Member Reviews
What more could you wish for with Lucy arriving at the Greek Island to marry Jason and she has managed to plan every detail of the event for her nearest and dearest as well as her followers on Instagram. The scene is set for a gripping psychological thriller to begin and everyone arriving in the sunshine has a secret to hide including a strange older woman that the guest encounter in the airport who then appears at the isolated hotel. We know as the story begins that a body has been found and the tale is told through the charaters, as well as the statements given to the police and a diary written by a very disturbed person trying to fit into the family wedding. Whilst Jess the sister of the bride appears with a random stranger, and things are not great between the parents of the bride who each are hiding things from each other as well as their daughters. The unraveling of the story - the who, what, where and how then captures the reader to the very end - a great read.
This was a must-read book of the summer for me. It was pacey, full of twists and turns and had a mixture of unreliable characters to dubious motives. Everyone was flawed in a way that, as a reader, you could find something to relate to with each person having multiple sides to them we saw come out throughout the story.
I actually found myself more drawn to Jess as a character, even though I felt we were potentially meant to dislike her more than Lucy.
The opening immediately launches you into a whirlwind of a novel and I highly recommend. A must-read thriller, gripping, addictive and page-turning to the end.
I am a HUGE fan of Tammy Cohen’s standalone psychological thrillers and it’s been far too long since she last published one so I was very excited to be invited on the blogtour to read The Wedding Party which is out now.
The Wedding Party is set in a beautiful hotel in Greece and centres around The Collins family who have all flown out to celebrate the forthcoming wedding of the eldest daugther Lucy to Jason. It’s a small but luxurious wedding with only family and their closest friends attending and Lucy has dreamt of this moment all her life. She has been meticulously planning her “dream wedding” for as long as she can remember and with the help of a wedding planner her dreams are about to be realised.
However, this is a psychological thriller not a happy-ever-after romance and it’s written by Tammy Cohen so you know that things will start to go wrong, secrets will be revealed, people’s true colours will begin to show and more importantly there’s a dead body and it’s one of the wedding party.
The story is cleverly narrated by several key characters and an unknown voice who is talking to their shrink. There are some very strange and slightly (!!!) dysfunctional people in this family and whilst the reader knows there has been an unfortunate death from the opening chapter, we never know until towards the end exactly who has died and why. Throughout the story as more secrets unfold I began to think I knew who and why, but at several times during the book I realised I was completely off course.
With such a variety of colourful and flawed characters The Wedding Party kept me glued to my kindle and eager to work out who died and why. The glorious setting of Greece and the atmospheric descriptions of the hotel and wonderous landscape magically transported me away to a sunnier climate and helped me escape the cloudy “Summer” of London.
Once again Tammy Cohen has given the reader a thoroughly gripping and enjoyable thriller with a stunning setting, some fascinating characters, a tightly woven plot full of tension and intrigue. Loved it and would 100% recommend it
The Wedding Party is a 3.5⭐️ rounded up to 4⭐️
Lucy is the bride, she has dreamt of this day for years, hence the extravagant location! Her nearest and dearest have flown out to a Greek island for this special occasion but it becomes obvious fairly early on in this read that it’s not going to be the happiest of days.
To be honest I struggled with this one from the start, it just seemed to be getting nowhere until I was half way in then it really gets somewhere but I could have given up on it at the start. So if you feel like this take my advice and carry on as it gets better and better with more and more revelations being revealed.
I would like to thank Netgalley and Random House UK, Transworld Publishers for this ARC I received in exchange for an honest review.
This book started off slow but then the tension builds up. Not many characters were people you liked. It doesnt change the fact this is a really good book.
Tammy Cohen is one of my favourite authors. An absolute auto-buy. So it saddens me to say for the first time - this just didn’t work for me. It was so bogged down with unnecessary backstories, and too many characters. Destination-themed parties gone horribly wrong is hot cakes right now, especially with the pandemic author are choosing foreign locations for their thriller novels. This one just didn’t do it for me. Even though there were excerpts from police interviews and the mysterious diary of person getting therapy, it just didn’t grip me, as the main narrative lacked suspense and the characters were whiny. I wanted the thriller to pick up sooner.
I’ve always enjoyed reading Tammy Cohen’s books, and The Wedding Party was no exception. The book opens with a dead body, and the chapters switch between the build up to Lucy’s wedding day and the subsequent police interviews with the various characters. There is plenty of suspense and an idyllic Greek island setting add to the feeling that something is going to go very wrong.
The Wedding Party is a page turner of a novel, and I’d recommend to fans of psychological thrillers. The slight downside for me was that at times I felt there was too much foreshadowing of later events, and I didn’t warm to the characters. But overall a great read.
Lucy is getting married anshe wants this to go perfectly she wants her guest to remember her special day for ever, Lucy gets what she wishes for but only because someone dies!
This Was a fantastic psychological thriller. We have 3 time lines first is the build up to the wedding. All the guest arriving and the scene is set everyone of them has a secret but the question is whose secret is dangerous. Secondly we have the diary entries of one of the wedding guests, we just don't know who and finally we have the police transcripts from the day of the wedding. There are so many characters that I won't list a their uniqueness, you shall have to read this one to find out. Keep thinking throughout why a6bd you might guess what happens, I guessed wrong or so wrong so my jaw hit the floor.
This is one of those you must read especially if this is your favourite genre its so well put together that I commend the author. I would recommend this book 5 stars. I loved it. 5 stars again.
Thanks to netgalley, the author and the publishers for the advanced digital copy in exchange for my fair and honest opinions.
In a very Mama Mia sort of way, this aspirational wedding has a lovely Greek setting and is an influencer's dream- all the bride wants is that everything is Instagram perfect, and at first I assumed that this was going to be a very superficial story.
Instead I came across a cast of horribly credible characters and a fast paced story, where I couldn't turn the pages quickly enough.
I was gripped and in my mind's eye I can still envisage the glamorous location. The novel moves at great pace, everybody seems to have a secret, most are quite unpleasant and as the story progresses, everyone is a suspect. Certainly I didn't trust anybody, and half way through still hadn't guessed who had done what!
Probably all a lot of us want to do at the moment is jet off somewhere exotic, and maybe it was my longing to travel that made it even more realistic. If there's a sun lounger somewhere that has your name on it, this is a great one to have as your holiday read.
Great book
Well written
You will keep turning the pages on this book
Another good book
Thanks NetGalley
For Lucy her wedding day is the most important day of her life. She has been dreaming & planning it since she was a little girl. Now the great day approaches. Using a wedding planner & on a beautiful Greek island she has gathered her friends & family about her for a never to be forgotten occasion. However you know what they say about best laid plans.. & this wedding certainly goes "oft aglay"!! Her parents are in a funny mood. Her fiancé & his mother seem very closed mouthed about his side of the family. Her rebel sister Jess, has brought along a very odd 'plus one' & flatly refuses to wear the bridesmaid dress Lucy wanted. There is also this very odd woman who seems intent on hanging on to the party. Thank goodness for her friend Shelley- at least she can be depended upon!
The story is told by various characters, a therapy journal & police interviews. We know from the start someone is dead but as well as finding out 'who dunnit' we've also to find out who was 'dun'! This is a cast of mostly dislikeable characters (apart from Jess- who you only like because she isn't your problem!)
Thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for letting me read & review this terrific book.
The Wedding Party has many ingredients of a good thriller: an atmospheric setting, plenty of drama and dark secretes lurking around every corner. I liked the structure of the book, which had a mixture of narrators, some extracts from police interviews and pages from a therapy journal. The technique of not revealing the identity of the victim until the end also worked very well and added suspense to the story. So why did it fail to grip me throughout? Perhaps it was just too long, with the build up for at least three quarters of the book and then a rushed ending, by which time I didn’t really care about what happened and to whom; or maybe it was because some events and characters’ thoughts were spelled out over and over again and became just tedious; or possibly it was on account of the back stories of secondary characters being flat and unnecessary, with a singular purpose of adding another suspect. In any case, with so many similar books currently on the market, The Wedding Party just doesn’t stand out as anything special.
Intriguing storyline. The flawed but human characters, whilst most not really likeable, only managed to make me more involved with the plot.
A beautiful setting and meticulously planned wedding. What could possibly go wrong?
I have loved all Tammy Cohen's books including her Rachel Rhys ones. This is another gripping, twisty novel. A dream wedding, a bridezilla, a laid back husband to be and numerous other family members with a few random strangers thrown in the mix. All leading to a fantastic thriller. Set in stunning Greece you can almost taste the wine and hear the sea. A death is known about right from the start and then the back story over the days before the wedding leads to the who is it. A really great read.
he Wedding Party tells the story of the wedding of Lucy and Jason, a destination wedding on the island of Kefalonia. Lucy has been dreaming of her perfect wedding day her whole life and has planned the trip with great care. But far from being the joyous occasion she imagined, things seem off from the start - as if it wasn’t bad enough that the costs of the wedding have spiralled out of control and she hasn't dared admit it to her future husband, the tension between various members of the wedding party is rising, her parents are behaving quite strangely, her sister has brought a random stranger as her plus one, a strange woman seems to have latched on to them and the wedding planner has issues of her own. Add to that the fact that the book opens with an unidentified dead body on the beach and you know its going to be a wild ride of a wedding.
Told from the perspective of several characters, we learn more about the days leading up to the wedding and events surrounding the death. The victim is kept a mystery - what we do learn is that almost everyone in the group seems to have something to hide and the more we learn about the characters, the less trustworthy many of them seem. None particularly likeable, all somewhat flawed, the reader is left feeling that they all might be capable of something and it is hard to know who or what to believe. The suspense builds throughout the book - the chapters are short, interspersed with extracts from a “Therapy Journal” whose author is initially unknown, as well as police interviews, and it is a book that kept me turning the pages and had me guessing right till the end. Add to that an idyllic sun-drenched location that many of us can only dream of as late and this was a clever, fun read that I raced through and very much enjoyed.
I really enjoyed this book, it kept the reader engaged all the way through. There were various threads and dilemmas which helped to maintain the pace. The book moved along well with enough happening to drive the story but with enough mystery to keep the reader guessing.
I could easily imagine myself on that Greek island, in fact I wanted to read this book as my daughter also married on a Greek island thankfully without all the drama of this wedding.
`I found this a perfect summer read, You had the beautiful surroundings, the interacting relationships (which were well described by chapters demonstrating different POV), the knowledge of an incident but the full details not shared with the reader initially and background information that was revealed as the book progressed.
This was my first book by this author but I liked her style.
This was a real turn up for the books as they say. I’ve been ill for a few days with a virus - not that one - so I’ve been bundled up in bed, not really able to bear much noise or fuss. Yesterday morning I picked up this book, I’ve never read the author but had decided to give her a try for this tour. I’m so glad I did because once I’d started, that was me engrossed for the whole day. I read it in four hours straight and enjoyed it immensely. The action all takes place at a wedding venue hotel on the island of Kefalonia. Lucy has been planning her wedding to Jase for a very long time and she’ll be okay as long as everything she’s planned is perfect, down to the last napkin. However, she’s about to find out that once you bring other people into the equation, plans can veer off course. There’s her alternative sister Jess who has promised to behave but turns up with a stranger in tow and a psychedelic dress instead of the tasteful dusky pink they’d agreed on — not to mention her dyed pink hair will turn a straggly peach colour once she hits the sea. There’s a strange old lady who they met washing her breasts in the airport toilets, but who now seems to be everywhere. Best man Gil, who used to be Jess’s boyfriend, is here with his wife Zoe, with all the tension that could cause. Surely Lucy can rely on the older generation to behave? Her mum Hazel and Dad Dom are solid, and although they’re irritatingly close, Jase’s mum Cora is lovely. Thank God though for her best friend Shelley, who is an absolute rock and would have been a better maid of honour than her sister. There’s also wedding planner Nina, who has everything in hand, except perhaps the small matter of money. What could go wrong?
The setting was wonderful, with beautiful descriptions of stunning sunsets over the beach - Lucy has chosen this hotel specifically because although it might be a bit shabbier than some of its counterparts on the other side of the island, they can’t create a wedding at sunset. A perfect photograph for Instagram of course (I loved how even on her wedding day Lucy is itching to update her status). The author’s descriptions of olive trees, swaying grasses full of poppies, the scent of honeysuckle on the breeze, all made me want to fly out there tomorrow. I was fascinated with the idea of illusion, what’s real and what isn’t and which we present to the world. This applied to the people present as well as the online content Lucy keeps imagining in her head. When Jase said he would have married her in a registry office with none of the fuss, it really makes her think. Who was all this expense and stress for? Even wedding planner Nina has been seduced by an illusion, that of the island as an idyllic place to set down roots, but also in destination weddings themselves. She’s placed her entire financial future into a house she doesn’t fully own (thanks to local land laws) and the certainty that people will always want to buy into the dream of a destination wedding. It seems like she must have a wonderful lifestyle, but actually the island is deserted and bleak out of season and she’s literally one pay cheque from going bust. Especially when the people who buy into this illusion can’t always afford it. Almost everyone in the wedding party is hiding something. Jess, although irritating to her sister, is actually the most open and authentic person there. She just needs some self-awareness and discretion. Gil is possibly the only other member of the group with no secrets and is seemingly devoted to wife Zoé and seems to understand her, despite her brittle exterior. I enjoyed some of the evening dinner, when a lot of the smaller secrets are out in the open and people can really get to know each other, on a deeper level.
If you simply want a good thriller read, this book really delivers. We know something goes drastically wrong because in-between the story are transcripts of police interviews with members of the wedding party. The author is very skilled in giving away snippets of information, enough to get your brain whirring, but not enough to work it out. This keeps you reading just one more chapter. There are also therapy journal entries - which I loved because it’s something I ask my clients to do - but we don’t know which member of the wedding party they belong too. Every so often there’s a delicious red herring thrown in, like the groom disappearing during a dare on the fishing trip. There’s also the rising tension and suspicions of each other, even the married couple are keeping some secrets close to their chests. Watching them try to avoid being exposed, made me cringe. There are also some comedic moments, in the descriptions and behaviour of old lady Vivienne particularly, but also I the eccentricities and foibles of those in the wedding party. The author is adept at showing us aspects of human behaviour that feel totally authentic - such as the shopping day the women have, where almost everyone rejects their purchases as something they’ll never wear as soon as they return to the hotel. She also nails that feeling of loneliness, and how having no family leaves you rootless and free-floating. There’s nothing to ground you. It’s this understanding of human behaviour that made me feel there’s something subtly different going on. Underneath the thriller there’s an underlying message that I felt really elevated this above the ordinary and said something about the times we’re currently living in. It’s the old cliché of walking a mile in someone else’s shoes, because some suspicions that arise in the novel, say more about that character’s prejudices than the person under suspicion. Once the secrets are in the open and disagreements are resolved, there are a lot of deep conversations and apologies to be made. We can never know what another person has gone through and while our brain may well go into overdrive when we’re unsure about someone, I felt the author was telling us to hang back a bit, find out more and be kind.
This is appearing on the blog tour for The Wedding Party on 30th August.
In The Wedding Party we are transported to Kefalonia where the upcoming wedding of Lucy and and Jason is due to take place. The guests begin arriving several days before the wedding, but nobody is prepared for the drastic turn of events that is going to take place.
At the beginning of the story we are aware that there has been a murder, but who committed the crime and what their motives were are still unknown. Told from the varying perspectives of several guests who were invited to share in what should have been the happiest day of Lucy and Jason’s lives, we learn more about the days leading up to the wedding and the events that took place that resulted in murder.
With several witness statements being revealed throughout the book, the list of suspects begin to narrow down, making you all the more immersed in the story and wanting to uncover the murderer amongst this group of people who should be able to trust one another entirely.
From the moment I read the description for this book it had me intrigued as I do love a good mystery/thriller, and this book certainly delivered on every level. The characters are well fleshed out and have unique voices and flawed personalities, something that makes them all the more relatable to the reader as, let’s face it, nobody is perfect. The storyline itself is perfectly paced, with the level of suspense gradually increasing with every passing chapter. Amongst a series of twists and turns that really keeps you on your toes and has you guessing to the very end, this was certainly one of the most enjoyable books I have read this year.
A good who done it.
Lucy wants a perfect intimate wedding in Greece that she is massively overdrawn with, she continually moans all the way through about having the perfect wedding which gets irritating. So you know things are going to go wrong which it does in abundance.
A dead body is found at the beginning but you don`t know who it is till the end which keeps you turning the page till the end. Told from different points of view.
Thank you to Anne Cater for my invitation to the tour and to Transworld for my copy of the ebook in return for a fair and honest review.
Lucy and Jason are getting married, this is not just any wedding this is going to be ‘The Wedding’. Lucy has poured all her energy and money into this wedding in Kefalonia, Greece and nothing is going to stop it from being perfection. Especially her sister Jess who a bit of a loose canon and thinks that Lucy is just going into dull married life. Unlike Jess who is single and has hooked up with a guy she met on the first evening and he is not what he seems.
The characters in this book are reminiscent of a Agatha Christie novel, unlikeable, unreliable and unpleasant. Add in secrets, jealousy and intrigue and it makes this story one of my favourites reads of the year. I couldn’t put it down. I loved the flawed characters as you never know who you can trust.
From the outset you know that a body has been found and as the book progresses the police interviews of the attendees of the wedding add to the intrigue.
Nina, the Wedding Planner also has her own secrets and has become mixed up with a Greek money lender and is desperate for Lucy and Jason to pay her or she will be in real trouble.
This is the perfect thrilling whodunnit as I was completely unaware of who was genuine and who has their own agenda. It really is a bubbling pot of deceit, drama and suspense. I am very wary of giving any more away but if you enjoy a tightly plotted fast paced and totally engrossing story then this is the book for you !
I absolutely loved it!
5 Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐