read it. The truth is, I wasn't engaged with the story and didn't really feel for any of the characters and did not care when or why they were killed. I wanted to give it at least a certain number of pages before making a decision on whether or not to continue with this but my heart was not in it. It felt flat despite the interesting premise, nothing stood out or drew me in repeatedly. I really wanted to like it :(

Just finished Seven Reasons to Murder Your Dinner Guests 🍽️🔪 and WOW… what a ride!

📚 Received from @netgalley & @sourcebookslandmark – and it hooked me from page one. The pacing was spot-on, fast enough to keep me flipping pages like my life depended on it. Based on the seven cardinal sins, this was a race against time and fate that had me guessing the whole way.

😱 I never guessed who sent those dinner invitations… and when the reveal came? OH. MY. GOSH. Totally shocked! And even though it’s a thriller/horror, it still managed to give me a happy ending ❤️ – which I loved!

✨ My first book by this author but definitely not my last. 4 ⭐⭐⭐⭐ from me and a HIGH recommendation!

3⭐️
CW: disordered eating, suicide
This book was a decent mystery but was overall an average read. The plot twists were predictable and the ending left me wanting a bit more. This felt more like literary fiction than a mystery because of the deep character development, which definitely left a bigger impact on the reader than any thrill or speculation of the mystery of the dinner host or how to escape one’s fate of the age they were “destined to die”.

The format is different than most books, in that there are only eight or so chapters, each divided up into sub-chapters with each characters pov. The first chapter encompassed 16% of the e-book, and while I could have found a stopping point during the pov switches, I wanted to wait until the end of the chapter. So know that the chapters are incredibly long (maybe 40-50 pages?) before committing to reading an entire chapter in one sitting.

TROPES
Mystery
Plot twists
Speculative fiction
Deeply flawed MCs

THEMES
While I had assumed this would be more speculative (a la The Measure by Nikki Erlick but on a smaller scale of only 7 people), it didn’t really cause me to think a lot about what I would do if I were to find out the age I would pass away. I do think that the concept of the dinner party and the cards was heavily inspired by The Measure, but turning the concept into a murder mystery removed some of the depth of the concept. Rather than enabling the reader to dive deeper into speculation, the mystery took away from what is a very interesting theme. And given that the mystery fell a little flat for me, I don’t think it was worth it.
The author also dives into themes of sinning and how it’s never too late to turn around one’s life. Some of the sins touched on some very sensitive topics though, including the CWs I listed at the beginning. I wasn’t aware of those going in to the book and some of it was VERY heavy to read.
With that said, the sins and the ways in which the characters can turn it around were very loosely touched on in the book and I wished there was more embedded in the character development.

THE CHARACTERS
Now this is where the story shined. Nearly the entire book was character development, as the plot and mystery were fully centered on the characters and their lives. Providing such rich backstories and lives for each character is no small feat, and the author did this wonderfully, even for those who died much earlier on in the story.
I especially loved how each character was deeply flawed, as if the author intended for the reader to not truly like any of the characters. It made them all feel human and more relatable that they were unlikable and imperfect in their own ways.

QUOTES:
*please note that quotes are from an Advanced Readers Copy. Please refer to the finalized publication for official quotes*

“Slumping down on the sofa, Vivienne feels ashamed. She'd seen herself as an inspiring mentor; yes, she was tough, but only because she wanted Cat to improve. Now she sees that she's been overly critical at every turn, passing on her own feelings of inadequacy to Cat and hammering down the girl's confidence.”

"I want to leave you all with this thought. The longest-ever study of human development, by my colleagues at Harvard University, concluded that the one factor which consistently increased longevity and happiness was not exercise, a certain diet, or a particular set of chromosomes," he says, slowing his speech down to leave a full second between each word.
The room is totally silent as they wait for Professor Goodacre's big reveal.
"It is the quality of human contact,"


"Ole waterworks," as Vivienne sometimes still calls her-once critically, now affectionately. Back at the magazine, she'd seen Cat's regular tears as a weakness, as a means to show her (male) colleagues she couldn't cope, a signal that she was bowing down to their superiority. Now Vivienne sees those assumptions as signs of weakness in herself. Cat is one of the strongest women —no, people - she knows. Her tears show her empathy, her heightened sense of the pain of others.
What is weak about that?”

In this mystery, seven unhappy people are invited to a dinner party. They meet, dine, and separate, never learning who was the host of the party. Then they begin dying. This draws them together, as each tries to cope with the likelihood of impending death. Clearly inspired by classic mystery novels such as And Then There Were None, this story does not stray as far into the realm of cozy fiction as a lot of recent Golden Age-style mysteries. There are no manor houses, no anachronistically quirky lady detectives, no house parties, and nothing humorous. It shifts among perspectives, including an older woman who has hit a glass ceiling, a handsome banker who treats women as prey, a self-absorbed social media influencer, and a policeman who isn't very good at his job. I found the novel absorbing and read it in one sitting. I was not entirely convinced by some parts of it, but it was interesting realizing how some things connected between the characters. I certainly wanted to know why, and how, things happened, and the ending made me think for a while.

I couldn't put this book down! Agatha Christie with a twist, this book follows seven strangers through a mysterious dinner party, after which one by one, the guests end up dead. Told in multiple POVs, this was a total page turner for me and the twists at the end were so good!!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC copy.

I really enjoyed this story! It wasn’t quite was I was expecting, but it was great as it was. I enjoyed the POVs and timelines, I was eager to turn the page and continue on with the story. The characters were different enough that it was easy to keep everyone straight, which I always appreciate. I think it’s a perfect read for fan of thrillers and mysteries. Definitely recommend

Thank you to the publisher for the gifted arc

Thank you to Sourcebooks for an early electronic copy via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

Another riff on And Then There Were None. Always a fun plot and this one didn't disappoint. Seven unrelated guests invited to a mysterious dinner, each receiving an envelope that contains the age they will die. Some refuse to open their envelope. Others scoff at its significance (to their peril) and others' take the offensive living their life harder or better as a result.

Beyond the mystery, it is an interesting take on how one would respond to one's own expiration date. As such, the symbols of the 7 deadly sins also found at the dinner begin to take on more importance.
Whether you guess the culprit or not, that ending pushed it up to 4 stars for me.

Fun quick read with an interesting concept, strangers are invited to a dinner party from an unknown host and at the end of the night receive a card telling them the age they would die. No one takes it seriously until one of them actually does die in an apparent accident. I liked the multiple POVs and getting to know the different characters in some way. This had some good twists and kept me entertained, 3.5 stars. I want to thank NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

This was so intriguing!!! I was worried at first, when the cards were introduced, that it would focus too much on the imminence of death and concepts of mortality in a depressing way, but I was wrong to be worried. It was a lighthearted, but still deeply human look into this concept that still rang true as a thriller. People being unable to change their ways, leaning into their vices, is only natural when faced with this dilemma, but Vivienne’s character arc made me feel all warm and fuzzy, despite the ending. The complexity of the human heart is laid bare in this book and I thoroughly enjoyed venturing through all of their lives, struggles and redemptive moments.

Thank you to KJ Whittle, SourceBooks Landmark and NetGalley for this ARC!