⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3-Star

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC of A Killer Wedding by Joan O’Leary.

This one had me hooked from the premise alone: a glamorous weekend wedding at an Irish castle, a mysterious death, and a sharp journalist who won’t stop digging until the truth comes out.

Christine Russo, a fashion journalist covering the ultra exclusive Ripton family wedding, finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation when the family matriarch turns up dead. What was supposed to be a dreamy assignment quickly turns deadly, and Christine equal parts curious and cunning steps into amateur sleuth mode.

The setting was a standout for me: the luxurious castle, the champagne soaked festivities, and the family secrets bubbling just beneath the surface gave it a Knives Out vibe with a high society twist. It felt indulgent and fun, even as the tension crept in.

While some parts felt a little over the top and the pacing dragged slightly in the middle, I still enjoyed the ride. Christine’s voice added wit and urgency to the unfolding drama, and the final twist delivered just enough payoff to keep me satisfied.

If you love stylish murder mysteries with a strong female lead, A Killer Wedding is a thrilling, must read weekend escape.

Smartly written and funny. Lots of fun characters to keep us on board until the unexpected denouement.

A wedding murder mystery where everyone has a secret, from each member of the billionaire family down to those working the wedding. A promising premise! Ultimately, though, I think this book felt short of its promise. It moved slowly and certain secrets that were made to seem earth-shattering didn't even make me blink an eye. It felt long, and I expected a little bit more thrill! I think this book would be good for someone who prefers a cozy mystery over a suspenseful thriller.

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This book was a decent read. There were a few too many storylines that didn’t add much to the overall plot. Most of the characters were unlikable but that was kind of the point of the book. There were some good twists and turns in the mystery. Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for the gifted copy in exchange for my honest review.

3.5 ⭐️

When I come across a debut author—especially in the mystery-thriller genre—it’s an instant must-read for me. Joan O’Leary’s writing is clean, sharp, and multilayered. However, because the tone leans heavily into dark satirical humor, particularly in its portrayal of influencer culture and high-society absurdities, the story ultimately didn’t work for me.

A Killer Wedding followed Freelance journalist Christine Russo who was thrilled to be chosen by Gloria Beaufort, matriarch of the billion‑dollar beauty brand Glo, to cover her grandson’s castle wedding for Bespoke Weddings magazine. It was a glamorous assignment… until Gloria was found murdered on the first morning of the festivities.

I enjoyed the intricate plot, shifting structure, and the layered mystery at the heart of A Killer Wedding—the twists kept me engaged, and the pacing made it hard to put down. However, the sharp satirical tone and the focus on mocking elite culture didn’t quite work for me. It sometimes undercut the suspense and emotional stakes, making the story feel more cynical than compelling in places.

Although this story didn’t fully resonate with me, I think A Killer Wedding would be a great fit for readers who enjoy dark humor woven into a traditional mystery format.

Many thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for providing an advance copy in return for my honest review.

This was one heck of a good book!! This has been a fabulous year for thrillers & this one would be at the top of the list! If you’re looking for a book that will make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, this is the book you MUST add to your TBR

Gloria Beaufort runs a multi million dollar beauty company named Glo. Her son is having an extravagant wedding in Ireland that will be written about in Bespoke magazine by new senior editor Christine. The beautiful castle the wedding is at holds a lot of secrets that are revealed throughout the book. Gloria is found dead in her room and all of her family secrets are slowly exposed. Christine gets more of a story than she bargained for.
I enjoyed this book and really enjoyed the humor throughout. I really loved the quote by Seamus about cracking his back like a glo stick. Something about it just made me giggle. The different point of views were a little difficult in the beginning as I kept confusing characters but got better throughout. I liked the whole whodunit part of the story but was underwhelmed by the ending. Overall it was a solid and interesting read.

What a wild ride! And I loved every turn of the page attempting to figure things out alongside Christine Russo. Her POV made for a heck of a time but I did love the other POVs that wove the story completely together.
By the end I'd figured out all but the killer. And I loved that little twist.
I think this was smartly written and enjoyed the ride immensely. Everything just fit together nicely and made sense.

A Killer Wedding 🔪 🩸
RATING: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Expected Publishing Date- 9/23/25
Review-
Oh my gosh!! This book is packed full of drama and humor and it is a classic ‘whodunit’ mystery!
Set in Ireland, this murder mystery proves that you will never forget your wedding day, especially if it starts with a murder.
Throughout this book, we follow our main character, Christine, as she navigates covering her boss Gloria Beaufort’s grandsons’ wedding in their fashion magazine. The family is snobby, up-tight, and hard to deal with.
The main issue- Gloria is found dead at the start of the wedding weekend. Nobody wants to call the cops, and everyone wants to pretend that nothing happened.
Who is the suspect? Every single person.
Christine wants to figure it out for herself.

There are so many twists and turns throughout this book, it is ao clever and suspenseful. I loved every second of reading about the toxic and drama filled billionaires. I am obsessed! What a stunning debut novel from Joan O’Leary.

HUGE thank you to Netgalley, publisher William Morrow/Harper Collins and author Joan O’Leary for sharing this amazing mystery with me!

Review will also be posted on Goodreads and Instagram!

This is an unexpected delight. The wedding is a spectacular, set in a castle in Ireland. The grandson of a an ultra wealthy cosmetics queen is getting married, in an affair that is beyond lavish. It is being covered by the most influential bridal magazine, sending its newest editor Christine Russo to do the honors.

Sounds simple? Posh? Exciting? It’s all those things, but there is a murder and frightening goings-on in this castle. Somehow, Christine gets caught up in the mayhem. As a reader, the descriptions are beautifully drawn. The plot is intricate and tricky, but there is fine writing that pulls all the details together.

I honestly couldn’t put it down. There is one key word that unfurls the conclusion and makes all the motivations clear. The villains are not stereotypical and the characters are not as superficial as expected.

Yes, it’s a winner. Hope O’Leary writes more of these great mysteries. Thank you Netgalley for this very compelling ARC.

This was a lot of fun and I was highly engaged throughout. The reveals weren't shocking, but they were interesting. The final reveal wasn't something that could easily be guessed because of all the moving parts, but it was entirely possible in most respects, though some things stretched the bounds of believability. Easily a solid four-star read.

EXCEPT!

The history lover in me absolutely hated the incorrect information about Brian Boru and Ballymoon Castle. First of all, Ballymoon Castle is ruins now. Beautiful, yes, but still ruins and obviously not renovated into a high-end hotel-like structure that caters to the extremely and obnoxiously rich. Secondly, it was most decidedly NOT the home base of one of Ireland's greatest medieval kings, Brian Boru. Boru was born around 941 and died in 1014. Based on architecture of the time, Ballymoon wasn't built until 1290-1310. Thirdly, even if the timelines matched up, Boru was killed in battle - though he did not directly participate due to his age and health. This means his third wife, Gormflaith, did NOT conspire with his enemies to kill him, then attempt to use the tunnels of the castle to flee. I also can't remember exactly for sure, but the author may have placed the castle in the wrong county. Ballymoon is in County Carlow and I feel like the author said County Clare. I can't remember for sure, so don't quote me on this. It could be mis-remembering, since the county names are so similar.

Seriously, this kind of stuff annoys me. All of this was easily searchable within seconds for anyone not familiar with this part of Ireland's history. I even looked Boru up just to make sure I was not imagining things when it was discussed in the beginning when and how he supposedly died.

Okay, now for the book itself, because it was a very fun and complicated little mystery.

Christine Russo has scored the gig of a lifetime - to cover the wedding of Gloria Beaufort's favorite grandson, Graham Ripton. Beaufort is a beauty icon, found of the massively successful beauty empire Glo. Russo has just been promoted to senior editor of Bespoke Weddings, a sub-publication of Bespoke, a high-end fashion magazine. She's off to Ireland on an all-expenses paid trip that will make her career.

Except the morning following a disastrous family dinner, Gloria is found dead in her suite. The family decides they have to keep her death a secret and control the flow of information - meaning Christine is basically threatened into silence - until the ceremony is over and everyone can get back home. A lot of bad press and impending lawsuits are about to mess with the wealthy world of the Ripton family, and the press that would come with the murder of their matriarch is the last thing they need.

The suspect list is endless and Christine does her best to navigate the situation, as someone starts leaving her clues to direct her that all is not what it seems. There's her son Trey, a complete embarassment who has no idea how to run a company and is driving Glo into the ground, and his wife Clementine who is losing her marbles as the chaos erupts. Their son Ben is walking time bomb and raging alcoholic with a temper to match, and his wife Carlyle is definitely pissed about several goings-on related to both her business and personal life. Father Kenneth has been involved with the family for decades and knows them all very well. Elliott, the constantly-frazzled wedding planner, was arguing with Gloria the night before she died. There's even Jane, Graham's bride-to-be, to whom there is more than meets the eye. Graham, Trey and Clem's second son and the groom, seems to be the only one without any skeletons.

Initially the book is mainly told from Christine's point of view. As the threads begin to tie together, we get POVs from the other characters as flashbacks, giving us the information we needed, when we needed it, to figure out who was involved with what. I felt like this was a great way to deliver those aspects, instead of random info-dumps that would have felt out of place and contrived. We find out why they should or should not be considered a suspect without slowing down the action in the present day.

Some of the characters are quite unlikeable, which I always love. Gloria herself is kind of awful, in only the way an uber-rich, judgy old lady can be. Christine had a fairly strong voice, even as she realized she was way out of her element and could easily end up the next victim.

Overall, I really liked this one. It's clever and funny, and when everything comes together, things mostly make sense. I had ideas of who was involved and some ideas for how, but did not guess the biggest reveal. I'm not sure anyone would. Even so, it was a good way to spend a few hours and I would read the author's next book.

If only the history would have been accurate.

Recommended.

💍 A Killer Wedding by Joan O’Leary – 4 ★

If you love “rich people behaving badly” murder mysteries, this one’s for you.

Christine, a sharp and ambitious wedding journalist, thinks she’s landed the assignment of a lifetime when beauty mogul Gloria Beaufort personally invites her to cover her grandson’s lavish castle wedding in Ireland. But when Gloria turns up dead before the wedding bells even ring, Christine finds herself stuck in a web of secrets, lies, and family drama that would make Scandal look tame.

I had so much fun with this book. The setting is lush; opulent Irish castle, secret tunnels, champagne flowing, and every single character has something to hide. The toxic family dynamics are deliciously messy, the twists kept me guessing, and that final reveal? Well, let me just say my jaw was DROPPED.

Christine made for a great outsider POV, and while there were a lot of characters to keep track of at first, once I got into it, I was hooked. I also loved how O’Leary sprinkled in sly humor because it kept things from getting too heavy even with all the murder and mayhem.

If you enjoy:
✨ Cozy but glam whodunits
✨ Family secrets & backstabbing heirs
✨ Agatha Christie style red herrings with a modern voice

Then you need this one on your fall TBR. Perfect for curling up with on a rainy day when you want twists, drama, and a little bit of wicked sparkle.

Thank you to NetGalley, Joan O'Leary, and William Morrow for the eARC of this book.

Thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for providing me with an eARC.

This was super fast-paced and highly entertaining. Who doesn't like reading about rich people and their dysfunctional family dynamics. I liked the way the timeline and PoV switches were done, unraveling the mystery quite well. I didn't specifically like any of the characters as such but I usually don't care about that in mystery novels. I liked all the wedding decoration descriptions a lot. I found the final reveal to be somewhat of an overused trope and guessed most of it pretty much at the start of the book. But that did not diminish my reading experience. Overall, I would recommend this book to those looking for a fast-paced, amateur detective mystery with a lot of family drama.

In A KILLER WEDDING, written by Joan O’Leary, Gloria Beaufort, the founder of Glo (a billion-dollar beauty empire), is footing the bill for her grandson’s wedding at the Ballymoon Castle Hotel in Shannon, Ireland. Christine Russo, a reporter for Bespoke Weddings magazine, is invited to the welcome dinner before the wedding. The event planner, Elliot, suggests Gloria probably extended the invite to Christine with strings attached. This piques my interest, and I read on.

This book definitely has the feel of the show, The White Lotus, with the Ballymoon Castle Hotel setting and quirky characters. The chapters of this novel are told from different points of view. I like the introduction of characters in the early chapters enough to forgive the amount of time it takes to get to the murder. There are times I am so engrossed in reading this book that I must continue. I create a list of characters and refer to it as needed because there are lots of people to keep track of. While there are times when I am confused by the plot (the timeline bounces around), I mostly enjoy the reading experience. Thank you, William Morrow and NetGalley, for the chance to read and review and advance reader copy of A KILLER WEDDING.

I really enjoyed this book. It kept me interested and I was surprised at the identity of the culprit. The writing style also resonated with me. Would definitely read more from this author!

In A Killer Wedding, our main protagonist is Christine, a Senior Editor for Bespoke Weddings, recently promoted and working the Irish destination wedding of the grandson of beauty industry billionaire Gloria Beaufort, a high society event that will make or break her career. On the first morning of the wedding weekend, Gloria is discovered dead in her hotel room, an apparent murder victim. The Ripton family, her son and grandchildren, decide to keep her death under wraps, but Christine is unable to stifle her curiosity about Gloria's death and begins investigating what could have happened.
This book is a semi locked room mystery, as we only have a handful of potential suspects from the time the murder occurs, and the author uses flashback chapters to show the various motives the potential killers may have had for murdering Gloria. It was well plotted and written in a way that was suspenseful while also dispensing little clues throughout the book that helped to wrap it all up in the end in a way that was believable and satisfying.
Thank you to William Morrow and NetGalley for the electronic ARC of this novel for review.

3.5 stars rounded up. Better than expected whodunnit that kept me guessing until the end. Excited to read more from this first time author!

Killer Wedding is a sharp, fast paced mystery that pulls you in from the start. While none of the characters are particularly likable, that’s part of the fun. Who doesn’t enjoy reading about the rich stabbing each other in the back?

The short chapters and brisk pacing make this a perfect pick for mystery thriller lovers (like me!) or anyone stuck in a reading slump and looking for something quick and addictive. And that big twist at the end? So satisfying. I can’t wait to see what Joan O'Leary writes next. 3.5 stars rounded up

I really enjoyed this book! It was a nice combination of murder mystery and thriller that kept me engaged to the very end!

Thanks NetGallery for this Arc.

What a fun crazy concept for a book! The title had me intrigued from the start and the book didn't disappoint