The Guest List by Lucy Foley

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In this isolating, multiple point of view mystery, guests gather on a tiny island off the coast of Ireland come together to celebrate the luxurious wedding of Jules, an ambitious magazine publisher and Will, a charming television star. It's going to be perfect - till someone gets killed, that is.
Written in dual timelines - we alternate between the wedding night (although we do not know who has been killed) and the multiple characters perspectives leading up to that event. 
Along with the bride and groom, we also follow Aiofe, the wedding planner who has been working incredibly hard, Helen, the plus one who is doubting her life, Olivia, the bridesmaid suffering from a big secret, and the Johnno, the best man who is confused about what he is doing in life. 

This is one of my first forays into the mystery-thriller genre and while it did not completely blow my mind as much as I was hoping and wasn't completely what I was expecting - I definitely really enjoyed my time with it and I thought it was a really great introduction to reading that genre.

First off - I was pleasantly surprised at how well we got to understand the characters, in such few words. From what I gathered, Lucy Foley's writing isn't incredibly over-the-top at all, in fact its pretty blunt but it somehow perfectly managed to convey each of the characters motives and what they thought of each other. 

Something that I wasn't expecting at all in this story - how much I enjoyed the pace. I get pretty impatient when it comes to plots and I prefer when things moved faster, but I absolutely ate up the immaculate slow-burning tension. The fact that we didn't know who had been killed till the very end just added another layer of tension and the snippets we got of the wedding night throughout had me wanting to find out what happened so badly. 

I also want to take a moment to appreciate the setting - because the vibes of an isolated, windy, island surrounded by rough seas was so good and its amazing how well Lucy Foley's writing lent itself to it. I have no idea how it would work for the rest of the story, but I would want to watch a screen adaptation of this book just the get a glimpse of the setting. 

As for the ending which I feel is possibly the most important part to pull of well in a thriller adjacent book - I honestly have no idea how I feel about it. But what I did want to say without spoiling anything - I loved how all the characters stories started to be intertwined with each others with what they each had been through and wanted.

Overall, while I unfortunately did not love it as much as I had hoped - it was definitely intriguing, amazing slow burn, as well as a great setting and cast of characters!


More info: 

Pages - 330 pages 

Publisher - William Morrow


Author - Lucy Foley 




My rating - 4 stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Thankyou so much for reading this if you got this far :) and Happy Reading 📚💖



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