This was a BOTM pick in my typical thriller genre. I didn’t know anything about the author, but the reviews were really good, so I was excited. This book was released yesterday, so I am sharing my review!
Summary: A wedding set on a remote island off the coast of Ireland is the setting for this novel. The entire book is told in alternating points of view over the span of two days. The reader is introduced to the wedding planner, the bride, the bridesmaid, the best man, and the plus one on the day before the wedding. There are also secondary characters weaved throughout the story. The novel begins with a very short chapter the night of the wedding where a huge storm is blowing in and the power goes out in the massive wedding tent. The reader knows that something bad is about to happen but has no idea what. Then the novel goes back in time to the day before the wedding and we meet the characters. About a third of the way through the book, we are taken back to the wedding night where is seems as though someone has died. But did someone actually die? Was it an accident with the huge cliffs and bogs all around the island? Or was it murder? And more importantly if someone is dead, who is it?
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
My Review:
What I liked: I will admit this started pretty slow for me. The opening chapter was good, but getting to know each of the characters in the beginning was a little bit of a chore. I found myself not picking up the book when I had the opportunity to read, which is a sure sign I’m not that into the book. However, I decided that if I wanted to move on to other books, I needed to just finish this one. So I picked it up on a Saturday morning and once I started reading I couldn’t stop! The buildup to the ending was very well done once you got to know the characters. I assumed someone died and that it was probably murder, but I literally had no clue who it was until it was revealed at the end. I loved the way the author took some of the last chapters toward the end from each characters’ perspective and ended them all with “and then the lights went out.” It really added to the suspense!
Now, I can’t go into much more without ruining what makes this book so special, but I will say that I did not see several of the twists coming. I would say there were four main “reveals.” Two of them I saw coming pretty early on, but the last two I had no clue. I literally felt my jaw drop at the last one.
What I didn’t like: Honestly, the language was pretty bad. There was a point where I considered abandoning it, just because it had become excessive in my opinion. If it weren’t for the language, I would probably rank this as my top read of 2020 so far!! Plot-wise it is totally a 5 star read for me, I just dropped one because of the language. The only other thing I didn’t like was that there wasn’t a ton of closure at the end. If you follow my blog, you know I am a person who needs closure at the end of a novel 😂 But I will say that going forward too much in the future probably would have taken away from the fact that the whole story was meant to take place over two days.
Disclaimer: Strong R rated on this one for the language.
Do You Read Me?: I say yes for the plot (if you are okay with the language disclaimer).
Overall, a really good read! Plot-wise it is one of my favorite reads of the year!