I am willing to overlook some bad grammar (“on behalf of my
new wife and I”) and a few sentences that seem to belong elsewhere when a book
is an absorbing page-turner. This novel
moves at breakneck speed, despite having several narrators, all easily distinguishable,
and a slightly wiggly timeline. The
action takes place on a remote island off the coast of Ireland, which is the
location for a wedding between two beautiful people—physically beautiful, that
is. Jules has built a magazine from the
ground up, and her husband-to-be, Will, is a reality show star. Jules thought everything was going to be
perfect until she received an anonymous note saying that Will is not who he
seems and imploring her not to marry him.
Hannah, a wedding guest and one of the primary narrators, is married to Charlie,
who is a long-time close friend of the bride.
As Charlie seems to be cozying up more and more to Jules, Hannah
befriends Jules’s troubled younger sister Olivia and encourages her to open up
about a past trauma. Painful histories notwithstanding, the characters are a
pretty shallow bunch, and we know early on that one of them is murdered after
the ceremony. I had a pretty good idea
who the victim was, and I was right, but I had no idea who the murderer was, as
so many motives became apparent for so many characters. There is plenty of suspense to go around, and
little by little we learn of unexpected connections and secrets between the
various wedding attendees. The ending is
tidy, but I did not find it completely satisfying.
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