Lucy Foley’s ‘The Guest List’: Murder and intrigue at a secret celebrity wedding

If you are active on Goodreads, you may have spotted The Guest List (William Morrow, 2020) by Lucy Foley on your feed. It's hard to miss, being the winner of the Goodreads Choice Awards in 2020 in the Mystery and Thriller genre. The reviews I came across were, frankly, quite mixed. Some would not stop gushing about it, some thought it was a waste of their time, and some revealed nothing of their opinion with a vague 3-star rating (read; me). But I have been trying to figure out why so many readers, whose tastes typically match mine, did not enjoy it, and I think I may have figured it out. 

The Guest List is a classic who-dun-it murder mystery, reminiscent of Dame Agatha Christie's stories. Lucy Foley's second novel takes us to a lavish celebrity wedding on a remote island off-coast of Ireland. Isolated from network and civilisation, the guests are teetering between nervousness and excitement, and the bride is trying her best to not transform into a bridezilla. However, secrets are lurking beneath the facade, ones that could not only ruin the wedding but upend the lives of those in the wedding party. But now, a body has been found... which means there is a murderer amongst them.

Foley creates a striking visual of a hauntingly beautiful island of greenery, jagged rocks, and the unforgiving sea. The gloomy atmosphere in the book seeps out of the pages as the stories unfold. Told from multiple perspectives of the wedding party, its thrilling plot is one that you can whizz through, as you try to figure out which narrator is unreliable and who you can trust.

Although categorised under Mystery and Thriller, I think the story favours the mystery aspect of it more, with a generous dash of drama. This might be why a lot of readers didn't enjoy the book; they came in looking for something to spook them but were left with a character-driven plot that was predictable.

Author Lucy Foley studied English liter­ature at Durham University and University College London and has worked as a fiction edi­tor in the publishing industry. Photo: Philippa Gedge

That's not to say I didn't enjoy it; I do love my fair share of family dramas and scandalous secrets in a story. On the one hand, most of the plot twists were obvious, which I understand can be annoying to most readers, although I didn't mind as much, because I was thoroughly invested in the characters by that time. The book does, however, end quite abruptly, and though all subplots are tied up and justified, there just isn't enough time to enjoy the wrap-up.

Lucy Foley's writing kept me hooked, enough that I was able to finish the novel in a single night. The atmosphere she creates is perfectly balanced, reeling us into the characters just enough to not be caught off guard every time a perspective is switched. Every little clue Foley drops is important, and one must pay close attention to the details. Her pacing of a build-up is well done, feeding readers with enough periodic revelations to throw them off track. Despite calling it predictable, I was surprised that I wasn't able to guess the ending at all.

I would suggest that readers not go into The Guest List expecting a thriller, because, in all honesty, it does a quite bad job of it. But if you want a quick read to boost you out of a slump or keep you on the edge for a few hours, this book is one to do just that!

Sharfin Islam, alias A Tiny Reader, is an admirer of art and a devourer of fiction. A feminist and an ambivert, she loves to share her little world on her little blog on Instagram.