The Guest List
Lucy Foley, 2020
Mystery, thriller & crime Contemporary fiction
A wedding on a remote Irish island, a body, and a guest list full of people with reasons to lie. A tight, uneasy read that keeps you watching every guest, with a satirical edge cutting through the dread and the island's eerie calm.
Feels like dread and serenity. About morality and home.
Who it’s for
You may enjoy this if you like closed-circle mysteries where everyone has something to hide. Be aware the story moves between many narrators and shifts in time, so it asks you to keep track of who is speaking and when.
Why read it
A good pick when you want a tense, gossipy puzzle with a sharp eye on class and manners, and a wedding setting that curdles slowly.
A page from the book
When anger arrives as relief, because it clears everything else away.
The rage is growing inside me, overtaking the shock and grief. I can feel it blossoming up behind my ribs. It’s almost a relief, how it obliterates every other feeling in its path. Lucy Foley.Lucy Foley worked as a fiction editor in London before writing full-time; The Guest List was a Reese's Book Club pick.
Books that feel like this
More by Lucy Foley
The Hunting Party
Lucy Foley, 2019
A New Year's reunion of old friends at a snowbound Highland estate, where one of them will not survive the year — and everyone has a reason.
The Midnight Feast
Lucy Foley, 2024
A wellness retreat opens on the Dorset coast: white linen, clean food, old grudges. The village remembers everything the guests are paying to forget.
The Paris Apartment
Lucy Foley, 2022
A broke young woman arrives in Paris to stay with her brother, but he has vanished and his neighbors are lying.
Where to get it
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Questions readers ask
- Is The Guest List for me?
- You may enjoy this if you like closed-circle mysteries where everyone has something to hide. Be aware the story moves between many narrators and shifts in time, so it asks you to keep track of who is speaking and when.
- What is The Guest List like?
- A tight, uneasy read that keeps you watching every guest, with a satirical edge cutting through the dread and the island's eerie calm. Feels like dread and serenity. About morality and home.
- What should I read after The Guest List?
- If you liked The Guest List, try Fourth Wing (Rebecca Yarros), The Teacher (Freida McFadden) and The Perfect Divorce (Jeneva Rose).
A taste of the feed
The bargain at the heart of every dragon bond, in two sentences.
A dragon without its rider is a tragedy. A rider without their dragon is dead.
Fourth Wing · Rebecca Yarros
What it feels like to be grateful for your life and wish it over.
I am so lucky. I have a beautiful house, a fulfilling career, and a husband who is kind and mild mannered and incredibly handsome. And as Nate pulls the car onto the road and starts driving in the direction of the school, all I can think to myself is that I hope a truck blows through a stop sign, plows into the Honda, and kills us both instantly.
The Teacher · Freida McFadden
Money can be earned back; the other thing can't.
I respect time more than anything as it’s our most valuable resource. Money comes and goes, but time only goes. Not a lot of people realize that. When you give someone your time, what you’re really giving them is a piece of you, and that’s why you have to be careful with it.
The Perfect Divorce · Jeneva Rose
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