The Guest List

Don't miss Lucy Foley's latest book, The Midnight Feast!

A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BEST THRILLERS OF THE YEAR

“I loved this book. It gave me the same waves of happiness I get from curling up with a classic Christie...The alternating points of view keep you guessing, and guessing wrong.” — Alex Michaelides, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Silent Patient

"Evok[es] the great Agatha Christie classics…Pay close attention to seemingly throwaway details about the characters’ pasts. They are all clues.” ― New York Times Book Review

A wedding celebration turns dark and deadly in this deliciously wicked and atmospheric psychological thriller reminiscent of Agatha Christie from the New York Times bestselling author of The Hunting Party.

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 for a remote wedding 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 in this gripping whodunit.

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.

Hello and welcome to my author page! Whether you’ve read my books before, are thinking of trying one out or just landed here by chance (or fate…?) it’s great to see you!

I’m the No.1 New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author of The Hunting Party, The Guest List and most recently The Midnight Feast. It’s set at a luxury new countryside resort built on old secrets beside an ancient wood. The opening weekend takes place during a heatwave (and with a big summer solstice celebration) and temperatures and tensions are rising, the local community is incensed by the influx of wealthy newcomers and some unexpected guests have come to stay. Then a body is found…

A little about me: I always knew I wanted to work with books somehow, so I studied English at university before working in a bookshop, a literary agency and then as a fiction editor at a big publishing house, during which time I realised that every book starts off as a messy first draft full of plot holes and mistakes. I thought I’d have a go at writing myself — the result of which was my first historical fiction novel, The Book of Lost and Found. I wrote two more historicals, The Invitation and Last Letter to Istanbul, before turning to the dark side and writing my first crime thriller, The Hunting Party: my first Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller and Waterstones Book of the Month, set over New Year’s Eve at a remote, snowy spot in the Scottish Highlands.

Next came The Guest List, a murder mystery set at a wedding on an island off the coast of Ireland, which was a Reese’s Book Club pick, a Goodreads Choice Awards winner, a Waterstones Book of the Month, and has sold over three million copies. Then came The Paris Apartment, which is a number one New York Times bestseller and Sunday Times bestseller.

My books have been translated into over 40 languages and all three murder mysteries are currently being adapted for TV and film.

I’ve also written a short story for the brand new Marple collection, a brand new series of short stories featuring Agatha Christie’s legendary detective Jane Marple, alongside writers such as Val McDermid, Kate Mosse, Alyssa Cole, Ruth Ware and Leigh Bardugo, out September 2022 to coincide with Christie’s birthday!

If you enjoy my books or want to say hi, I’d love to hear from you: I’m @lucyfoleytweets on Twitter and @lucyfoleyauthor on Instagram, or you can check out my Facebook author page @lucyfoleyauthor Hope to see you there! And if you click the yellow 'follow' button, Amazon will send you an email when I have a new release, or if there's a promotion you might be interested in. It's the best way to make sure you never miss a book!

#TheMidnightFeast #TheParisApartment #TheGuestList #TheHuntingParty

“This thrilling page turner will have you guessing until the very end.” - OK! Magazine

“[Foley’s] puzzle is solid, she plays fair with the reader, and overall her story is swift and entertaining.” - Seattle Times

“This juicy murder mystery is a perfect Agatha Christie–esque summer read.” - Afar Magazine

"Easily my favorite book of 2020 so far...Will keep you guessing until the very end." - Better Homes & Gardens

"A swank celebrity wedding on a remote island with spotty cell service? What could go wrong? Lap up the luxe details, then hold your breath for dark twists as a guest turns up dead." - People

“Lap up the luxe details, then hold your breath for dark twists." - People

“The one thing you can expect from Foley's novels? That you'll probably never guess the twist...or should we say twists when it comes to her latest bestseller…you'll never see the ending coming. RSVP at your own risk.” - E! Online

"A delightfully suspenseful thriller. ... Set in such an isolated location, with a fairly small cast of characters, The Guest List feels a bit like a modern Agatha Christie novel. It is a fast-paced, intriguing mystery." - Shelf Awareness

“No one may have come to the island intending to murder, but this destination wedding spirals into mayhem when it’s slowly revealed that most everyone in attendance is capable of becoming a lusting-for-revenge killer.”


- Washington Post
"Wedding season means a thrilling web of mystery in The Guest List." - Parade

"An Agatha Christie-like thriller." - Huffington Post

"Lucy Foley gets better with every book...The characters leap off the page, the twists are darker and more unexpected, and the setting is straight out of a Gothic novel...Yes, there's a murder, but there's so much more than that. (The twists, I admit, are pretty good too.)" - Marie Claire

“Foley delivers another atmospheric, Agatha Christie-style whodunit with The Guest List. The multiple points of view will keep you guessing right until the end.” - Buzzfeed

“Lucy Foley has honed her unique brand of reverse-whodunit suspense down to a science—and thank goodness for that. ... The Guest List—set at a ritzy wedding-gone-wrong on a remote Scottish isle—starts with a murder, and then plays a game of keep-away with the victim’s identity until the very last pages.” - Harper's Bazaar

“There's clues on nearly every page, but no spoilers here. Needless to say, you'll be up late flipping through your Kindle until all is revealed.” - Mashable

“With a dizzying array of suspects, this delicious thriller has all the elements for the perfect whodunit.” - Columbus Dispatch

“Foley expertly peels back the layers of eight highly suspicious members of the wedding party, and all with murderous secrets. This summer best seller, a Reese's Book Club pick, will keep you transfixed to the end.” - AARP Magazine

Lucy Foley’s The Guest List is a gripping, atmospheric psychological thriller that masterfully modernizes the classic locked-room mystery. Set on a remote, rugged, and completely isolated island off the windswept coast of Ireland, the novel centers on what is supposed to be the spectacular, celebrity wedding of the year. The golden couple consists of Jules Keegan, an ambitious and fiercely driven digital magazine publisher, and Will Slater, a ruggedly handsome and universally adored television survival star. On the surface, the event is a meticulously curated display of perfection, complete with designer dresses, boutique whiskey, and an exclusive guest list. However, from the moment the guests arrive on the eerie island, an unsettling tension begins to brew. As a fierce, violent storm rolls in, cutting the island off from the mainland and plunging the wedding reception into complete darkness, a terrified scream rings out. A body is discovered, and it becomes immediately clear that someone at this glamorous celebration is a cold-blooded killer.

The narrative unfolds through shifting, first-person perspectives, slowly peeling back the polished veneer of the wedding party to reveal a tangled web of dark secrets, deep-seated resentments, and hidden traumas. Foley brilliantly utilizes this multi-viewpoint structure to keep the reader guessing, alternating between the days leading up to the wedding and the chaotic, terrifying night of the murder. We hear from Jules, the bride, who is obsessed with control but plagued by anonymous threatening notes; Will, the groom, whose charismatic exterior masks a deeply sinister and narcissistic nature; Johnno, the best man, a chaotic and desperate figure who shares a dark, toxic history with Will from their days at an elite boys’ boarding school; Olivia, the bridesmaid and Jules’s fragile younger half-sister, who is harboring a devastating secret that is slowly tearing her apart; Hannah, the plus-one, who is trying to hold her marriage together while feeling entirely out of place among the elite guests; and Aoife, the enigmatic wedding planner, who knows the dangerous island better than anyone and seems to have her own hidden agenda for hosting the event.

As the alcohol flows and the storm outside mirrors the escalating emotional turbulence inside, the intricate connections between the characters are masterfully revealed. The novel is fundamentally a study of toxic masculinity, privilege, and the destructive power of buried secrets. Through a series of perfectly timed flashbacks, the reader learns that Will’s golden-boy persona is a complete fabrication. During his time at the elite boarding school, he was the cruel, manipulative ringleader of a vicious survival-of-the-fittest culture, forcing Johnno to participate in a devastating hazing ritual that resulted in a young boy's death. Furthermore, Will's destructive behavior didn't end in his youth. The narrative slowly exposes how his monstrous selfishness has recently shattered the lives of almost every other narrator. He is the cause of Olivia’s deep trauma and suicidal depression, having ruthlessly exploited her. He is also intertwined with the past of Hannah’s husband, Charlie, threatening to destroy their seemingly happy marriage.

The brilliance of Foley's plot lies in the dual mystery: for the majority of the book, the reader knows neither the identity of the killer nor the identity of the victim. It is only in the heart-pounding climax that the pieces finally click together. When the lights go out in the reception tent and the body is found, it is revealed that the victim is Will himself. Rather than a traditional whodunit where one deranged killer is on the loose, the narrative twists into a scenario where almost everyone on the island has a valid, deeply personal motive to want the groom dead. The final, shocking twist reveals that Aoife, the wedding planner, is the sister of the young boy who died during Will and Johnno's sadistic school game years ago. She orchestrated the entire wedding on this deadly island to enact her long-awaited revenge, striking the final, fatal blow in the darkness after another guest had already injured him.

Ultimately, The Guest List is a deliciously dark, incredibly suspenseful exploration of karma and the lengths people will go to in order to protect themselves or avenge the ones they love. The remote, inescapable island setting creates an intense feeling of claustrophobia that makes the story impossible to put down. Because you are a massive fan of the convenience and portability offered by digital reading platforms like Kindle and Google Books, this captivating thriller is a phenomenal addition to your library. You can easily download a free ebook sample today to get a taste of Foley’s immersive, chilling writing style. The digital format is absolutely perfect for a complex, multi-perspective mystery like this, allowing you to effortlessly search back through the text to uncover the cleverly hidden clues you might have missed along the way!