Thank you to Anne Cater for my invitation to the tour and to Harper Collins for my copy of the book via Net Galley in return for a fair and honest review.

I absolutely loved The Hunting Party and I was so excited when I was invited to join the tour.

The book starts with the arrival of the guests at The Folly, the exclusive resort on a remote Irish Island.

I love the way that the author introduces the reader to the characters with their own voices and chapters, it really does get you engrossed in the story. I love people watching and this is like a front row seat into the personalities and pysche of each character.

As with The Hunting Party there is an underlying feel of imminent disaster and there are really some odious people in the group. The group of ushers that Will attended public school with are particularly grim.

I did not warm to Jules the bride and this is another skill of the author, she has the ability to make your really dislike her characters. Jules is used to getting what she wants and she has hit the jackpot with Will, a handsome and well known TV celebrity.

Jules has been friends with Charlie for years and he is going to be her Best Man, he is now married to Hannah who has often wondered about their past relationship. Jules has received a note warning her not to marry Will and she is distressed and anxious to find out who has sent it. Hannah befriends Olivia who is Jules younger sister who is dealing with her own demons and is extremely fragile.

A body is found by a waitress on the evening of the wedding, but who is the victim?

This is a fantastic read I could not put it down, the setting is perfect, the weather , the bogs around the island, the wind and rain it is just so atmospheric I loved it.

Twisty, turny and you do not know who to trust and you just have to keep reading.

Another 5 star read from Lucy Foley.

I have just finished this book - and what a book it was! It hooks you from the very start, when you find out that a body has been seen...... However, it is quite some time (like 90/95% of the way through) before you find out exactly who is dead! In between, I love the way that Lucy keeps flitting between the main characters with a chapter from each of them. You get to see the events unfolding from their perspective and discover things from their past as they are slowly revealed. By the end, there are so many of them that could have committed the crime - I thought I had tidied up all the loose ends in my head (and there is plenty to tie up, with so many plot lines being interlinked!) but I hadn't.. There were still more twists right at the end of the book that caught me unawares!

I would thoroughly recommend this book - it is different from anything I have read and definitely keeps you turning the pages until the very end!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for letting me read this in exchange for an honest and independent review.

I think this is the first book by this author I have read , and what a surprise . A successful couple , Will and Julia , are getting married on a remote island off Ireland ., Everything has been sorted out to perfection by Julia who is not the sort to tolerate mistakes . However over the course of the wedding all sorts of secrets come out , between the relationships of the guests to Will . Don't want to let any secrets out but this is a brilliant read with revelations all the way , from the groom's school days until the wedding itself.

If I hadn't read this book with Pigeonhole, it would possibly have been a 'read in a day because I couldn't put it down' book!
Lots of characters, the majority of them unlikeable, have gathered on a remote island off the coast of Ireland to attend the wedding of online magazine editor Julia and her 'Bear Grylls' wannabe husband, Will.
The story goes back and forth from the wedding night, where a body has been found, to the day before where we hear each characters story and the outcome is slowly unfolded.
There were so many combinations of who were going to be be the victim and suspect, that I had no idea who was going to be which until the reveal.
A very good murder-mystery that I definitely recommend!

I absolutely loved this engrossing murder mystery which was an incredibly gripping and thoroughly enjoyable read. I was such a huge fan of this author’s first book so approached this one with a little bit of trepidation as it couldn’t possibly be as good,could it? Turns out yes it could!

Firstly I loved the wonderful descriptions of the beautiful rugged island where the wedding was held. It sounded like such a beautiful place that I found myself googling it to see if it was a real place and spent ages starting at the beautiful pictures I found. The island isolation also helps create some of the atmosphere and tension in the book as the guests are trapped with each other on the island when the storm hits. Initially this doesn’t seem to be a problem as everyone seems civil towards each other but as the story goes on more is revealed about past relationships and connections which make things very interesting indeed.

The characters were all wonderful creations and I loved how the author had managed to create so many different ones, giving them all their own voice and background. Not all of them were very likeable and some I loved to hate, hoping that they’d be the ones that came to a sticky end. My favourite was definitely Hannah as I felt she seemed the most normal and kind amongst the group, which was echoed in some of the characters thoughts. She seemed like a very warm person and someone I might actually be friends with.

The author’s writing style just drew me into the story, with the alternative points of view and short chapters keeping me thoroughly absorbed in the story. This seemed a bit more of a confident, mature book from the author which was lovely to see. The tension slowly builds as we learn more about the characters and what happened on the wedding day until I found myself unable to put the book down. I stayed up way too late trying to finish the book, much to my husband’s dismay as he’s used to having the sitting room to himself for a few hours! The ending was very surprising and clever, not at all how I expected it to end.

Huge thanks to Anne Cater for inviting me onto the blog tour and to Jen Harlow for my copy of this book.

https://lynns-books.com/2020/02/20/the-guest-list-by-lucy-foley/
5 of 5 stars
Around the end of 2018 I picked up The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley and really enjoyed it (my review is here)- so much so that when I saw The Guest List was due to be published this month I nearly had a conniption rushing to request a copy. And I was so lucky to be approved that I positively danced a little victory dance. Okay, I did dance that dance but I refuse to be shamed by it. I was a happy reader (having a request approved just never gets old for me and always amazes and delights me in equal measure).

So, the Guest List. Did it live up to my high expectations? It most certainly did, in fact I think it surpassed them in some ways and if pushed I’d probably say I liked it even more than The Hunting Party (more victory dancing). Foley has a fantastic way of taking a group of characters and really bringing them to life. She seems an expert in creating murder mysteries where everyone has something to hide and I’m simply loving her work (no pressure at all there then).

This is a story that definitely has Christie vibes. Here we have a group of people assembling on a remote island to enjoy a wedding. It should be a joyous occasion (although we all know how disastrously these little get togethers can be, people who haven’t met for years with old grudges coming out of the woodwork). The setting is very remote – this is a tiny island off the coast of Ireland accessible only by boat. Of course, in true murder mystery fashion the weather is not going to co-operate and what starts off as a bright and sunny day soon looks like a different kettle of fish as stormy clouds gather on the horizon and as the weather changes so does the mood of the guests and there’s this terrible tension before things go horribly wrong.

Okay, this shares a lot of themes with The Hunting Party – but they’re such good themes that they work. The isolated setting. The meeting up of a group of people, all with their own secrets and motives and the eventual discovery of a body that for a while is part of the mystery itself as the identity is not immediately revealed.

The story is told in two timelines, ‘Now’ and ‘The Day Before’ and has five different POVs. Now, to be clear, this may sound like a lot of jumping around and lots of names to remember, but Foley has made it all deceptively simple by not only clearly heading each chapter but also by giving people relevant titles so we have The Bride, The Bridesmaid, The Plus One, The Wedding Planner and the Best Man.

The wedding itself is a big posh celebrity affair. The Groom is an up and coming star who is the leading man in a successful survival show. The bride is the owner of a very popular online magazine that sets trends and dictates fashion ‘must haves’. Of course the two are going to have a lavish affair that showcases their beauty, success and taste and the wedding has been planned down to the finest detail (although the murderer has a different agenda).

I will say that if you plan on reading this you need to be aware that some of the characters are a little unlikeable – although as you get to know them you start to get a deeper understanding of their own personal drivers. The bride for example. A little (a lot) vain, desperately needs to be in control and ensure that everything is perfect and she comes across as a little cold and calculating. She does reveal a different side as the story progresses though so be patient. The groom, who doesn’t have his own POV chapter but we see through the other pov’s eyes. So dazzlingly attractive that he stops most people in their tracks, charming and able to smile his way into anybody’s good books. What the groom shares with both his Best Man and Ushers is a past. They all attended a top notch private school for the privileged and most of them have been incredibly successful as a result. Foley does an excellent job of portraying these characters and their bully-boy ways painting them in rather aggressive or patronising tones dependent upon who they’re trying to curry favour with or belittle. The bridesmaid (and younger sister to the bride) has experienced some sort of trauma in her past that has made her retreat into herself. She has withdrawn to a dark and lonely place and finds it difficult to connect to anyone. Basically, I’m not going to give a description for everyone as these people are best discovered during the read. Suffice to say that there are a lot of secrets here and they will all be revealed in a most deliciously startling and jaw dropping fashion.

The setting is great and really plays into the story. Here you have a tiny island, only two miles long and a fraction of that in width. Very little wifi signal and no residents other than the owners of the wedding venue. There are beautiful, sheltered, white sandy coves with sparkling turquoise waters. The old house has been renovated to perfection and outside stands the remains of a chapel – open to the elements – where the wedding will take place. It all sounds simply superb. Of course, the sunshine has a way of beautifying everything doesn’t it. Roll in the stony skies and the seas crashing against the rocks and the cliffs and bogs take on a more threatening demeanour, especially with all the rumours of ghosts running amok and the dodgy electrics going out at the most inopportune times.

The pacing is brilliant and I love the way Foley writes. She puts me very much in mind of DuMaurier with the easy way she brings her characters and settings to life. I had a difficult time putting this down and was always anxious to sit back down and pick up where I left off.

In terms of criticisms. Well, this isn’t a particularly long book and there is plenty fitted into the available pages. I guess this could have been expanded slightly to help develop some of the characters at a slower pace, for example, the bride and groom – I wasn’t totally convinced by their relationship. They were definitely in lust with each other but I couldn’t quite understand why they’d decided to marry. The ending in particular feels almost over a little too quickly – but, I think that’s just me being greedy for more. This is a two day event and fittingly I actually devoured it in the same time frame.

I highly recommend The Guest List. If you like mysteries with lots of secrets then you really can’t go wrong with this one.

I received a copy through Netgalley, courtesy of the publisher, for which my thanks. The above is my own opinion.

Following on from the success of The Hunting Party - a book that I greatly enjoyed when I read it back in January 2019 - Lucy Foley has returned with The Guest List, another sharp and atmospheric take on an Agatha Christie style mystery.

Multiple suspects are gathered together in a remote location, all with secrets to hide and resentments bubbling away under the surface. The wine is flowing, the music is playing and then...the body is found. 

The setting this time is Inis Amploir, an island off the Irish coast that is home only to The Folly, a recently refurbished luxury wedding venue into which wedding planner Aoife and her chef husband have poured their savings. Hosting the wedding of successful lifestyle magazine owner Julia Keegan and adventurous TV celebrity Will Slater is, therefore, a bit of a coup and Aoife is determined to make sure that the lavish event goes off without a hitch. Her task is complicated by the rest of the wedding party, including the bride's sullen half-sister Olivia, Will's hapless best man Johnno, and Hannah, the plus-one to MC Charlie. And then there's the body that turns up shortly after the wedding cake has been cut.

Alternating between the perspectives of Julia, Aoife, Olivia, Johnno and Hannah, as well as between the events before and after the wedding ceremony, The Guest List has a compulsive pull. As with The Hunting Party, each of the characters brings a unique perspective to events - as well as their own bundle of secrets, resentments and carefully crafted lies. The cast are a slightly warmer bunch this time out - even bridezilla Julia is reasonably sympathetic - and I found myself really warming to both Hannah and Aoife, both of whom provide a more 'normal' perspective on the glamour, glitz and slight level of ludicrousness that comes with a 'celebrity' wedding.

The events of The Guest List are also slightly slower in place than in Foley's debut. Not all of the characters have a shared history and the whole set-up definitely felt more in tune with the classic 'country house' mystery of the golden age, with a disparate group bought together by circumstance. This is by no means a bad thing however as Foley controls the pace with consummate skill, dropping in little flashes forwards to the aftermath of the wedding to entice the reader and keep you turning those pages! Given that the identity of the body doesn't become apparent until a good way into the book, there are certainly plenty of mysteries to keep you guessing. Plus, who doesn't love a good wedding and all the drama that goes along with it?!?!

Anyone who enjoyed The Hunting Party is going to love The Guest List. All of the ingredients that made Foley's debut so successful are present and correct here - a group of mismatched individuals, a remote location, and a dash of glamour. But The Guest List also feel like an evolution of the formula. The characters are more rounded and less stereotypical, the threads of the plot woven are just that bit tighter, and the ending a tad more satisfying. The book very much feels like the work of  a writer who has considered her success and, rather than sitting back and resting on those well-deserved laurels, has sought to improve upon it. As such, The Guest List may well bring in new fans to Foley's work - it certainly deserves to as it's a corker of a book with a wicked twist in the tale. Perfect for curling up with one blustery weekend!

Great introduction to the main characters _ as each one speaks for themselves. The characters are really well written and individual, giving the reader an insight into the motives behind their actions. The setting is very atmospheric and the whole book is brilliant. I genuinely could not put it down.

The Guest List is Lucy Foley’s second thriller and in it, she whisks us away to a remote, uninhabited island to attend what is being labelled as ”the wedding of the year.” Inis Amploir, or Cormorant Island, is located just off the west coast of Ireland and due to its positioning is prone to temperamental weather conditions. The wedding is that of celebutante couple Julia Keegan, an online magazine editor and Will Slater, an attractive TV star. The main wedding party will stay in the lavish, recently revamped Folly and all other invitees have been provided with transport, a boat, to and from the island. With all the attendees having arrived the seemingly loved-up couple wed yet a nightmarish scenario is about to occur. On the eve of the marriage inside the hotel, there is a power cut and one of the waiting staff lets out what can only be described as a bloodcurdling scream. She tells the wedding guests that she has seen a body outside whilst a devastating storm rages and so the ushers head out in the wild weather to try to locate the body and discover what happened.

Lucy Foley is one hell of a writer and could definitely be accurately described as the modern Agatha Christie; her thrillers are impeccably plotted and have the same zeitgeist and compelling locked room murder mystery Christie’s books have. The ominous atmosphere she creates with a group of people gathered on a remote and storm-hit island unable to leave because of the dangerous weather, is completely foreboding and suspenseful. The tension is expertly ratcheted up over the course of the story and at the end, you find you are not able to turn the pages quickly enough. It is very much a slow burn psychological thriller and this allows time to amply develop the diverse range of characters who grace the pages and the multiple perspectives, five to be exact, make it a fully-rounded and immersive experience.

The cast of characters are mostly self-entitled, narcissistic and incredibly unlikeable and you can feel the sense of impending doom with these personalities all being together drunk and bringing with them their secrets, grudges, lies, jealousies, resentments, guilt and a thirst for revenge plus a whole host of other motives to kill. Foley knows how to pen a story that captivates from the opening chapter and only gets more addictive as it unravels. This is even better than The Hunting Party and I thought that was excellent. A highly entertaining, absorbing and utterly riveting read. Many thanks HarperCollins for an ARC.

A delicious feast of a novel! Beautiful people with dark secrets, a bloody murder at a glamorous wedding in a remote and exclusive Irish location. It’s not only a classy and well executed’whodunnit’ but also ‘whogetsit’ as the murder victim is cleverly concealed until the final pages.

I thoroughly enjoy reading this - and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it as a gripping, easy and highly satisfying read.

A very worthy 5 stars and sincere thanks to Netgalley, author and publisher for the opportunity to read this work in exchange for an honest unbiased review.

I have recently read The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley, which was my introduction to a truly wonderful suspense writer and was highly delighted whe I got a chance to review her new novel. The Guest List is set on a remote island off of Connemara.. The only inhabitants are Freddy and Aiofa who own the hotel.
Well known actor Will and his fiancee Julie (Jules) arrange their spectacular wedding to be held here. Of course all people have a past and many secrets. Will went to Trevelyans, a boarding school where his father was head. Secrets unfold the night before and the day of the wedding as to what went on whilst he and his friends were there.
The day of the wedding dawns and the weather whips up a storm. The electricity keeps going off. The scene is set. The novel is told beautifully by some of the main characters. They are all so believable. I fell in and out of love with the characters. I was hooked from the first page. This is suspense and thriller written at its best. I cannot wait for Lucy Foleys next book. Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to experience this rollercoaster of a ride in exchange for an honest review.

If you loved The Hunting Party, you’ll love this. This thriller cracks along at pace. A couple have chosen to have their wedding on an island off the coast of Ireland, which means that a small cast of characters have gathered together in stormy weather. The tension builds as we slowly discover the back story of each of them,, and as they move into the wedding day proper, the pace cracks along to a crescendo. I actually preferred this to The Hunting Party as there was more to like in the characters - by the end of The Hunting Party I really didn’t mine which of them got it, but here I was rooting for some of them. This would be a great wet afternoon read.

This was really exciting and so much fun. With someone murdered at a wedding, the question isn't just who did it, and why, but who's dead.

As the book unfolds, we learn more about the history of everyone involved in the wedding and just how despicable some of them are. There were a number of times when I exclaimed out loud in surprise when a new twist was revealed.

This is a real page turner and one which is jam packed with unexpected events. I absolutely loved it.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC without obligation.

I enjoyed The Hunting Party and so was pleased to be accepted for an ARC of this book. I liked the short chapters- from different people’s perspectives. Fast paced and kept me guessing. I finished the book in 24 hours. Definitely worth a read! Thank you to Netgalley, the author and the publishers for the advanced copy.

Let me start by saying I LOVED ‘The Hunting Party’, so I was really excited to read this. Honestly? It was a bit of a let down. The format is *too* similar to her first book - switching between the incident and the hours leading up to it and different characters’ view points. These things made The Hunting Party fresh and exciting, but it seemed lazy and a bit old hat in this book. Plus, I guessed the ending, which I didn’t in the first book. I enjoyed it enough to finish it but I am glad I read it for free via Netgalley - I do not think it would be worth the full hardback price.

I found this book very much a slow burner and as I have not long finished The Hunting Party I found that I was comparing the two which seemed very similar. The characters weren’t likeable at all, the same spoilt bunch of people as the previous book.
Maybe I read this one too quickly after the other one but, I think I would still find it boring and slow.
So on that note I’m unfortunately only able to give this book three stars.
I want to thank NetGalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book in return for an honest review.

Julia and Will are getting married on a small island off the coast of Ireland. It's beautiful, rugged and dangerous - what could go wrong? It turns out, plenty - especially when Will grew up in a boarding school with a lot of secrets, secrets his friends have been keeping for a long time, and Julia's sister is struggling with her own troubles.

This book was an atmospheric ride and I loved being taken along on it - from the memories of boarding school to possibly the worst wedding I've ever read about - and that doesn't even include the murder!

Lucy Foley is an expert, an expert , at creating groups of people that you can despite with every bit of your reader's heart. The Hunting Party was a mix of similar characters but I feel like Foley honed her expertise even further in The Guest List and created a perfect mix of privileged, private school boys foaming at the mouth, coke dust on their nose still reliving the glory of their school days even though they're fully grown adults. There was a terrific pressure in the novel anytime I read interactions between the men as they felt almost cult-like and there was a tinge of danger. I wouldn't want to be around them, and I felt like snatching at the half-decent characters who came into their reach.

This is the type of thriller where every character we follow has an interesting backstory and they all start to weave into one another, and it all connects in the end.

I was hooked into this story from the start and I loved every twist and turn. It helped that it was a stormy week in Ireland too because it helped me really understand the mood and feeling on the island. Extra points for me as well for a character with my name, as it rarely happens, AND some really nice inclusions of Irish names, culture and setting without it being mocked by other characters or included in the wrong way. You can tell Lucy Foley has Irish connections which is also a plus from me!

Another excellent book from Lucy Foley. Similar format to The Hunting Party. Lots of horrible guests at a remote location - this time though for a wedding. Old friends from a dreadful public school, a plus one and a couple of others who are on the fringe as far as the posh boys are concerned. A body, but you don't know who it is and a killer still to be caught. I would have given it five stars only it did ramble slightly in the middle. But the last quarter really speeded up, the suspense galloping along like a horse on crack to finish with more twists than I could shake a stick at and a truly unexpected ending. Excellent character portrayals - you really hate the lot of them!

Many thanks to NetGalley for my ARC and to the Pigeonhole for giving me the opportunity to read along with my fellow Pigeons and the author.

The Guest List by Lucy Foley
I really enjoyed this book, probably all the more so because it's set in rural Ireland. There was a nice level of tension right the way through that really built for the last hour of reading.
I liked the characters and felt they were well thought out, with a good plot to go with it.
All in all an enjoyable read.

This is a great murder mystery thriller.
The story is told from different points of view - The bride ‧ The plus one ‧ The best man ‧ The wedding planner ‧ The bridesmaid.
We hear about events leading up to the wedding on a remote island in Ireland and also the night of the murder.
Will and Jules seem like the perfect couple to those around them but as the story develops we learn they both have secrets from each other.
The other characters also have secrets that are revealed and I loved how it all came together at the end.
I thought I’d get confused by all the different characters but they’re all so unique it’s easy to keep track.
There’s some characters that will pull at your heart strings and some who you will detest but they all make up a great story.
Thanks to Harper Collins UK and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.