Sharon's Book & Wine Club - August 2020

The Guest List by Lucy Foley

The bride ‧ The plus one ‧ The best man ‧ The wedding planner ‧ The bridesmaid ‧ The body

On an island off the coast of Ireland, guests gather to celebrate two people joining their lives together as one. The groom: handsome and charming, a rising television star. The bride: smart and ambitious, a magazine publisher. It’s a wedding for a magazine, or for a celebrity: the designer dress, the remote location, the luxe party favors, the boutique whiskey. The cell phone service may be spotty and the waves may be rough, but every detail has been expertly planned and will be expertly executed.

But perfection is for plans, and people are all too human. As the champagne is popped and the festivities begin, resentments and petty jealousies begin to mingle with the reminiscences and well wishes. The groomsmen begin the drinking game from their school days. The bridesmaid not-so-accidentally ruins her dress. The bride’s oldest (male) friend gives an uncomfortably caring toast.

And then someone turns up dead. Who didn’t wish the happy couple well? And perhaps more important, why?

Summary by GoodReads.

Join My Book Club!

Buy the Book

Reviews

For this month’s book club, I selected The Guest List, by Lucy Foley. 

There’s something about August that I’ve always enjoyed. Here in Virginia, August is the height of summer – long days on the porch, fireflies sparkling at night, and beautiful, fragrant golden asters and sunflowers.

August to me usually means traveling with my family, so I picked a book that will send us on a thrilling journey. That’s why I’ve saved this summer’s biggest crime thriller for this season’s last gasp.

While not historical fiction per se, the setting – a centuries old castle on a remote island off the coast of Ireland – was enough to satisfy my love for history and capture my imagination.

In a world obsessed with finding the next cutting-edge thing, sometimes the smartest way to stand out is to get back to basics. British author Lucy Foley has made a name for herself with two suspense novels that do exactly that, the newest of which will release in the US this summer. THE GUEST LIST is a delectable blend of Agatha Christie inspiration and modern-day psychological suspense. This is a “locked room mystery” built for the readers of 2020: a story concerned with secrets—among spouses, partners, and siblings—and their deadly collision. Set on a remote island off the coast of Ireland, THE GUEST LIST gives readers an exclusive invitation to one of the most buzzed-about parties of the year: the wedding of a powerhouse digital magazine editor and a TV golden boy. The wedding has been planned to perfection; the only wild card here is the wedding’s guest list. Will this reunion of old friends, classmates, and family go as smoothly as our bride and groom hope? Or will old secrets and resentments rear their ugly heads? When a storm traps the wedding party on the island, tensions ratchet up until someone winds up dead. With as much of an eye for high fashion and high-stakes secrets as it has for traditional crime novel structure and inspiration, THE GUEST LIST is a perfect reminder of why the classics never go out of style.

Plot Details:

The bride ‧ The plus one ‧ The best man ‧ The wedding planner ‧ The bridesmaid ‧ The body

On an island off the coast of Ireland, guests gather to celebrate two people joining their lives together as one. The groom: handsome and charming, a rising television star. The bride: smart and ambitious, a magazine publisher. It’s a wedding for a magazine, or for a celebrity: the designer dress, the remote location, the luxe party favors, the boutique whiskey. The cell phone service may be spotty and the waves may be rough, but every detail has been expertly planned and will be expertly executed.

But perfection is for plans, and people are all too human. As the champagne is popped and the festivities begin, resentments and petty jealousies begin to mingle with the reminiscences and well wishes. The groomsmen begin the drinking game from their school days. The bridesmaid not-so-accidentally ruins her dress. The bride’s oldest (male) friend gives an uncomfortably caring toast.

And then someone turns up dead. Who didn’t wish the happy couple well? And perhaps more important, why?

If Ruth Ware is writing modern-day homages to the work of Queen of Crime Agatha Christie, Lucy Foley is writing modern-day “popcorn reads” in this very same vein, just with a bit more drama and over-the-top flair. Foley’s brand of suspense writing, first established in her excellent crime debut The Hunting Party, and further cemented in THE GUEST LIST, is a delicious blend of classic crime setup and wicked, sometimes truly nasty characters with a dramatic bent. Imagine, if you will, reading a mashup of an Agatha Christie novel and a gossip tabloid: that is the best way I can think to describe the tone of Foley’s work, and I mean that in the best way possible. Foley’s books are “popcorn reads” for fans of atmospheric, classic crime-inspired suspense. They are cleverly plotted mysteries and tightly wound puzzles, and they are also irresistible human dramas and binge-worthy stories of psychological suspense.

In THE GUEST LIST, Foley puts a modern spin on the classic “locked room mystery.” The setting: a remote island off Ireland, a place haunted by the specter of a dark past—an atmospheric location perfect for a mystery. The characters: a “golden couple,” a woman who runs a highly successful digital magazine and her soon-to-be-husband, a man quickly becoming a TV icon, thanks to his starring role in a wilderness survival reality show. Oh, and let’s not forget their extended family and friends, over 100 of which are about to descend on the island when our story takes place. The occasion: the wedding of our golden couple, an event that our bride and her fastidious wedding planner have worked tirelessly to orchestrate, no detail overlooked, from the dinner menu down to the scent of candles that will be burned during the reception. It’s poised to be an event that will be talked about across the country… and it might just be, but not for the reasons our bride and groom imagine. As the wedding party reunites and rekindles long-lost friendships and flirtations, long-buried tensions begin to rise to the surface. Over the course of the wedding weekend, these tensions will simmer over into full-blown violence, and one of the group will wind up dead by the story’s end. Who will be the story’s victim? Who will be the killer? And what will be the motivation for the murder? THE GUEST LIST delivers a fresh kind of “whodunnit”—one in which the crime doesn’t come until the end of the book. The knowledge of what’s to come – and the delicious drama that ensues as we approach this deadly breaking point – will drive the reader ever forward in this irresistible suspense story.

The Guest List.jpg
While there are two characters undeniably central to this story (our bride and groom), our story isn’t confined solely to these individuals. THE GUEST has an ensemble cast of sinister figures, and Foley does a superb job fleshing out the backstories of numerous wedding-goers through a seamless use of alternating narrators. The bride, the bridesmaid, the wedding planner, a plus-one attending the wedding, and even a childhood friend of the groom take turns narrating THE GUEST LIST, drawing readers ever closer to the shocking truths at the heart of this story with their ever-shifting perspectives. Alternating narrators can be clunky and confusing if not handled expertly, but Foley is at her best here: the narrators she chooses, and the way their lives intersect, make for riveting reading. With chapters that elegantly lead from one narrator’s latest segment into the next, THE GUEST LIST is practically guaranteed to keep readers turning the pages. This structure is hugely entertaining, and it’s also essential to our ultimate understanding of the story’s central mystery. Sharp-eyed readers will begin to discover that Foley has planted all the clues they need to unravel our story’s “whodunnit” in the varying perspectives of her book’s narrators. You might start out thinking the bride and groom are the characters with the most to hide, but as it turns out, just about everyone at this wedding has something dark to hide—or something dark up their sleeve. In this glittering, glitzy crowd, everyone could be a suspect.

For a book that is in many ways true “popcorn reading,” THE GUEST LIST also has a surprising weight at its core. Much of THE GUEST LIST is spent reveling in the juicy drama and secrets of its cast of characters, but as readers explore those secrets, they will find that a number of these men and women are carrying with them heavy burdens. Much of this story is shiny, over-the-top glamour, but there are moments of real sorrow interwoven among the revelry. This is by no means a deeply twisted or disturbing book; it is hugely entertaining and a ton of fun to devour, a “popcorn read” in every sense of the word. But I found it entirely to the author’s credit that she manages to weave into this otherwise quite over-the-top suspense story a number of themes that might feel relevant to readers, from marital challenges to grief to body image and more. This cast of characters is far from likable—only a couple really evoke any sympathy!—but Foley beautifully laces their wild personas with touches of real, relatable challenges.

THE GUEST LIST is an irresistible reading experience: a “locked room mystery” that sets a luxurious wedding on a crash course with disaster. This is “popcorn reading” for Agatha Christie fans, a story with a cleverly-constructed plot and plenty of juicy secrets for readers to uncover, too. I was a huge fan of Foley’s crime debut, The Hunting Party, but I loved THE GUEST LIST even more. Similar in tone and atmosphere to The Hunting Party, THE GUEST LIST delivers an even more assured, intricate mystery for readers to tease apart. This is the kind of book you’ll want to binge-read in one or two sittings.

Crime by the Book Blog

The Guest List by Lucy Foley is a fairly entertaining mystery about a wedding from hell.


I really enjoyed Lucy’s novel The Hunting Party. It’s also a murder mystery and features interesting character development. The setting in Scottish Highlands is top-notch. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend you check that one out!

I didn’t enjoy The Guest List as much as The Hunting Party, which I’ll get into more. Don’t get me wrong—I read the story in one sitting so I was very engaged. But I had a couple issues with it.

First the synopsis
The bride – The plus one – The best man – The wedding planner – The bridesmaid – The body

On an island off the coast of Ireland, guests gather to celebrate two people joining their lives together as one. The groom: handsome and charming, a rising television star. The bride: smart and ambitious, a magazine publisher. It’s a wedding for a magazine, or for a celebrity: the designer dress, the remote location, the luxe party favors, the boutique whiskey. The cell phone service may be spotty and the waves may be rough, but every detail has been expertly planned and will be expertly executed.

But perfection is for plans, and people are all too human. As the champagne is popped and the festivities begin, resentments and petty jealousies begin to mingle with the reminiscences and well wishes. The groomsmen begin the drinking game from their school days. The bridesmaid not-so-accidentally ruins her dress. The bride’s oldest (male) friend gives an uncomfortably caring toast.


And then someone turns up dead. Who didn’t wish the happy couple well? And perhaps more important, why?

The characters
So the story is well-written and I do think it rises above most thrillers. I much prefer mystery stories over ridiculous psychological thrillers these days. And the mystery is good – predictable in some ways but also surprising too. I didn’t think though the characters were as fleshed out. And I also was downright annoyed at a couple characters.

The groom is Will. He’s a super handsome man with a rising TV career. He seems perfect but, of course, there are cracks in the veneer. Jules is the stunning bride with a successful career. She can be cruel and also has her secrets too. Hannah, is the plus-one, and her husband Charlie is best friends with Jules. She’s a stressed out mother of two hoping this weekend away will bring them closer together. Olivia is Jules’ half-sister and seems depressed. Johnno is Will’s best friend from boarding school who has plenty of issues. And Aoife is the wedding planner trying to pull off a wedding for the first time on this island.

These are all the characters we follow so quite a lot! I have to say, I did not love the big focus on the boarding school men (there’s more of them in the story; we just don’t read their perspectives). I just didn’t think those guys were very intriguing. There is a reason we follow Johnno’s perspective throughout but some of his actions just didn’t make sense and not in a “suspicious way” but in a head scratcher move from the author. If you’ve read the story, message me and I’ll tell you what I mean.

But the women are interesting. Jules is a little stereotypical but she makes some surprising choices to keep her more engaging. Olivia and Aoife are the standouts.

The setting
Once again, Lucy writes an amazing setting! The island itself is by far another character. It’s beautiful but dangerous with especially rough waters. The island is only two miles from one end to the other and is described as longer than wide. And the only way to get the island is from a private boat. The island adds to the mystery setting especially when it comes to the eventual murder.


I liked reading the details of putting the wedding together; the food they ate and just all the information that make for a more well-rounded story. Almost like you feel like you’re there but definitely glad you’re not at the same time.

Writing reviews for thrillers and mysteries are hard because I never want to give anything away! I thought this was entertaining overall and there are some surprises but also I felt some areas are too obvious. I think it was lacking a bit in character development. Still, for a quick read on a summer day, The Guest List is a pretty good choice.

Book Club Chat

Lucy Foley’s first thriller, The Hunting Party, told the story of a party of old friends snowed in at a Highland lodge when a murder occurs. It was a huge bestseller. Her second follows a similar formula – this time, it’s a wedding on a remote Irish island, where the friends are trapped by a storm. The body is, again, discovered early on, and Foley’s narrative again flits between alternative points of view: Jules, the perfectionist bride trying not to think about the mysterious note she received; the celebrity groom and his old school friends who went to the sort of horrific boarding school where “only the strong survived”; the wedding planner who thinks, “terrible things happen, I learned that while I was still a child”. Everyone appears to have a motive and a dark tragic secret in their past, and the mounting sense of doom is piled on pretty thick. It’s bound to be another hit.

The Guardian