2 x Lucy Foley

I have read two books by Lucy Foley. I am sure I found some reviews from you, and it therefore ended up on my to read list. Luckily, I found two of her books in the library and read them very fast. Totally absorbed about the way the stories are built up. I did read The Guest List first which comes after The Hunting Party, but it does not really matter. I see she has written a couple of other books, which stories seem to be different from these two: The Book of Lost and Found, The Invitation, Last Letter from Istanbul and The Paris Apartment. Something to look forward to. 

The Guest List

"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?"

The Hunting Party

"All of them are friends. One of them is a killer.

During the languid days of the Christmas break, a group of thirtysomething friends from Oxford meet to welcome in the New Year together, a tradition they began as students ten years ago. For this vacation, they’ve chosen an idyllic and isolated estate in the Scottish Highlands—the perfect place to get away and unwind by themselves.

They arrive on December 30th, just before a historic blizzard seals the lodge off from the outside world.

Two days later, on New Year’s Day, one of them is dead.

The trip began innocently enough: admiring the stunning if foreboding scenery, champagne in front of a crackling fire, and reminiscences about the past. But after a decade, the weight of secret resentments has grown too heavy for the group’s tenuous nostalgia to bear. Amid the boisterous revelry of New Year’s Eve, the cord holding them together snaps.

Now one of them is dead . . . and another of them did it.

Keep your friends close, the old adage goes. But just how close is too close?" 

Lucy Foley's structure of the books, makes for exciting reading. We have a NOW where we see what happens, and then a first person singular telling, from some, but not all, of the groups, letting us see which events led up to the murder. It is very well done, and keep you guessing until the very end. When I realised that the first book was similar in structure to the second, I was a little bit disappointed, feeling that I knew what was going to happen. However, the characterisation and internal relationships between the people in the groups, still makes it so different.

Lucy Foley is in total control of her characters and their actions. I think the characterisation is what makes these two novels such an entertaining read. It is about personality and interactions in the group. They all seem to be good friends, but are they really? Are there underlying concerns that causes the earlier friendships to change, now that they are older? 

If you want something easy, exciting, thrilling to read, you just have to try these two books. Difficult to put down.