"The Guest List" by Lucy Foley

Prologue: on the wedding night, there are 150 people in a marquee when there's a storm and a power cut.

There's a wedding on an island off the west coast of Ireland, uninhabited except for The Folly. Some of the guests stay the night before. They're mostly in their early 30s. The chances to pair off with a stranger mean that we hear introductions and drunken confessions. It's multi-PoV, though sometimes a character's vocabulary (e.g. "sussurating") and imagery surprises.

• Jules (she runs "Download" magazine and has received a note saying "Don't Marry Will") is marrying Will (a TV celeb). They haven't known each other for long.
• Olivia (19) is Jules' half-sister - a self-harmer, who wants to tell someone what she did.
• Charlie (a friend of Jules since when he taught her sailing) and Hanna (mother of 2; she and Charlie haven't had sex for a while. She's hoping the break will do them good) are guests. Hanna's sister Alice killed herself after being a victim of revenge porn. Something happened on the stag night to Charlie.
• Eefor (organiser) and Freddie own the venue - The Folly.
• The school mates of Will include Johnno, the best man, who only got into the others' public school on a Rugby scholarship. He still feels out of place.

Ronin (Jules' father - rich and remarried) and Jules' mother (an ex-actress) appear on the day. Will's father is head of the school the men went to.

There are short interjections where the prologue is continued - a waitress finds a dead body. The 4 ushers brave the storm.

Olivia walks into the sea. Will saves her. Will got Olivia pregnant - she had an abortion. It's she who wrote the anonymous notes to Jules. Johnno know that the stealing of some exam papers caused the death of a schoolboy. He finds out that Will tricked him out of a TV job on a program that Johnno had conceived. Charlie tells Hanna that he and Jules had sex only once - however, it was not long after Hanna had given birth.

Hanna finds out that Will was the porn revenger - the cause of Alice's death.

Up to now we don't know the victim - Will is prepared to eliminate Johnno and Olivia to stop their tongues wagging, but it's Will's body that is found, with Johnno holding a knife. It's too far from the end of the book for Johnno to be the killer and indeed, we discover that Eefor killed him - she was the sister of the killed schoolboy, and Freddie had witnessed Will's involvement. But it seems that Johnno will be the one who's convicted.

I liked it.

Other reviews

• goodreads
• crimebythebook (she manages to weave into this otherwise quite over-the-top suspense story a number of themes that might feel relevant to readers, from marital challenges to grief to body image and more. This cast of characters is far from likable—only a couple really evoke any sympathy!—but Foley beautifully laces their wild personas with touches of real, relatable challenges.)
• readthisnotthat (The book was admittedly a pretty slow burn, and the multiple POVs were hard to track sometimes. But the story was engaging and secrets revealed at the end shook me.)