The Guest List

By: Lucy Foley

Narrated by: Olivia Dowd, Aoife McMahon, Chloe Massey, Sarah Ovens, Rich Keeble, Jot Davies

Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's Summary

The number one Sunday Times best seller. 

Waterstone's Thriller of the Month.

The June 2020 Reese's Book Club pick.

The Times Best Crime Fiction of the Year pick.

Goodreads Choice Awards winner for Crime & Mystery 2020.

Longlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger award.

On an island off the windswept Irish coast, guests gather for the wedding of the year – the marriage of Jules Keegan and Will Slater. Old friends.

Past grudges. Happy families.Hidden jealousies. Thirteen guests.One body. The wedding cake has barely been cut when one of the guests is found dead. And as a storm unleashes its fury on the island, everyone is trapped.

All have a secret. All have a motive.One guest won’t leave this wedding alive....

©2020 Lucy Foley (P)2019 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Critic Reviews

"Both a classic whodunnit and a very contemporary psychological thriller that left me guessing right to the end – a wonderful read." (Kate Mosse) 

"Great fun. Lucy Foley is really very clever." (Anthony Horowitz)  

"A very modern Agatha Christie for the new roaring 20s...secrets and lies at every turn." (Sarah Pinborough) 

Exceptionally good!

Loved the story and the narration was outstanding. I did not want this book to finish, it was so good.

It came good

in order to build the characters and detail their history, the 1st part is incredibly slow and boring. To be fair, there is no easy way around this. As we near the end, the switching between character narratives is more frequent which adds to the sense of increased pace and I was more engaged. I feared that the ending would be over the top but it was neatly handled.

Great story, narrators leave much to be desired

Loved this story, but couldn’t help being jarred throughout by the shoddy narration. I found some of the voices very false and ‘try hard’, sort of reminiscent of a high school dramatic reading. I don’t want to detract from the book too much though - the plot and story were fantastic.

Very good!

I really liked this story. It reminded me of “Murder on the Orient Express” where there is a murder that everyone on the island had a motive to commit. The truth of each character unravels as the story evolves revealing who the victim is, the ties of the victim to each of the party guests, and ultimately the final showdown. It was interesting and entertaining listening to the different perspectives of the characters with the different narrators. Overall, a very good listen.

not that great

not such a great storyline, Will was not that a strong caracter and felt a bit bland. narrators were excelleng

Beautifully narrated

I loved The Guest List. The narration was great and the story kept me hooked right to the end.

Love love LOVE

This is one where the audiobook is essential! Loved the different voices, the different secrets and the crazy twists! Wow!

surprised I got to the end of this

first start with the positives I like the way the book was put together jumping from one person's perspective to the other.

I really felt this book very tedious the male characters were just so two-dimensional and boring.

Better than The Hunting

Definitely recommend!! I was nearly put off by the comments, so happy I wasn't

What a Huge Let Down after The Hunting Party

I adored "The Hunting Party" and when I saw this promising thriller coming up I preordered it with on the spot and was so looking forward to it - but what a huge letdown.

I liked the structure, telling the story from The Bride, The Groom, The Bridesmaid, The Plus One etc. and the narration was good.

I liked the "10 Little" by Agatha Christie-style format, which "The Hunting Party" also had a feel of and the remote Irish Island was a great setting though hard to believe on a small island that a fortress would be re-purposed as a folly!

But that sadly is only the beginning of the improbabilities which come thick and fast and the whole book just dd not seem to have the effortless flow or brooding atmosphere of the previous "Hunting Party". For starters it is an unlikely venue for a celeb wedding - plus by the sound of these attention seekers, they would have been hoping to sell the pics to the likes of Hello magazine and get all the exposure they could which would be tough on a remote, weather battered island surrounded by choppy seas.

In Chistie's "10 Little" whodunnit and the current seeming glut of new thrillers paying homage to it, there has to be some sort of device to get the guests to their destination ... but really what on earth would be the chances of a glam couple like this not finding a more practical and desirable wedding venue than this one - even if they were being paid to hold it there.

Then as the story unfolds the backstories become so contrived as to be ridiculous - especially bearing in mind that Ireland is the kind of place where it is more one degree rather than six of separation and everyone basically knows who everyone is and secrets are hard to keep.

I did like some of the twists and perhaps if the events that predated the wedding had happened in another continent it might have been more plausible - but people talk and no more so than in Ireland so hard to believe that a secret so big would have not been common knowledge.

Beyond everyone surely knowing everything about everyone, the story just did not keep me hooked and I lost interest and abandoned audiobook long before the "Boats at Midnight" were due ... speaking of which as IF you could get Irish wedding guests to leave at such a ridiculously early hour, sure the party would be just getting going then, murder or no murder!

Yes a mystery but...

Every character was dull, no one to like, no ones side to be on. No humour, all voices flat and no intonation. Listened all the way through hoping it would engage me. Didn't happen.

Well read enjoyable listen

Like the hunting party these books aren’t going to win the booker prize. You have to go into it expecting fairly one dimensional cliche characters and that’s the fun of it! They’re just a bit of guilty pleasure listen. It’s brilliantly narrated and having a different narrater for every character really adds to the story. I also found this to be a much more satisfying ending than the end of the hunting party. Can’t wait for the next one

Awful read!

Language not great!
Storyline shallow!
Was recommended by a friend - really disappointed!
Really Awful book!

Beautifully done

A mix of Lord of the Flies meets Ten Little Indians and a wonderful whodunnit. Didn’t want it to end.

Brilliant

lots of twists and turns. really enjoyed the different perspectives. would highly recommend. Good performance too.

Enjoyed This

It's an easy read but quite clever, I enjoyed it and all the narrators were very good.

Bloody brilliant

Loved it, I was gripped from the beginning. The narrators were very good and the story was gripping till the end.