I had fun with parts of this but ultimately didn't care enough about the characters or the plot to rate higher than "mid." I think the story would play well in a fun popcorn thriller but as a book it felt like a bit of a slog. 3 Stars

The Wasp Trap is a clever, twist-filled thriller. When six old friends reunite at a Notting Hill dinner party, they’re thrust into a high-stakes game of secrets and survival. As the night unfolds, past and present collide in a deadly puzzle tied to a psychological dating experiment they once created.

The Wasp Trap is a fast-paced thriller with a clever plot and some great 90s music references that added a fun nostalgic touch. While I found the beginning a bit slow and struggled to fully connect with the characters, the story really picked up in the second half. The dual timelines were a strong element, adding depth and intrigue, and the atmosphere and tension kept building in all the right ways. I absolutely loved the twists, and the ending and epilogue left me satisfied. Though the characters didn’t fully come to life for me, The Wasp Trap is still a gripping, twisty read that delivers plenty of suspense.

Special thank you to NetGalley, Atria Books and Mark Edwards for allowing me to read an ARC before the publication date in exchange for my honest feedback!

This was a thrilling mystery from start to finish! A group of friends reunite for a dinner party and secrets from the past are revealed. It was fast paced and kept you guessing until the last page!

Thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for the advanced reader copy.

3.5 stars

When Georgina and Theo have their four long ago friends over, the friends think it's an opportunity to celebrate the summer they all spent together working for a professor who recently died. Instead, the hosts have an ulterior motive that gets thwarted when their chef takes them hostage and demands to know about a secret that came from that long ago summer. Now the group must come together and try to trust one another in order to make it out alive.

The beginning of this novel was a little slow, but it did pick up when the chef takes them all hostage. I found that I was more interested in the intricacies of the plot, rather than the actual characters (Will, as a protagonist, is a bit whiny). The twists and turns did keep me engaged, especially the second to last twist. The end of the book went a bit beyond what the story needed, but it didn't detract from the ending. This is definitely worth a go if you like locked room mystery/thrillers.

The Wasp Trap is out September 16, 2025.

This was my first read by Mark Edwards and I absolutely will be seeking out others by him! This was very well done and I was compelled to keep picking this up to see where it went. A bit predictable, but not enough to where I hard and fast knew what was coming. The jumps between timeliness/ characters was excuted in a way I didn't get lost.

Star taken off because I didn't feel a pull / attachment to any of the characters.

Thank you to Atria and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. Expected publication date 09/16/25.

Many books have a plot centering around secrets. My husband died and I found out he had a secret life. My mother died and I found out she had a secret in her past. My father died and I discovered a secret that changes everything. Etc. This book about secrets is different, captivating, and surprising.

Six friend, who haven't seen each other since the summer of 1999 convene for a dinner after the passing of their former boss and mentor. Someone they all respect and admire. But what seems like a evening to reconnect and reminisce, becomes a night of terror and mystery. Secrets from 1999 must be revealed to possibly survive this nightmare and discover who the psychopath is in their midst.

I've never read anything by Mark Edwards before, but The Wasp Trap displays his mastery in drawing the reader into the mystery and just when you think you've figured it out, twisting the story again and again. It kept me intrigued, guessing, and reading when I should have been doing other productive things...like cooking dinner or going to the gym.

Highly recommend. Thank you Atria Books and NetGalley for allowing me to read the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the review copy.

It's hard to like a book with such unlikeable characters. I wanted to enjoy the mystery but it fell flat for me. Would be interested in other works by this author in the future.

This book started off strong. I read the first 25% and could not put it down. However around the mid way point is when I started to get bored of the book, and parts of the plot just became very loose to me and I had to suspend my disbelief. The main plot is that the six friends are held at gun point over a secret that needs to be revealed from when they were in Uni together working on developing a dating app. The people holding them hostage though claim that even they do not know what the secret is. Which is just confusing because how will they know its the right secret that they need.

I enjoyed the locked room aspect of this book. I also really liked a lot of the characters. We are in Wills head for the majority of the book, and he was a likeable character, if not a bit boring at times. This was my first Mark Edwards book and I will read from this author again.

This was an excellent thriller. The concept was fresh and kept me guessing the entire time. I liked how the book moved between present day and 1999 and gradually revealed everything that had led to the book’s events. The ending was great and I hadn’t seen any of it coming. A great book!

I have loved this author for years and was excited to see he was now with Atria.

What a fun locked in premise with a dual timeline too. Six friends reunite for a dinner party after their old mentor/professor dies. The 90’s dating app that they all worked on together ended abruptly and someone has a secret. 🤐

This was a fun who dun it and I was surprised by so much. What fun and a satisfying twisty ending too.

Totally loved this one. Thanks to NetGalley and the author for my early copy. I bypassed so many books on my TBR for this one and I’m not sorry!

Nothing gets the blood pumping quite like a locked room thriller. The Wasp Trap is full of an intricate web of lies and a somewhat large cast of characters spanning decades, yet it flows seemlessly. That is quite the feat. The format of the alternating timeline really worked well in this story, unraveling the truth without getting too tangled. I definitely suspected our “bad guy” a few times but never to the degree of what was actually revealed. As a self proclaimed non-romantic, even the love story subplot worked for me. It wasn’t too over the top and in your face in a way that took away from the tension of the novel.

Six friends are forced to spill their secrets or else. Not just any secrets, but their deepest, darkest secrets. It is clear there will be no winners in this game.

I've only recently discovered Mark Edwards and he has quickly become one of my favorite authors.

The Wasp Trap is about 6 friends, coworkers, that have gathered for a dinner party in remembrance of their former boss. They first met and worked together in the summer 1999 but something happened that changed all their lives and still has repercussions in the present day. The story takes place in the present with flashbacks to that summer.

I enjoyed following the characters in both timelines and did not see that ending coming!

Thank you Atria Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC.

A captivating closed-room mystery. Multiple POVs, two timelines, and deep, dark secrets abound. I was also deeply invested in the premise of the psychological dating experiment. Simply put, I could not out this down. Edwards has written yet another slam dunk.

A locked room type of mystery/ thriller with a focus on psychopathy? Sign me up! Many years ago, six recent grads had the opportunity to work the summer on an online dating startup based around psychological testing with Professor Sebastian Marlowe. They thought their end product was going to make them rich, but after one fateful night that summer 25 years, the company/ site was suddenly shut down and the six individuals need saw each other again. Now, Professor Marlowe has passed and they get together for a dinner party in his remembrance… but of course it turns deadly when secrets are finally revealed.

Overall I enjoyed this one! It’s primarily told from the POV of one of the six students now adult with some interludes to the past where you begin to piece together what happened and one from a teenager in the present. It read pretty quickly and definitely kept my interest engaged as I was trying to figure out who of them may be up to no good and why.

As mentioned, there was also some discussions evolving around psychopathy which is a topic I have always found fascinating! While I ultimately wasn’t totally shocked out the outcome and who was actually the culprit all along, it did make for an entertaining whodunnit kind of read with a bit of a psychological element to it!

Imagine a group of friends held hostage and forced into an escape room where the theme of the escape room is their mutual summer job in 1999. The only way out, is to figure out each other's secrets from that summer 20 years ago - and which secret will please the hostage taker and set them free.

The story alternates between present day events and flashbacks to 20 years earlier. In 1999, a group of 20 somethings (Will, Sophie, Lily, Rohan, Theo, Georgina, Eve and Dominic), mostly all of whom are college grads, apply to a job to work with a well known professor in his endeavor to start a dating website with a psychological component to weed out psychopaths. Those who get the job, must live at the professor's cabin for the summer to complete the project. They are offered to handsome compensation and stock options. Without warning, the professor halts work on the project right before the site is set to debut and sends everyone home with no compensation and nothing to show for their work. 20 years later, after largely losing contact with one another, the group reunites for a dinner at Georgina and Theo's house (now married to each other) to remember the life of their professor after his recent passing. What no one in the group is aware of, is that someone in the house has ulterior movies, a grudge, and a gun.

I devoured this book in two days. It was an easy read but I also found it to be engaging. The story was suspenseful and also had a bit of romance. I loved the colorful cast of characters and their diverse backgrounds, which enhanced the story a bit. As mysteries can sometimes be, it was a bit predictable, but I didn't feel that it took away from the story. More like the author was providing breadcrumbs to the reader to connect the dots and realize that thing are not adding up, but also provided a satisfying twist. I enjoy this type of story trajectory instead of the one big reveal at the end - which can sometimes feel inauthentic and less satisfying. In this way, the story reminded me of so many of the Lisa Jewel novels I enjoy.

I would absolutely recommend this book to fans of mystery. Especially if you are into stories that contain young unrequited love, secrets, murder, psychopaths, geniuses, rich people, and secret passageways. And if you are a cat person - it also had a very good boy cat named Claude (always a bonus for me, especially because he does not die at the end, thank god).

I was invited to read this book by Atria via email and I'm so glad I checked it out! Thank you, NetGalley and Atria Books for the eARC!!

I found this a bit darker than the thrillers I typically enjoy, but what a wild ride! Maybe it was just me, but I had zero clue about how the story ended until I got there. Edwards did a great job of making the twists and turns in the book make sense without giving anything away.

There’s more I could say, but I don’t want to give anything away…

Thank you Atria Books and NetGalley for providing this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

Mark Edwards is phenomenal and I expected nothing less. I absolutely loved the flashbacks to 1999. This boom had perfect pacing and had me at the edge of my seat. The twists were very unexpected.

This is my second book by Mark Edwards and they are always a quick read that keeps you guessing. I enjoyed The Wasp Nest, especially the back story about the group of friends. It really kept you guessing. And who doesn’t love a locked door mystery?

We all have secrets we prefer to keep hidden. But how many have a secret that will mean life or death to those around us? This unsettling premise forms the foundation of Mark Edwards' latest psychological thriller, "The Wasp Trap," a tense and twisted tale of friendship, betrayal, and long-buried secrets.

The story's dual timeline switches between the charged atmosphere of 1999 and the claustrophobic tension of a present-day Notting Hill townhouse where six former colleagues find themselves trapped in a deadly game of revelation. Each character is forced to unveil their darkest secret or face deadly consequences.

The opening moves somewhat leisurely, but once the psychological cat-and-mouse game began, Edwards had me completely ensnared. The psychological dating questionnaire they developed years ago takes on sinister new meaning as the night progresses, and I found myself frantically trying to piece together the puzzle before the characters did

While I wanted to know more about the enigmatic Sebastian, whose shadowy presence drove so much of the plot, the finale more than compensated for this minor disappointment. Just when you think you've figured out who's behind the deadly game, Edwards pulls the rug out from under you with a revelation that is both shocking and, in retrospect, cleverly foreshadowed

For anyone who relishes that delicious feeling of dread that builds as secrets unravel, "The Wasp Trap" delivers a stinging read that will have you eyeing your oldest friends with newfound suspicion.

A big thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for providing an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.