The Guest List: A Reese’s Book Club Pick and New York Times Bestseller

Good stuff.
It was very enjoyable!Narration was great, the story was interesting. Not too shocking or surprising, but a great journey. Made for a pleasent Sunday afternoon experience. Can recommend.

Terrible Ending
Majority of the book was great – but the ending…. ugghh…. too many plot holes and wrapped up way too quickly.

A “Locked Room” Mystery.
I read this for the 52 Week Book Challenge, which challenges you to read a book a week. Week One was on the theme of the “locked room” mystery. This novel is a variation of the “locked room mystery”: that is, the main characters are in a literal or figurative locked room, with no one able to enter or exit, when a crime, usually a murder, occurs. A well-known version of the the “locked room mystery” is Agatha Christie’s “Murder on the Orient Express.” The victim is murdered aboard the famous luxury train while it is moving: hence, the murderer had to be one of the passengers. A key element of the locked-room mystery is the mutual fear and suspicion the characters, who are usually strangers from different walks of life, have for each other. Another element is the claustrophobia as there is no way out of the locked room.In this particular telling of the locked room story, the locked room is an island, the fictional island of Inis, specifically, in a remote area off the Atlantic coast of Connemara, a region in western Ireland. The main characters–the bride, groom, bride’s sister, the groomsmen, and so forth–have all gathered there for the destination wedding of Jules, a famous blogger and influencer, and her TV star fiance, Will. The wedding is orchestrated by Aoife, the wedding planner, local, and owner of the inn where the wedding takes place. One of the wedding party will wind up murdered, and the rest of the guests as well as Aoife will fall under suspicion. As is also traditional in this kind of story, most characters have a motive for killing the victim.The story was a little slow at first but picks up in the middle. It is artfully told through multiple points of view of the guests and the wedding planner with their individual perspectives on the other characters and the story events. The narrative also moves back and forth in time, until focusing on that one fateful moment: the murder.This is a worthwhile read for lovers of the mystery genre.

While choosing this book, I came across a few descriptions that compared this book to those by Agatha Christie. This book, however, is no classic murder mystery; in fact, the identity of the victim is revealed only 90% into the book. What this book is, though, is a very good psychological thriller!A reality show star, Will, and an online publishing celebrity, Jules, host their wedding on a remote Irish island that is beautiful and eerie in turn. The presence of the cormorant birds on the island, a harbinger of evil and death as per folklore, quickly indicate the direction that the book will take. The main cast of characters also include Will’s best man Johnno, Jules’ best friend Charles and his wife Hannah, Jules’ half-sister Olivia, the event manager Aoife and her husband Freddy, and an assortment of family and friends. As the book progresses, it becomes clear that most of the characters harbour dark secrets, and these are revealed slowly, layer by layer, leading to the climatic revelations.I do not consider most murder mysteries, including those of Agatha Christie, as particularly well-written — after all, the focus is on the mystery rather than on the writing. However, The Guest List is a notable exception. Foley writes very well and has a nice turn of phrase. At the same time, her writing is very easy to follow so that the reader can spend her energy in thinking about the various characters and their secrets, rather than in keeping pace with the story. The construct of the book is interesting with the events of the wedding evening narrated in the third person interspersed with those of earlier in the day and of the preceding evening narrated in the first person by Aoife, Hannah, Jules, Johnno, and Olivia. The story is told in the present tense throughout, and this along with the vivid descriptions, makes it extremely immersive for the reader.The pace is languid but at no time will the reader’s interest flag — the slow peeling of the finer details and the interesting psychological studies of the various characters ensure that. The only fault to find, if any, is that some of the standard tropes of a murder mystery have been used, enabling us to guess the identity of the victim and the perpetrator as we progress through the book. But that does not detract from the enjoyment of reading it one bit!Pros: Extremely well written, interesting construct, unputdownableCons: Somewhat predictable before the end

The guest list a tous les ingrédients du parfait Thriller/Qui est le coupable : un lieu clos, un décor dépaysant et peu rassurant, un cadavre, une poignée de suspects…J’ai beaucoup aimé la narration : le narrateur change à chaque chapitre et il y a deux Time Lines : le moment du meurtre et quelques heures avant.On essaie de savoir qui est le coupable … sans succès pour ma part ! Je recommande !

“Everything seems changed on this island. It’s as though the place is doing it, that we’ve been brought here for a reason.” (The Guest List, p. 340)Lucy Foley continues the grand tradition of island-bound mysteries pioneered by Agatha Christie (And Then There Were None, Evil Under the Sun) and carried forward by such luminaries as P.D. James (The Lighthouse, The Skull Beneath the Skin).Having enjoyed Foley’s first excursion into the crime/mystery genre, The Hunting Party (2018), I was keen to read The Guest List when it was released. My feeling is that this book shows the author’s growing assuredness writing in this genre.Close family and friends gather for a wedding at the exclusive Folly on Inis an Amplóra (which we’re told translates to Cormorant Island), a fictional island off the coast from Connemara, south-western Eire. Bride Julia “Jules” Keegan and Groom Will Slater are an attractive and high-powered couple, but both have their fair share of family issues and skeletons from the past. The picturesque but windswept island, surrounded by crumbling cliffs, freezing waters and dangerous currents, provides an appropriately dramatic venue for simmering tensions and old grudges to come to the fore, as the bridal party gather for a dinner on the night before the wedding. Even the land itself isn’t safe with perilous peat bogs (“turf”) to trap the unwary and local stories of hauntings by past islanders who died gruesome deaths at the hand of invaders.There are strong similarities between the books, in terms of structure and style, which is perhaps not entirely surprising. Like The Hunting Party, The Guest List also features a multi-perspective narrative, and a short-period split time device – every few chapters, we flash forward to read a tantalising glimpse from the period immediately after the discovery of the murder. The vast majority of the novel is focussed on the build-up to the crime, the relationships and interractions of the characters which form the basis for someone acting upon their murderous intent – but who? As with The Hunting Party, Foley withholds the identity of the victim from the reader until the latter stages, adding to the tension and mystery considerably. It was only at about the 3/4 point of the book that I formed a fairly clear idea of who was most likely to end up dead!I felt the development of the characters was thorough and convincing, and the multi-layered plot and tangle of motives excellent. Foley uses misdirection and reveals very cleverly to maintain tension and mystery right to the last few pages. The short chapters and multiple view points made this a fast and stimulating book to read.Highly recommended – I can’t wait for Ms. Foley’s next release!