The Guest List
Genre : Mystery Thriller | Author : Lucy Foley (June 2, 2020) | Running Time : 10h 22m
Narrators: Jot Davies, Chloe Massey, Olivia Dowd, Aoife McMahon, Sarah Ovens, and Rich Keeble.
I am back with my third mystery thriller read of this year – The Guest List by Lucy Foley (June 2, 2020). Like my first two reads of this month, this is also my first read by this British author and I can tell you right away I will be going back to reading few more from her this year!
The Hunting Party (2018) and The Paris Apartment (2022) by Lucy Foley are already in added to Audible Wishlist.
The Guest List has been compared by many reviewers to classic thriller style, a reminiscent of Agatha Christie like thriller. A wedding, many old secrets and a murder off on a eerie island.
This was one of my fastest reads of this years, finishing it in 3 days straight! Yes I did get a bit carried away by the story, pushing my bed time to a little after 11pm! What can I say?? I just couldn’t put the book down, or my iPods down!
Unlike the The Secret Keeper of Jaipur by Alka Joshi, where I didn’t enjoy the story that was read by multiple narrators, I thoroughly enjoyed listening to The Guest List.
Read by an excellent cast –Jot Davies, Chloe Massey, Olivia Dowd, Aoife McMahon, Sarah Ovens, and Rich Keeble, I for one was loving all the different accents.
The Story
Julia ‘Jules’ Keegan, publisher of a successful online magazine Download, and the handsome Will Slater, rising star of TV show Survival, are getting married in an exclusive event being organized by wedding planner, Aoife and catered for by her husband, Freddy on a remote island off the coast of Ireland.
On the night of the wedding a scream rings- a murder has taken place. As the search party of ushers goes out , the book shifts perspective – following the bride (Jules), the plus-one (Hannah), the best man (Johnno), the wedding planner (Aoife), and the bridesmaid (Olivia).
The story, a narrative, as told from multiple perspectives moves back and forth in time- the past and the present. The identity of the victim is not revealed up until the end of the book.
Foley introduces the main characters in the first few chapters. Each character bringing their secrets, insecurities, and grudges along to the island.
The weather and setting of the island adds to the sense of impending doom that permeates the entire story. As the storm builds up, the many secrets each character holds slowly surface and the tension mounts.
My Take
Foley has done a exceptional job at writing a engrossing crime thriller, attaching each character to one main character. Each character with their own different back stories. A psychological fiction that envelops the reader with strong writing and plotting.
She takes the entire cast of characters making each one look as guilty as the rest. Never giving away the killer. It isn’t so much about whodunit but about how she keeps you engrossed for the most of the story. All the way until the final reveal!
Right from the beginning of the story, you feel a impending sense of doom. A feeling that will stay with you all the way until the end.
“Life is messy. We all know this. Terrible things happen, I learned that while I was still a child. But no matter what happens, life is only a series of days. You can’t control more than a single day. But you can control one of them.”
The Guest List
I enjoyed the part of how you don’t even know who the victim is for most of the story. What took me most by surprise was the reveal of the bridesmaid’s secret. I did not see that coming at all.
It felt a bit anticlimactic at the very end, but I still enjoyed the story getting to that point. As in most fictional stories, one has to give the writer a bit of free hand. Not everything in the story has to follow logic. After all it’s all creative imagination.
A fabulous crime read for a lazy weekend! The high point of the story for me was that the victim’s identity is not revealed until nearly at the end of the story!
“It’s always better to get it out in the open – even if it feels shameful, even if you feel like people will judge you for it.”
The Guest List
What have you been reading this month? Do tell! I will be taking a break from thriller for a few weeks and would love to hear any recommendations you may have.
“Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.” ~ Mother Teresa