By Book Club Team 
The Guest List by Lucy Foley is a modern “locked-room” style mystery set on a remote Irish island during a lavish wedding. As guests gather to celebrate, hidden resentments and secrets begin to surface, building a tense, claustrophobic atmosphere. A body is found, and suddenly everybody is a suspect; each character’s perspective offers tantalizing clues to uncover the dark truths beneath this perfect event.
| Author | Lucy Foley |
| Publication date | February 20, 2020 |
| Goodreads Rating | 3,81 |
| Page count | 319 pages |
| Genres | Mystery, Thriller, Fiction, Mystery Thriller, Suspense, Adult, Crime, Contemporary, Adult Fiction |
The Guest List Summary
A lavish wedding is about to take place on a windswept island off the coast of Ireland, where a successful magazine publisher named Jules has painstakingly planned every detail of her nuptials to a charming and famous television star, Will. Despite the picturesque setting and promise of an unforgettable celebration, there is a growing tension in the gathering as stormy weather combines with old resentments to create an ominous atmosphere.
The half-sister of Jules, Olivia, comes with a sense of impending doom, haunted by a recent relationship that left her reeling. Hannah, who is attending with her husband Charlie-a longtime friend of Jules’s-carries the weight of her tragic past, which comes flooding back as she realizes a connection to one of the guests. Meanwhile, Will’s best man and former schoolmate Johnno broods over bitter memories from their boarding school days, suggesting his friendship with the groom is anything but picture-perfect.
As the wedding celebrations get underway, passions simmer below the shiny surface. The storm builds and the phones lose reception before anyone can escape until morning. Each guest seems to have a secret grudge, and the isolation of the island only amplifies suspicions and unease. Amidst raised glasses and forced smiles, it becomes evident that at least one attendee comes with revenge in mind.
Things take a dark turn when a scream pierces the night to reveal that someone has been murdered. Without any means of instantly calling for help, the wedding party is faced with the ghoulish truth that the murderer is among them. Frantic inquiry and growing paranoia reveal secrets buried deep beneath the surface, while each new revelation leads to possible motives stretching back years.
And finally, after the dust settles and the storm eases, there is the shock-the identity of the killer: Aoife, the wedding planner, citing as a heartbreaking motive that the groom had been part of a hazing incident back in high school where her brother had died. By the time her revenge is clear, the silence of the island is filled with grief and the realization that no amount of preparation can save anyone from ghosts of the past.
The Guest List Review
The Guest List is a modern take on the classic “locked-room” mystery, set on an isolated, storm-swept island off the coast of Ireland. It’s a high-profile wedding: Jules, a successful magazine publisher, and Will, a charismatic TV star, assure that the guest list would include family and friends who slowly turn sinister once long-kept secrets begin to surface. Foley’s narrative structure shifts between several characters, wholly enveloping one into a person’s motives and growing tensions.
Pros
- Atmospheric Setting: The use of a far-off island with threatening weather increases tension and highlights the trapped feeling of the characters.
- Multiple Perspectives: Foley’s decision to use many different narrators provides depth, offers multi-layered revelations, and keeps the reader guessing.
- Pacing & Suspense: Good build-up toward the pivotal crime scene, with some nice slow-burning suspense that culminated into key plot twists.
- Themes of Secrets & Resentment: The interesting way in which misdeeds and the extreme measures to cover those misdeeds up, or get back for them, come to shape present events.
Cons
- Character Overlap: A few personalities can seem similar with multiple narrators, and thus sometimes difficult to tell voices apart.
- Predictability for Mystery Old-Timers: Those in the know will see some of the twists coming or at least where the whodunit is headed.
- Pacing for Some: Where the slow unwinding is a highlight for many, others will find the first half of the book too slow.
- Neat Resolution: The final revelations, though dramatic, may tie up with more neatness than some readers expect, potentially reducing long-term impact.
All in all, The Guest List is a masterfully constructed, atmospheric mystery that will likely delight both fans of classic whodunits and modern psychological thrillers. The stormy Irish backdrop, shifting perspectives, and simmering grudges form a tense narrative that keeps the pages turning, despite a few elements that may feel overly familiar to seasoned mystery readers.
The Guest List Characters
Below is an overview of some of the key characters in Lucy Foley’s The Guest List. Each one brings secrets and tensions to the remote wedding venue, raising the suspense level and mystery of the novel.
- Jules (the Bride): A successful magazine publisher who intends to have a very elaborate wedding. She is fiercely driven and perfectionistic; she wants everything, including her marriage, to be perfect. Her relationship with her half-sister, Olivia, is strained, and underlying doubts about her groom’s past add to her anxieties.
- Will (the Groom): A charming television star for a survivalist reality show. Popular and handsome, he seems like the catch of the century. But beneath his smooth veneer, Will’s past is riddled with secrets and questionable behaviors that come to light as the story unfolds.
- Olivia (the Bridesmaid): Jules’s younger half-sister, who arrives deeply distressed at the wedding. Still recovering from a traumatic relationship that has left her isolated and ashamed. Her feelings of fear and resentment escalate as she realizes painful reminders of her past will be impossible to avoid on the island.
- Johnno (the Best Man): Will’s friend from old school days in boarding school. Guilty, jealous, and feeling a sense of failure in comparison to the apparent success of Will. Tied to some tragic event in the past, for which he suspects Will may bear more responsibility than he lets on.
- Hannah (the Plus-One): The wife of Charlie, Jules’s close friend since childhood. Quietly grieving the loss of her sister under circumstances that still haunt her. Finds herself picking up on hidden tensions as an “outsider” observing the other guests.
- Aoife (the Wedding Planner): Owner of the newly restored venue on the remote island, overseeing every wedding detail. She is professional and watchful as she stays out of the view but is far more plugged in to what will happen than anyone around her. Her backstory is a pleasant surprise motivation that fuel the story’s darkest turn.
- Charlie (Jules’s Friend / Hannah’s Husband): Childhood friend of Jules, attending with his wife, Hannah. Eager to support Jules on her big day, closeness to the bride sometimes puts him at odds with Hannah. Through Charlie, we see more of Jules’s background and the complicated dynamics which define her relationships.
These characters—and their overlapping grudges, secrets, and traumas—form the core of The Guest List’s ensemble cast. The novel’s tension builds as each person’s hidden motivations emerge, culminating in a murder that exposes the darkest elements of both past and present.
The Guest List Ending Explained [Spoilers]
The Guest List by Lucy Foley has the groom, Will, getting murdered, and Aoife is his killer, being the wedding planner. She seeks revenge because he was in a deadly hazing while in boarding school, which eventually caused her brother’s death, a secret he never acknowledged.
Manipulative behavior by Will surfaces throughout the novel. He took advantage of Olivia, bride’s half-sister, and to a certain extent, was responsible for the tragedy with Hannah’s sister. An isolated island with a storm created a tense “locked-room” atmosphere. Luring him away from the reception, Aoife spots him and executes her plans: unresolved anger and hidden grudges could explode when there’s nowhere to go or hide.