The title of the book comes from the invitation of one member of a group of long time friends to visit her in the island home off Cornwall of her new husband. Rachel is already wealthy in her own right but manipulative and the invitation to celebrate her new good fortune must come with a hidden agenda. Her three friends are childless Jane, alcoholic Vicky with her son Raf and Gabi with husband Tom and their three daughters. Add in the new husband and his two adult children and there are thirteen at this party, an unlucky number as it turns out for two of them. As the story unfolds, forgotten or best forgotten secrets from their student days emerge. The context of an isolated island overwhelmed by a storm matches the difficult and well drawn relationships of the group. It is fairly obvious to the reader from early on who must be the murderer of the first body but that doesn’t make it any less intriguing to follow the events causing it. The book is a good story and an easy read.

I nearly didn't request this book as the blurb sounded very similar too a book called 'The Guest List' - I'm glad I did request it as it's totally different.

Full of deliciously unlikeable characters all thrown together by Rachel Cadogan who has invited them all to her Cornish castle on a private island.

There isn't any love lost between any of these characters, a supposedly group of friends who are hiding secrets that connect them all.

This feels very Agatha Christie in terms of the grand setting and a cast of characters all with a motive for murder, it's compelling reading.

Really enjoyed this - thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to review this book, this is my honest opinion.

Thank you to Netgalley and HQ for the arc of The Invitation by A.M Castle.

4 stars- It is set in Cornwall, England which isn't far from where I live and this is a locked room mystery book.. i love these types of books. This is set on a island within a castle with 13 guest whom are locked up due to the weather as it is a huge storm! And they have no signal on their phones to no internet connection. Landline phone isn't working and the boat has been sabotaged.. so there isn't any way in which to get back from there.

Then there is a Halloween party in where somebody ends up dead... but fact is that no-one saw a thing... and all of them have grudges for other guests and all of them have secrets so who was it and who had motive to kill..

This was such a thrilling and interesting read, had me hooked start to finish
Highly Recommend
4 Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐

A fascinating take on a closed room murder mystery, set on a secluded island. Mysterious and scary at times!

I was intrigued by this book as I love a locked room mystery, and it's set in Cornwall, where I grew up. I assume the island is a fictionalised version of St Michael's Mount.

The story was actually really good, I liked how all the characters had secrets and I didn't guess all of them either. I also didn't guess who the murderer was and I love it when I'm surprised by that. None of the characters were particularly likeable so it was difficult to root for any of them but they did feel real and the author did a good job of creating distinct personalities in quite a large cast.

The thing that grated on me a bit is that the author would conveniently forget that there was no internet/mobile signal. At one point a character asked another character if she had contacted her ex husband when this wouldn't have been possible and at another point a character planned to call her dogsitter at a time where if there was a phone connection it would be a lot more prudent to call the police.

I did enjoy this but it was just missing the wow factor that will make me remember it. It was a good novel, but it just stopped short of being excellent.

Thanks to A.M. Castle, NetGalley, and HQ for this advanced copy.

Twelve people are invited by a rich socialite to a weekend Halloween event on a secluded island off the coast of Cornwall. Virtually every guest carries a big secret, and each secret is at risk of being revealed over the weekend.

Because of this, there are murderous thoughts from characters... Until those thoughts are transformed into actions. A dead body turns the weekend on its head, as the guests attempt to work out who did it, why, and more importantly, will the killer strike again?

The Invitation is good. In such a saturated market, a whodunit has to be written really well to stand out. A. M. Castle is definitely a good writer.

The story is told by several characters' viewpoints, which in some books, can be confusing. Not here - each character has their own unique voice in The Invitation. I didn't once think "which person is this?" Castle is very adept at writing unique people, which really made me feel that I was reading about real people.

Then there is the story itself. If you like whodunnits with a small cast of people who might be the killer, this is for you. The setting is an old castle on the sea. There is a storm that has stranded the guests. It's the perfect setup for fans of crime thrillers.

I read The Invitation very quickly. It is a good book, and I would recommend to anyone who wants an interesting, fast-paced novel.