The Guest List by Lucy Foley: Book Review

If you’re drawn to thrillers cantered on confined locations, buried family secrets, and multiple viewpoints, then The Guest List is well worth your time.

Synopsis: The Guest List

A wedding to die for. Literally.

On a windswept island off the coast of Ireland, the wedding of the year is about to unfold. The bride, a fiercely ambitious magazine editor. The groom, a charming television star. Their elite guest list, flown in for a lavish weekend of luxury, secrecy, and celebration.

But as the storm rolls in, so do the secrets.

The champagne flows, but tensions bubble beneath the surface.
Old rivalries resurface.
Rehearsed smiles crack.
And someone doesn’t make it off the island alive.

In the vein of Agatha Christie with a contemporary bite, The Guest List is a slow-burning psychological thriller where everyone has a motive—and the biggest question isn’t just who did it, but who was it done to?

On this guest list, everyone has something to hide—and someone has murder in mind.

Review: The Guest List

The Guest List is a suspenseful thriller set on a remote island off the coast of Ireland, where a high-profile wedding between a television star and a magazine publisher is about to take place. But as storm clouds gather—both literally and figuratively—the celebration quickly turns ominous, and secrets begin to unravel.

Let’s address the obvious comparison: The Guest List shares clear echoes of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None—a stormy island, a cast of interconnected characters, and a murder mystery at its heart. But that’s not necessarily a criticism. Most genres have familiar plot lines or tropes, and what separates an average story from a great one is how well the author handles them.

Lucy Foley does an excellent job of embracing and elevating these tropes. By setting the story during a glamorous wedding, she creates a high-stakes atmosphere laced with tension, where long-buried secrets are slowly revealed. As the narrative unfolds, the connections between the guests—hidden, strained, or shocking—start to surface.

Told from multiple perspectives, each chapter is grounded in a single character’s voice, which gives the reader an intimate glimpse into their thoughts and motives. Foley also employs subtle time shifts, moving between past and present, which helps build suspense and keep the reader guessing.

Conclusion

Is The Guest List a perfect thriller? Not quite. Some plot elements stretch credibility a little, but Foley’s skilful writing and relentless pacing keep everything just within the bounds of believability.

If you’re drawn to thrillers cantered on confined locations, buried family secrets, and multiple viewpoints, then The Guest List is well worth your time. It’s a sharp, atmospheric mystery that keeps the pages turning until the very end.

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Mark.