I tried to enjoy this as this has a similar premise to the other books I like. This just in do it for me in the end and I felt like it was copying the others but doing nothing different with the base story. The characters will so unlikeable and I didn't really care what happened to them and how the drama affected them. It could be a good fellow but it just missed the mark.

I was not really impressed with this story of entitlement and its interest in outward appearances. It focusses on old friends getting together for a weekend which is being organised by one of the group who has extreme wealth. I found that there was a big focus on wealth and what it can buy. The weekend continues until disaster strikes and the characters of the group begin to unravel.
The story is told in the first person, written by different members of the group at different times. This did provide a slightly different perspective on the events but I felt that the characters were rather thin and predictable and I was somewhat disappointed in the book.

Good premise but just an ok read for me. Slow first half of book but picked up about half way through. Unbelievable in parts and just too many secrets to be believable . Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the chance to review i

A contemporary twist on the locked room thriller made popular by Agatha Christie, The Invitation grips and enthrals from the moment you pick it up. Thirteen friends meet at a castle and whisk themselves away for a fun weekend on a remote island off the Cornish coast. But it certainly isn't going to be any fun for them. Needless to say, it doesn't take long for things to take a turn for the worse. Thirteen friends arrive but only twelve will leave. Who is the killer in their midst? The premise has been done a million times before but Castle has crafted a particularly compulsive version that is head and shoulders above many other attempts at locked room reads. A fast paced, exciting and danger-filled page-turner. Highly recommended.

On an island on the coast of Cornwall, cut off from the mainland by the tides for most of the day, thirteen old friends meet at Tregowan Castle for a weekend of revelry. By the next evening only twelve are alive. Amongst them is a killer - but who? A storm traps them on the island and past betrayals and grievances sre revealed, nerves fray and friendships begin to fracture. There's no escape and no way of calling for help.

This whodunit reminded me of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. I like trying to work out a whodunit, it makes it more of an interesting read. All the characters have secrets to hide and each of the chaters is told by a different character. I liked the authors writing style. This book will keep you guessing to the end. This is the first book that i've read by the author but it certainly won't be my last.

I would like to thank #NetGalley, #HQ and the author #AMCastle for my ARC of #TheInvitation in exchange for an honest review.

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher HQ Digital in exchange for an honest review.

What a lovely surprise this book was! I am a huge fan of Christie-style mysteries and I was expecting much more of a traditional thriller based on the cover of this book. To my delight, it is most definitely a murder mystery with a lot of elements of the old school genre.

The Invitation is the story of three female friends and their families. The wealthiest friend, Rachel, invites the others to her island for a reunion. It soon becomes clear that a lot of bad blood has built up over the years with the various dramas culminating in the murder of one of the group at dinner. There is no 'main character' of the book, with the narration instead rotating between the majority of characters throughout. Through this method you really get to experience the different dramas and secrets each of the characters are going through.

This book definitely has more of a humorous, light-hearted tone than a serious murder mystery. There's a lot going on in this and some dark stuff is mentioned, but usually it is lightened by the tone. I found some of the characters a bit lacking and I did tend to confuse a couple of them. Particularly with the main three women, I felt their backstories blended together to me so I was often confused as to who was partnered with who etc. Having said that, a lot of the characters were more unique than those in your typical murder mystery and I definitely appreciated that. There was an interesting cast and it added a lot of depth to the story.

Overall, this book is great if you're looking for a fun murder mystery with a sharp sense of humour. It doesn't have the most complex or intricately plotted murder around, but there's a lot to like here and Castle is a distinct and welcome voice in the genre. I am excited to see what is in store for them as an author.

Overall Rating: 3.5/5 stars

The Invitation is an old style classic told through the eyes of the key players. Gita, Vicky, Rachel and Jane, friends from their university days, decide to spend Halloween on an island off the Cornish coast along with their families. A dark and twisty tale of old and new hatreds.

Tregowan Castle stands isolated on a small island of the coast of Cornwall, the scene for a reunion between four university friends and their families. Rachel, the hostess, has invited her old friends to a reunion, to meet her new husband… and to reveal some secrets that her friends thought – and hoped – were long buried.
As her friends arrive, it rapidly becomes clear that there are thirteen guests at the gathering, hardly an ideal number for a Hallowe’en party. After one of the children goes missing, things take an even more serious turn – the lights go out and murder strikes. As the weather builds and strands the group on the island, they have to face the fact that one among them is a murderer, a killer who may well strike again.
So, we’re on an island for the third time this month. Seems to be somewhat in fashion at the moment, and I haven’t even looked at The Guest List by Lucy Foley yet.
We’re doing the multiple narrators thing again, but rather than oscillating between two voices, we get to hear from all four university friends along with two husbands, leaving the children and Rachel’s new family to keep their inner thoughts to themselves. It’s an effective tool, and all credit to the writer who differentiated the voices nicely that a) I never had to go back to check who was narrating that bit and b) despite a decent sized cast, it was easy to keep straight who was who.
There are some familiar narrative tricks here, with a prologue with an unnamed victim, before a jump back in time to some time earlier so we see the events leading up to the murder. Probably a good thing the prologue is there, as it takes just over half the book before we catch up with events. Again, it’s to the author’s credit that the tension builds effectively and this section, as it could easily have done, does not drag in the slightest.
It’s not a perfect book, though, as the murderer and their motivation didn’t seem grand enough to match the rest of the shenanigans going on. The reader also has to accept the rather over-the-top number of secrets being carried by, it seems, every member of the cast, and I didn’t really buy the character whose sole goal seemed to be expose every single secret just for the fun of it.
It was a fun read that kept me hooked, but it could have done with a stronger twist at the end.
The Invitation is released by HQ Digital on ebook on 26th March. Many thanks for the review copy courtesy of NetGalley.

So this was not an easy read to start with and found it a bit difficult to get into. About 1/4 of the way in I really started enjoying it and guessing who was responsible. There were lots of twists and turns and such a unique setting it really added to it.

The ending was brilliant.

I was given an advance copy by netgalley and the publishers but the review is entirely my own.

Although this is an enjoyable book, it just didn't work for me. With each character telling their own story or version of events, I find repetitive. I'm sure a lot of people will enjoy this book. Maybe I'm just getting jaded having read so many books during the pandemic so I need a book to stand out.
This is an honest review of a complementary ARC.

A play in a novel. You get the feeling you're in a theatre watching this and also, taking part. It's full of old fashioned gothic vibes and I really enjoyed it. It's narrated by a whole cast of characters and it's a delicious puzzle trying to work it all out. I really enjoyed this!

Perfect for fans of Agatha Christie's 'And Then There Were None', or Lucy Foley's 'The Guest List', A.M Castle invites an unlucky 13 to dinner then sets about killing them whilst the others run around a cut off island, storm raging, trying to stay alive until help arrives.
4 female friends who have known each other since uni, Rachel, Vicky, Gita and Jane are all still occasionally meeting up, lifestyles withstanding, 2 decades after sharing flats and their fledgling adult lives with each other.
Now the divorced number cruncher -Vicky-, children's author-Jane-,and a red top journalist-Gita-are all invited to a spectacular Halloween party for trust fund babe Rachel whose life seems to have been one long, Laboutin heeled jaunt.
She is the only one who never had to worry about money or status, the only one who has apparently remained the same but what price has she paid for this? By gathering and keeping, the secrets of her nearest and dearest, she has become inextricably entwined, with their lives whether, they wanted her to or not..
So the Halloween party invite to a remote island where she has just married the lord of the country seat, and is now Lady Tregowan, (a title which comes with its own blood stained backstory) merits a huge sigh, gritting of the teeth and a 'let's make the best of it' type attitude.
Gita, whose communication skills she is so proud of, is relentlessly poor at listening to others, Vicky, so good with other people's money is astonishingly bad at her own adding up when it comes to alcohol, and Jane, the woman who longed to be a mother, lives her neediness out in the pages of her mice family chronicles.
Their plus ones-partners and children alike-make up the 13, and , all dressed in the elaborate costumes which Rachel has supplied, prepare themselves for some type of grand announcement.
And then, in the best Christie-esque tradition, the lights go out, and when illumination is provided, one of them is dead, literally hoist by their own petard.
As secrets and revelations pour out, one on top of the other, the increasingly hysterical and cut off inhabitants of Mount Tregowan, the guests find it next to impossible to pull together . Fear, suspicion and recriminations all mingle into a cesspit of unease that is heightened when another body is found...
Will any of them get off the island alive?#
Full of atmosphere, deliciously dark and unrelentingly devious, this is a great story, best devoured by candlelight!

I was really looking forward to this one as I had read - and loved - the author's previous book. But something about this one just didn't click for me - I liked the premise and the whole trapped-on-an-island-and-now-there's-been-a-murder angle, but I felt like that spreading the story across so many different perspectives made it feel bitty, and I was never fully invested in the characters. I also felt like none of the characters had enough space to develop.

I will definitely read more books by this author in the future, as The Perfect Widow was a beautifully written and complex novel, but this one wasn't for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publishers, who granted me a free ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was a really good book with enough to keep me guessing. Thanks for the opportunity to read and review this book.

After reading so many crime thriller books in such a short space of time, it was nice to realise that The Invitation was something a bit different.

Castle's writing brought back such fond memories for me, of old murder mystery movies set in grand locations that I used to watch when I was younger. Somehow despite such an 'old-school' concept of a who-dunnit set in an old mansion, The Invitation is anything but dated.
Technology is fallible, it's typical that it never works right when you need it most. When the lights go out at a dinner party and you find one of your party murdered by the time that the lights eventually flicker back on, lack of signal is the least of your problems.

With subtle genre nods throughout, starting with 'lucky 13' guests and an island that becomes isolated in a storm, it is a perfect example of a 'locked room' mystery brought in to the present. It eases you in, long enough to get comfortable with the characters - then all hell breaks loose and you can almost taste the adrenaline!

Thirteen guests. One killer. No escape. On an island on the coast of Cornwall, cut off from the mainland by the tides for most of the day, thirteen old friends meet at Tregowan Castle for a weekend of revelry. By the next evening, only twelve are still alive.

This is set as a locked room, murder mystery with a touch of Agatha Christie and Shari Lapena thrown in. Each chapter is told by a different character which gives us a well rounded approach to the story. Overall, a gripping thriller that i would recconmend.

This is a first for me by the author and one I enjoyed and would read more of their work. The book cover is eye-catching and appealing and would spark my interest if in a bookshop. Thank you very much to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

My first time reading anything by this author and I thoroughly (deliciously!) enjoyed it. It's been said previously in the reviews for The Invitation that it's one for fans of Lucy Foley's The Guest List. This comparison is spot o,n it's a worthy comparison. Thirteen guests have been invited for a weekend on an island off Cornwall by the island's owner - or more accurately his wife the glamorous Rachel Cadogan. Rachel and her three girlfriends who have known one another since uni days are now in their 40s they arrive with their families in tow. This weekend, planned as a Halloween party, sees their secrets come to light when one of the thirteen is murdered. When another murder happens swiftly afterwards and thanks to a storm no one is able to leave the island - the tension really ramps up. Everyone in the castle has a motive for murder - but who is behind the killings? Very cleverly written and a few genuinely jaw dropping twists. I loved it and look forward to A.M. Castle's next work. This deserves to be on the bestseller list this year.

A Cornish island cut off from the mainland for most of the day, a castle – Tregowan Castle – is both imposing and impressive, and the home for 13 guests for the weekend. Four women and their respective partners and children will enjoy some serious time together over 48 hours – there’s much to catch up on after knowing each other for over 20 years. But by the second evening, 13 live guests have become 12 live and one dead – but who is responsible? And for those who aren’t, the realisation that they’re on an island with a murderer is a little hard to take. Secrets, long hidden, are revealed and no one is the better for it. But will the killer strike again and if so, who is in their line of vision? I loved the premise of the book and it’s all the more frightening because the island is so cut off from the mainland. At one stage you will consider every guest a suspect, and that’s clever, because the author has ensured you will less than comfortable with everyone. So, so clever.

I really enjoyed this murder mystery,set in a castle which is situated on an island in Cornwall.Thirteen guests are invited to a very special Halloween Party but a huge storm blows up cutting them off from the mainland,somebody is found dead and nobody saw a thing !All of the guest have secrets to hide but who is the murderer and why ?Each chapter is told by a different character which I rather liked ,the castle was very creepy ,most of the characters were unlikeable but this story is very compelling a real pageturner and I didn't guess the whodunnit .Many Thanks to the Publisher the Author and NetGalley for my copy in return for an honest review .

A Classic,Well Trodden Premise....
With a classic and well trodden premise - an oft isolated island, a castle, thirteen guests and a killer - and none the worse for that, this is one to draw in the reader from the off. As thirteen old friends gather in a seemingly idyllic setting, things soon go awry and by next evening only twelve remain. The group realise that a killer is among them and, with a fear of them striking again, tensions soon begin to escalate and cracks begin to show. A thoroughly enjoyable read and some perfect escapism.