Category: Relationships

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(Insert Tantrum Here)

Before I splatter my heart and soul all over this page, we need a gentle reminder.

This is MY space. I choose to be vulnerable and share it with your eyes and your judgments and your preconceived notions. I encourage genuine feedback, but please be overly confident if you choose to negate anything in my space. I may love you, but my tolerance level for pearl clutching and toxic positivism is in the negatives. The gloves are off.

For starters, I chose to read All the Ugly and Wonderful Things the week the kids’ dad got released from prison. It was a horrible, unconscious choice that wrecked me every single time I read a little more in the book. (Side note: It is INCREDIBLY written but not for the faint of heart… Probably one of my top books for 2025 so far…). Highly recommend. My timing was just off, which is literally an accurate description of my entire 44 years on this planet.

Anyway, the kids’ dad was released on March 28th. He’s served his time and is sober, so more power to him. He moved to Oklahoma with his girlfriend and is hoping for a new lease on life. He says the only responsibility he has is cleaning their pool. His life as a pool boy with no expenses seems to be thriving. He’s got four kids out here that have been raised by single moms who get nothing from him, but different strokes for different deadbeat folks, I suppose.

This leaves me with big feelings that took me by surprise. I honestly didn’t expect any feelings, but the fiery anger (and maybe resentment/disappointment/grief?) takes my breath away and spikes my blood pressure every time it crosses my mind. I’ve never expected life to be fair or just, but this takes the unjust nature of our time on this planet to a new, soul-crushing level. I’ve never had the opportunity to grieve the life I thought I’d have at 34 or 44, and that sucks. It leaves me feeling empty and alone. I went from losing a husband/ best friend/life partner to to being the single mom of a 1 and 2 year old quite literally in the same exasperated breath. I was in a relationship after my marriage that I hoped would last (if only because it was so vanilla and predictable), but in retrospect, only left Kannon with a “distant uncle” type relationship and me with a lot of wasted years on absolutely nothing. I am at the same place I was a decade ago, only now I have teenagers who expect perfection from their one present parent, and don’t miss a beat.

What is so wrong with me that I am alone, hamster-wheeling through life and raising these two? Logically, I know that is a ridiculous statement, but that’s what is screaming at the top of my distorted brain at 3 am when I can’t sleep. How does an ex-con who has shit on everything good he’s ever been handed walk out of prison to a life of ease and luxury, while I’m over here not paying the internet so I can pay the electric? I will process more as time goes on… or maybe I won’t… because I am so tired and irritated that I’ve already given so much of myself and my peace to this idiocy.

In addition to that, it has dawned on me 15 years too late that nothing I had with the kids’ dad was real. He is a shapeshifter and will contort to fit whatever his current meal ticket finds suiting. He did it for me until he couldn’t. He hit a ceiling and just wore himself out pretending to be someone he wasn’t. His current situation may last, just because he’s too tired, sick and felonious to start again. Another personally startling realization is this: I’ve never been in love and I have never been emotionally safe in any romantic relationship I’ve cultivated. It’s interesting that I saw potential where there was none and jumped in with both feet every. single. time. Therapy has shed light on that, but understanding the why of things doesn’t alleviate or change anything. Maybe Mr. Right will enter the scene someday. Maybe I’m just tired and don’t have the energy or faith to find out. We shall see, I guess. I’ve poured so much of my magical self into the shittiest humans on Earth, and that’s nauseating to reconcile…

Well, I better get off of here. I have to grab Kannon from school and take him to the dentist, then pick up my car from the body shop in Victoria, then come back to work and finish up some expense reports and time sheets, then grab the kids from school, get Anaiah to her lash appointment, then figure out dinner, then pay the mortgage (which is two months behind), the electric bill, the internet, the disposal invoice (possibly three months behind), pack our stuff for Anaiah’s district track meet tomorrow, wash her jersey, make breakfast for the kids for tomorrow, and text Kannon’s coach to make sure he has a ride home from school tomorrow… since I will be at Anaiah’s district track meet. I get that I am blessed because I get ALL of my kids ALL the time. I would not like splitting time with anyone else and trusting anyone else to care for them. This is not a celebratory post for single parenthood. It is okay to honestly lament the painful, heavy, life-altering seasons of life. It is normal and human to feel awful and sad and all the things we hide in closets and sweep under bulging rugs. It is important to sit with those feelings and give them the space they demand, then trudge directly through them to the other side. Writing helps me do that, and I am promising myself that I will make it more of a priority as I continue through this startling era of existence.

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What I’m Reading: What Lies Beneath — by J. G. Hetherton

J.G. Hetherton was raised in rural Wisconsin, graduated from Northwestern University, and lived in Chicago for the better part of a decade. Along the way to his first novel, he dabbled in many different day jobs before moving to North Carolina for a girl. They live in Durham, North Carolina with their twin daughters, and when he’s not writing, you can find him on the hiking trail or sitting down with a good book.

Perfect for fans of Jeffery Deaver and J.A. Jance, in this thrilling second book in the series, Laura Chambers finds herself caught in a deadly web of small town secrets.

Hillsborough, North Carolina is a town with a dark history that is bubbling to the surface. Twenty years ago, Laura’s friend’s family was slaughtered in their beds, and the sole survivor, Laura’s eight-year-old friend, was whisked away to distant relatives. That was the last time Laura ever saw her best friend.

Twenty years later, a woman runs onto the interstate, directly into the path of a truck, and the gruesome accident leaves behind a mangled corpse. Her very last phone call was to Laura, just before she was killed, but her face is disfigured beyond recognition. Identification seems impossible, and the victim was barefoot and in a state of undress. The only thing in her possession is an old photograph depicting Laura, Laura’s father—and standing next to them, her lost friend from childhood.

Laura’s father passed away when she was eight, and she thought she understood why he vanished from her life in the year before he died, but the photograph and the corpse begin to cast doubt on everything she thought she knew.

As the lines between fact and fiction blur, Laura digs into the history of the deceased, and her own family, determined to discover what lies beneath…

Laura is an interesting bird. She has been emotionally abused by her mother her entire life and lied to by both her parents, among others. Over all, I like her character. She’s flawed and I like that, but also stays in her own head a little too much. I found myself irritated with her more than once.

The author’s website

Email the author directly at jghetherton@gmail.com

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What I’m Reading: Last Girl Gone — by J. G. Hetherton

J. G. Hetherton was in raised in rural Wisconsin, graduated from Northwestern University, and lived in Chicago for the better part of a decade. Along the way to his first novel, he dabbled in many different day jobs before moving to North Carolina for a girl. They live in Durham, North Carolina, with their twin daughters, and when he’s not writing, you can find him on the hiking trail or sitting down with a good book.

A Sun-Sentinel Top Debut Mystery of 2018

This pulse-pounding series debut is the next obsession for fans of Julia Keller and David Bell, and readers of unflinching thrillers.

Sometimes, the journey home is the most harrowing. And it’s every parent’s worst nightmare.

Investigative journalist Laura Chambers is back in her tiny hometown of Hillsborough, North Carolina, the one place she swore never to return. Fired from the Boston Globe, her career in shambles, she reluctantly takes a job with the local paper. The work is simple, unimportant, and worst of all, boring—at least until a missing girl turns up dead, the body impeccably clean, dressed to be the picture of innocence.

Years earlier, ten-year-old Patty Finch left home and never made it back. But for the people of Hillsborough, Patty was just the beginning. Child after child disappeared, a reign of terror the town desperately wants to forget. Now that terror has returned to seize another girl. And another.

This is the story Laura’s been waiting for—her one last chance to get back onto the front page. She dives deeper into a case that runs colder by the second, only to discover the truth may be far closer to home than she could have ever imagined. Powerful, intricate, and tense, Last Girl Gone will have you looking over your shoulder long after the last page.

I love reading debut novels, and this one was really good. I liked the characters, and Laura’s turbulent relationship with her mother added to the mix nicely. I am looking forward to the next book from this author.

The author’s website

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What I’m Reading: All His Pretty Girls — by Charly Cox

Born in the South, raised in the Midwest, Charly Cox now resides in the Southwest in the Land of Enchantment, Green Chile capital of the world, which is good because she enjoys eating copious amounts of the spicy food. When she’s not reading, writing, or plotting sinister evils with her antagonists, she enjoys doing jigsaw and crossword puzzles, hanging out with her husband and her spoiled Siberian Husky, visiting her son in Arizona, and traveling, preferably to places surrounded by sun, sand, and warm uncrowded beaches.

Detective Alyssa Wyatt is hunting a serial killer. She doesn’t know that he’s also hunting her.

A woman is found naked, badly beaten, and barely alive in the New Mexico mountains. The shocking discovery plunges Albuquerque Detective Alyssa Wyatt into a case that will test her to the limit. It appears that Callie McCormick is the latest plaything of a mysterious psychopath who leaves a long shadow on the streets of New Mexico—an individual linked to a string of deaths but leaving no evidence. But when Alyssa makes a breakthrough that just might reveal the killer, she unknowingly puts herself in the crosshairs of a brutal maniac—one with an old score to settle. Because the killer knows Alyssa very well, even if she doesn’t know him. And he’s determined that she’ll know his name—even if he has to extract his deadly revenge on her and everything she loves.

Fans of Kendra Elliot, Melinda Leigh, and Angela Marsons will be utterly engrossed.

Great reviews for the Detective Alyssa Wyatt Series!
“Wow, did All His Pretty Girls pack a punch! I was shocked when I found out this was a debut…a heart-in-your-mouth read that will have you racing through those pages.”
―On The Shelf Reviews

“Oh boy, was I swiped off my feet as what was already a totally gripping read escalated into my top five for this year…It felt like my heart was beating in the back of my throat!”
―Books From Dusk Till Dawn

“A serial killer chiller where the action never flags, the suspense is red-hot and the twists and turns jaw-droppingly brilliant, fans of the genre need to add Charly Cox to their list of must-buys.”
―Bookish Jottings

“A compelling thriller that I could not put down! The killer was insane, the story was addictive and the writing was fantastic. This is everything I want when I pick up a police procedural!”
—Jessica Belmont, writer/blogger

This is a debut novel. As far as those go, it is solid. I had this series by Charly Cox on my wish list for a long time and I decided to take the plunge before it wasn’t included in my audible membership anymore. It was okay. Probably three stars. Middle of the road characters and story line. I will read the rest of the Alyssa Wyatt series because I can’t not read it after I’ve already started it. Reasonably entertaining. No kids or puppies die, so I guess it was okay.

Detective Alyssa Wyatt – Protagonist, works with the Albuquerque Police Department

Brock Wyatt – Alyssa’s husband

Isaac Wyatt – Alyssa and Brock’s son

Holly Wyatt – Alyssa and Brock’s daughter

Mable Wyatt – Brock’s mother

Detective Cord Roberts – Alyssa’s partner

Sarah Roberts – Cord’s wife, nurse

Evan Bishop/ – Antagonist, the killer, whose perspective is also featured in the story, providing insight into his motivations and actions

Callie McCormick – one of Evan’s victims,  found nearly dead after being missing

Raif McCormick – Callie’s husband

Charly McCormick’s Website

Find Her On Insta

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What I’m Reading: The Sound of Rain — by Gregg Olsen

Author’s Website

Gregg Olsen’s Instagram

Publisher’s Summary:

Former homicide detective Nicole Foster has hit rock bottom. Driven off the force by her treacherous partner and lover, she’s flat broke and struggling with a gambling addiction. All Nicole has left is the dream of a warm bed at a homeless shelter and the haunting memories of three-year-old Kelsey Chase―whose murder case ended her career.

As Nicole obsesses over the old facts, she realizes everything about that case felt off: a disinterested mom, a suicidal pedophile, and too many questions left unanswered. When the little girl’s grieving father begs Nicole for help, she’s drawn back into the investigation…and given one shot at redemption.

But the deeper Nicole digs, the more evil she uncovers, including betrayals that hit painfully close to home. Will a shocking discovery be the key to finally getting justice for Kelsey and resurrecting her own life?

Characters:

  • Nicole Foster: The main character in the book who becomes homeless after losing her job. She accepts a place to stay from Julian Chase. In return, she helps him learn the truth about his murdered child.
  • Julian Chase: The father of the murdered child, Kelsey Chase. He offers Nicole a place to stay in exchange for her help in learning the truth about the crime.
  • Sister Stacy: Married to Cy, who works for Microsoft. She enjoys Nicole’s shortcomings.
  • Emma: Stacy and Cy’s only child
  • Cy: Stacy’s husband, who works for Microsoft.

My take:

I was introduced to Gregg Olsen about a year ago when I read If You Tell. I will read everything he writes. I liked this story enough to read the next in the series. The ending just fell a little flat for me. I am hoping more will be explained in the next book in the series, The Weight of Silence. I rated it 3.5 stars. It may be my mood. The other Olsen books I’ve read were better, in my opinion. Alas, I will journey on through the rest of them…

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It Has Ended Many Times…

This is one of my all-time favorites. This is why I’m unapologetically me regardless of how any one person “thinks” I should be. I’m a work in progress. I am a Jesus follower. I love craft beer. I value your humanity and the condition of your heart exponentially more than your sexual orientation or your bank account. My sense of humor is amazing and questionable. I put up my Christmas tree on November 1st. I am intelligent and I love very well, which is sometimes a conflict of interest. If you knew me at 8, 18, 24, or 34 and don’t know me now, you don’t know me anymore. My kids have been raised in a one-parent home since they were one and two, and they are THRIVING in every. single. way. I will sit with you over a pot of coffee or a 32 oz margarita and discuss my life, your life, the state of the union, and drag queens in libraries at any time, and I will do so honestly. My threshold for pleasantries and small talk is ten seconds tops, then we’re finished, and I don’t mind making it weird. I do not allow anyone or anything to demand my energy, time, or attention. And all of this, because my life has quite literally ended for me many times and began again in the morning.

Pop your earbuds in, find a good podcast, and focus on what you, as an individual, need to focus on today. Accept everything else competing for your attention as meaningless noise.

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What I’m Reading: Love at First Psych — Cara Bastone

Cara Bastone is a full time writer who lives and writes in Brooklyn with her husband, son, and an almost-goldendoodle. Her goal with her work is to find the swoon in ordinary love stories. She’s been a fan of the romance genre since she found a grocery bag filled with her grandmother’s old Harlequin Romances when she was in high school. She’s a fangirl for pretzel sticks, long walks through Prospect Park, and love stories featuring men who aren’t crippled by their own masculinity.

True love is put to the test in this romantic comedy brought to hilarious life by Santino Fontana (Frozen, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel), Stephanie Einstein, and a full cast!

This Psych 312 assignment just might send me off the deep end. Determining whether love at first sight really exists with Robbie Moravian as my project partner, of all people?

He’s the sappiest man alive, so upbeat I could scream, and clearly rooting for happy endings at every turn. How does he not learn from experience considering our own meet-cute last semester almost got us expelled?

But we both need to pass this course to graduate. So we’re interviewing five random couples about their meet-cutes and relationships and spending all this time together. Which is certainly…educational.

Because it turns out Robbie isn’t just the charming golden boy I thought I knew. There’s some actual depth beneath all those lame dad jokes and the ‘70s-inspired thrift wardrobe (even if he does look ridiculously great in a flared collar). Next thing I know he’s walking me back to my office on the regular and finishing all my sentences and protecting me from freak storms, and…

Wait. Could Robbie be right? Can happy endings really come from unhappy beginnings? Is he about to change my entire world view?

Group projects are the worst.

I’m not a big romance fan, so I thought I would dip my toe in the genre by listening to a short audiobook that is currently free on Audible. It is 4 hours and 35 minutes long and honestly a delight. It is light, fun, and spins a hopeful look on romance and love. The narrators are perfect for the roles, in my opinion, and I highly recommend the listen. The plot is based on Robbie and Marigold working together on a romantic psych project. They interview several couples about their respective relationships for their class. I love that a lesbian, divorced, and elderly couples were included in the work. The professor of their class also references his husband, Scott. I am big on inclusion. This is a great choice if a break from serious, intense, or emotional reads is needed. It makes me miss that flirty, light stage in the very beginning of relationships… a little.

Marigold – 27 years old, working on her bachelor’s degree, working on a project for Psych 312 class with Robbie, striving to prove love at first sight does not exist, parents are divorced science teachers employed at the same school, light brown hair, petite

Robbie – 28 years old, working on his bachelor’s degree, working on a project for Psych class with Marigold, striving to prove love at first sight exists, father owns a car dealership and mother is a retired superintendent, tall, has an infectious smile

Buy Love at First Psych HERE

Cara Bastone’s Instagram

Check out Cara’s website here!

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What I’m Reading: The Paris Apartment — Lucy Foley

Lucy Foley studied English liter­ature at Durham University and University College London and worked for several years as a fiction edi­tor in the publishing industry. She is the author of five novels including The Guest List and The Hunt­ing Party. She lives in London.

THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“Told in rotating points of view, this Tilt-A-Whirl of a novel brims with jangly tension – an undeniably engrossing guessing game.”  — Vogue

“[A] clever, cliff-hanger-filled thriller.” — People

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Guest List comes a new locked room mystery, set in a Paris apartment building in which every resident has something to hide… 

Jess needs a fresh start. She’s broke and alone, and she’s just left her job under less than ideal circumstances. Her half-brother Ben didn’t sound thrilled when she asked if she could crash with him for a bit, but he didn’t say no, and surely everything will look better from Paris. Only when she shows up – to find a very nice apartment, could Ben really have afforded this? – he’s not there.

The longer Ben stays missing, the more Jess starts to dig into her brother’s situation, and the more questions she has. Ben’s neighbors are an eclectic bunch, and not particularly friendly. Jess may have come to Paris to escape her past, but it’s starting to look like it’s Ben’s future that’s in question.

The socialite – The nice guy – The alcoholic – The girl on the verge – The concierge

Everyone’s a neighbor. Everyone’s a suspect. And everyone knows something they’re not telling.

This starts with the prologue. We see at the very beginning that Ben is most likely in some kind of trouble. An intruder enters his apartment and he is obviously afraid.

Jess arrives to the apartment and immediately thinks she sees a shadowy person crouched hiding behind a car. She then looks up and sees someone watching her from a window above. Soon, after talking to several people in the building, she knows that something is very off with the situation and Ben may be in some trouble. She is also in some obvious trouble and running from something or someone.

Foley creates characters that you can’t quite trust, so everyone is under just a little bit of suspicion at least. I love that. The characters are well-developed, as usual, and the ending will knock your socks off as well. I gave this four stars and would definitely recommend. I read it in a few days, so definitely a solid page-turner.

Ben (3rd floor) – Benjamin Daniels, missing when the story begins, aspiring writer, journalist, Jess’ half brother (they share a mom)

Jess Hadley – brave, intelligent, independent, Ben’s half sister, from London, former foster kid

Antoine (1st floor) – angry alcoholic that abuses his wife

Dominique – Antoine’s wife, they split early on

Sophie Meunier (penthouse) – rich, 50 years old, married to Jacque

Benoit – Sophie’s silver whippet

Jacque – Sophie’s husband, business owner, frequently travels,

Concierge (lives in guard cabin) – elderly lady, very private, cleans and watches over the property

Mimi (4th floor) – 19 years old, convent educated, naive, fragile, and maybe mentally compromised, obsessed with Ben

Camille – Mimi’s roommate, promiscuous, polar opposite of Mimi

Nick Miller (2nd floor) – unemployed but obviously rich, oxy addict, attended Cambridge with Ben

Theo Mandelson – Ben’s Paris editor

Irina – the mystery girl that surfaces later in the story

Lucy Foley’s Instagram

Buy The Paris Apartment HERE

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What I’m Reading: The Housemaid — Freida McFadden

New York Times, USA Today, and #1 Amazon bestselling author Freida McFadden is a practicing physician specializing in brain injury who has penned multiple Kindle bestselling psychological thrillers and medical humor novels. She lives with her family and black cat in a centuries-old three-story home overlooking the ocean, with staircases that creak and moan with each step, and nobody could hear you if you scream. Unless you scream really loudly, maybe.

“Welcome to the family,” Nina Winchester says as I shake her elegant, manicured hand. I smile politely, gazing around the marble hallway. Working here is my last chance to start fresh. I can pretend to be whoever I like. But I’ll soon learn that the Winchesters’ secrets are far more dangerous than my own…

Every day I clean the Winchesters’ beautiful house top to bottom. I collect their daughter from school. And I cook a delicious meal for the whole family before heading up to eat alone in my tiny room on the top floor.

I try to ignore how Nina makes a mess just to watch me clean it up. How she tells strange lies about her own daughter. And how her husband Andrew seems more broken every day. But as I look into Andrew’s handsome brown eyes, so full of pain, it’s hard not to imagine what it would be like to live Nina’s life. The walk-in closet, the fancy car, the perfect husband.

I only try on one of Nina’s pristine white dresses once. Just to see what it’s like. But she soon finds out… and by the time I realize my attic bedroom door only locks from the outside, it’s far too late.

But I reassure myself: the Winchesters don’t know who I really am.

They don’t know what I’m capable of…

A New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestseller and winner of a 2023 ITW Thriller Award. This unbelievably twisty read will have you glued to the pages late into the night. Anyone who loves The Woman in the Window, The Wife Between Us and The Girl on the Train won’t be able to put down The Housemaid!

“I got severe whiplash from the twistiest turns… Every time I thought I had it figured out… WRONG!!!… I am still reeling… outstanding… If you love a top notch psychological thriller that will have you questioning your own sanity, then this 5 star read is for you.” NetGalley reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“What a wild ride!!! Freida definitely delivered the best twisty ending… Gripping from start to finish… honestly, I just could not put it down… An absolutely mind-blowing shocker that kept me guessing and on the edge of my seat literally until the very end.” Goodreads reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“One wild ride!… So many twists and turns… I was hooked right away – I even read my Kindle while waiting in my kid’s school pick-up line so I wouldn’t have to put this book down!… addictive… pure perfection!” Goodreads reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This book was hyped up quite a bit, so I shied away from reading it for awhile, then I wished I’d read it sooner. It was a bit more sinister and dark than I expected, but I figured out some parts of the ending pretty early on. Halfway through, there is a huge switch-a-roo that I knew was coming but couldn’t put my finger on exactly what the author had in store… It lived up to its reputation as being a thrilling page-turner. I like listening to books with multiple voices instead of reading them, and I highly recommend the Audible version of this one. I was very happy with the ending. It will not disappoint. I have the sequel, The Housemaid’s Secret, on my reading short list.

  • Wilhelmina “Millie” Calloway –  a young woman, 27 years old, with a criminal past, who is employed as a housekeeper by a rich woman, Nina Winchester, with a seeming mental health condition. At 27, Millie Calloway emerges from a decade-long imprisonment, embarking on a challenging quest for employment. Her journey leads her to the Winchester household as a live-in housemaid, a role she accepts with eagerness, given her limited options due to her criminal past.
  • Nina Winchester – the story’s co-narrator and a woman in her late thirties, presents a facade of the affluent, troubled housewife.
  • Andrew Winchester – initially seen as a sympathetic character trapped in a loveless marriage, is gradually revealed as the antagonist.
  • Cecelia “Cece” Winchester – Nina’s young daughter, initially appears as an odd, demanding child.
  • Enzo – the Winchester’s Sicilian landscaper.

Buy The Housemaid HERE

Check out this interview with Freida McFadden covering “The Housemaid” and her writing process

Follow Freida McFadden on Instagram

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What I’m Reading: The Guest List — by Lucy Foley

Lucy Foley studied English literature at Durham University and University College London and worked for several years as a fiction editor in the publishing industry. She is the author of five novels including The Paris Apartment and The Guest List. She lives in London.

A REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BEST THRILLERS OF THE YEAR

“I loved this book. It gave me the same waves of happiness I get from curling up with a classic Christie…The alternating points of view keep you guessing, and guessing wrong.” — Alex Michaelides, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Silent Patient

“Evok[es] the great Agatha Christie classics…Pay close attention to seemingly throwaway details about the characters’ pasts. They are all clues.” — New York Times Book Review

A wedding celebration turns dark and deadly in this deliciously wicked and atmospheric thriller reminiscent of Agatha Christie from the New York Times bestselling author of The Hunting Party.

The bride – The plus one – The best man – The wedding planner  – The bridesmaid – The body

On an island off the coast of Ireland, guests gather to celebrate two people joining their lives together as one. The groom: handsome and charming, a rising television star. The bride: smart and ambitious, a magazine publisher. It’s a wedding for a magazine, or for a celebrity: the designer dress, the remote location, the luxe party favors, the boutique whiskey. The cell phone service may be spotty and the waves may be rough, but every detail has been expertly planned and will be expertly executed.

But perfection is for plans, and people are all too human. As the champagne is popped and the festivities begin, resentments and petty jealousies begin to mingle with the reminiscences and well wishes. The groomsmen begin the drinking game from their school days. The bridesmaid not-so-accidentally ruins her dress. The bride’s oldest (male) friend gives an uncomfortably caring toast.

And then someone turns up dead. Who didn’t wish the happy couple well? And perhaps more important, why?

Lucy Foley was suggested to me by a dear college friend (Thank you, Erika!), so I knew she’d be my next read. We find out pretty early on that there is something mysterious that happened while the guys were at boarding school together that may have included someone dying. It’s mysterious as to who or what throughout the book. We also find out that something happened with/to Charlie on the stag (bachelor party) that was pretty severe but no one will talk about it.

The narrators for this book are Aoife, Hannah, Charlie, Olivia, and Johnno. Each chapter of the book bounces between the perspective of each of these characters and between the present and past. At first, the sequencing irritated me, but when I got to the middle of the book, I absolutely loved it. There are some twists, folks, and I WAS HOOKED. The more I read, the easier and easier it is to guess the endings. This one surprised me, and because of that, I highly recommend. I am reading The Paris Apartment next, and I’m excited to see if that one lives up to Foley’s reputation.

Olivia – Julia’s bridesmaid and half sister (they share a mother), withdrawn and not at all happy to be at her sister’s wedding, recently had a traumatic breakup

Will – Julia’s groom, tv star

Julia (Jules) – Will’s bride, owns a magazine called “The Download”

Hannah – Charlie’s wife, feels like a fish out of water in the posh, expensive surroundings of the venue and the wedding guests, the “plus one”

Alice – Hannah’s older sister, commited suicide

Charlie – Hannah’s husband and Julia’s best friend and best man, MC for the wedding day/night

Aoife (pronounced EE-fa) – the wedding planner and owns the wedding venue property

Freddy – Aoife’s husband and resident chef on the property

Pete – groomsman, boarding school friend

Femmy – groomsman, boarding school friend

Duncan – groomsman, boarding school friend

Johnno – Will’s best man, became friends in boarding school, surley, brooding, forgot his suit for the wedding and borrows Will’s spare

Buy The Guest List HERE

Lucy Foley’s Instagram