One of the reasons why I love to read is the feeling of finishing a great book. For a few days, the book I finished reading is all I can think about. It could be the setting, the characters, or how the book turned out that stay with me. I finished reading The Guest List by Lucy Foley and it’s hands down one of the best thrillers I have read. It’s a close contender to being one of my favorite books I read in 2022. That may be too early to say, but that’s how much I loved this book.

A wedding party flocks to a remote, Irish island. The wedding is breathtaking until someone is murdered. As the story progresses, secrets are revealed and it seems like everyone has an ulterior motive.

One reason I loved The Guest List is the setting. The wedding takes place on this remote Irish island with a chapel, house, and lavish tents are set up to house guests. There’s a small Celtic cemetery located nearby giving this island a haunted feel to it. I took pauses while reading The Guest List to imagine the island in my mind. The setting helped solidify the story and made me want to continue reading.

The Guest List is told through the perspective of several key characters. Usually, I’m not a fan of this type of storytelling because it’s tough to keep everyone straight. However, Lucy Foley does a great job at balancing all of the characters. I felt drawn to Hannah and Olivia specifically. Hannah was the character I connected with the most because she’s a middle-class outsider to this swanky lifestyle. Olivia is a character who is struggling mentally and I just wanted to reach out to her and give her a hug. Olivia is someone I wanted to see succeed and overcome her struggles.

In The Guest List, there’s a big reveal that I predicted early on. In some cases, I become disappointed when I am able to predict the plot of the book, although, in The Guest List, I was more excited to see how everything came together even if it was something I could see coming.

The Guest List was everything I wanted in a thriller: an intriguing setting, a sprinkling of characters to root for and characters you would like to see burn, and a few twists throughout. I don’t have anything bad to say about The Guest List. I have since added a few of Lucy Foley’s other books to my TBR on Goodreads as I’m curious to read more from her. I rated The Guest List five stars on Goodreads.