Books Read: The Guest List by Lucy Foley

On an island off the windswept Irish coast, guests gather for the wedding of the year – the marriage of Jules Keegan and Will Slater.

Old friends.
Past grudges.

Happy families.
Hidden jealousies.

Thirteen guests.
One body.

The wedding cake has barely been cut when one of the guests is found dead. And as a storm unleashes its fury on the island, everyone is trapped.

All have a secret. All have a motive.
One guest won’t leave this wedding alive . . .

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I'd like to thank Anne Cater from Random Things Tours for inviting me to be a part of this blog tour and Harper Collins for my proof copy The Guest List to review.

I have to confess that I still haven't read Lucy Foley's previous thriller The Hunting Party so this was my first taste of her change of direction in writing style as I had previously only read her debut The Book of Lost and Found. I had high expectations as the concept alone sounding intriguing and having recently finished reading the book I can say that it definitely didn't disappoint.

Who doesn't love a wedding? Especially a celebrity one on Inis Amploir, a remote island off the Irish coastline, but as we soon discover everything is not as picture-perfect as it seems and someone is out for revenge...

The sinister tone for everything that follows is set from the opening chapter when we discover that on the wedding night a body has been discovered during a power cut caused by a storm. But what exactly happened and why slowly unfolds as we are introduced to the various characters who all have a story to tell and a part to play in events that led up to that fateful night.

The whole story is narrated over a 24 hour time period, from the arrival on the island the day before the wedding and then snippets from various characters throughout the day until the final reveal on the wedding night.

It's clear that there's no love lost between some of the wedding guests so it makes you wonder why they were invited especially given the logistics and organisation needed by wedding planner Aoife to make sure that everyone turns up. The group includes the bride Julia's divorced parents and her troubled half-sister Olivia who is the sole bridesmaid, the groom Will's parents and his old public school friends who never seem to grow up when they're together, as well as Charlie, Julia's oldest friend, and his wife Hannah who definitely feels like she's an outsider.

I loved the whole locked-room concept, except in this instance it's a remote island - and the fact that everyone is trapped on the island until the storm blows over and ferries can come and collect them. Whenever I read a murder mystery I am constantly on the look out for clues and reading The Guest List was no different as I was constantly second guessing myself trying to work out who had been killed, who the killer was and what their motive was. Well played to Lucy Foley as she completely bamboozled me as although I had worked out who had died, I was way off base with the killer...