Book Review - The Guest List - Lucy Foley

Title: The Guest List
Series: -
Author: Lucy Foley
 
Description: On a small island off the coast of West Ireland, guests have gathered for the wedding. The bride and groom are online magazine publisher Julia “Jules” Keegan and celebrity host and survivalist Will Slater. They’ve gathered their relatives and loved ones to celebrate in true destination wedding style, with plenty of champagne and fashionable people. But as a storm brews, the guests and their shared histories collide with one another, and when the lights go out, a body is found. Between Will’s old boarding school friends and Jules’s close friends and relatives, there’s plenty of secrets and intrigue to around. As old secrets get revealed, the question remains is, who did it and why?
 
Review: Jules and Will can’t believe their luck. The day has finally arrived: their wedding on a beautiful island off the Irish coast. While the final preparations are being made and the guest are slowly arriving, a storm breaks out outside. No one can leave the island. Old sores arise, long forgotten feuds are fought over and the mood on the island becomes increasingly grim. But no one could suspect that one of the guests was capable of murder. Everyone has secrets. Everyone has a motive. One of them will not leave the island alive. But who?
 
In “The Guest List” we follow several characters including Jules. Jules is thirty-foir and the owner of a successful magazine. She is about to marry her fiancé Will who is also very successful himself. In fact, he is a well-known actor of the television program Survive the Night. With such a successful couple comes a wedding that is arranged down to last detail. For Jules, that means a wedding on a remote island. The story is told from a wide range of perspectives and from different characters: the bride, groom, groomsmen, a half-sister, wedding planner and the plus-one. It is the perfect set-up for a classic whodunit type story. It’s filled with secrets, lies and betrayal.
 
Lucy Foley has managed to create a very strong and exciting whodunit. I was into the story from chapter one. The setting is perfect for a story like this and I could totally picture it. Telling the story from multiple perspectives makes it more interesting. You don’t only get to know the characters better, it also adds to the mystery of it all. They all seem like loose ends at first, but eventually they are all tied together. Foley did this very well, working toward that final conclusion.
 
Foley created interesting characters, all with their own stories, secrets and histories. Everyone remained mysterious up until the unfolding of the story. A number of plot twists in the story were very surprising, which is really hard to accomplish these days.  
 
I’ve always loved whodunit stories. A good murder mystery is difficult to write Lucy Foley did an amazing job and created a modern mystery with classic touches. And I really enjoyed Foley’s writing style. This was my introduction to her, so I will be checking out more of her work.

Rating: 4,5/ 5