Told from the perspective of an outsider, this 1990's boy band had a pretty good life until one day, they just quit. Now the lead singer is getting married in the wedding of the year and the band members are all attending. But there is much, much more to this story. When a band mate tells them all he's writing a "tell all" book, concerns are raised and actions are taken. The story has several twists that will raise the question.....what really happened....and leave readers quickly flipping pages to find out. This was a quick read for me, now to see what surprises Sarah Linley has for us.

I enjoyed the Wedding Murders.
Libby and Matthew are off to a wedding in a posh English countryside hotel.
Matthew is a former rock star and it is his bandmate who is tying the knot.
The band members have not seen each other for a while and tensions are still high, their breakup full of secrets.
When a member of the wedding party goes missing, Libby, a journalist, can smell a secret being covered up and knows it is bigger than the bandmates are letting on.
And then another guest is attacked and it cannot be just bad luck.
Although it’s risky Libby can’t leave things alone and wants to find out the truth.

With thanks to Netgalley, Harper Collins UK and One More Chapter for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was a slow burn that turned into a great read, so I am pleased I persevered. Highly recommended read. Perfect for your summer holiday!

This is such an entertaining read. It is fast paced.
I liked the characters and was most interested in the past storyline

A gripping, page-turning novel with a lot of twists, turns and surprises in store. Definitely a thriller I'll recommend!

I debated between 2* and 3*, and rounded down in the end. It was OK, just didn’t really jump out at me, and I think I was expecting something slightly different from the blurb. The story is told between Libby’s POV now, Matt’s POV in the past showing the band’s career, and snippets from Simon’s memoir. I just couldn’t really engage with it - it was a bit too predictable in terms of the band using drink and drugs, and for a journalist, even a fledgling one, Libby seemed to have very little investigative drive. And when someone has an allergic reaction, you cannot tell me that telling someone to call an ambulance, calling for antihistamines (unlikely to be available in the needed liquid form) and waiting for paramedics, would be faster than running up to your room for a spare epi pen? Ultimately a bit disappointing and underwhelming, sorry.

I received a free ARC copy of this via NetGalley and the publishers in return for an unbiased review. Apologies for the long delay in providing this.

A fairly quick read but kept me engrossed throughout. I liked the characters and a good story line. Recommended by me.

Gripping and tense throughout and a very good read. I was hooked and read it in one evening. Looking forward to reading more from the author.

This story was a fairly quick read. You’re in a beautiful setting for a wedding but someone is killing people.

Former band mates with secrets to hide. Who is willing to kill to keep them hidden? Dive into this story for a rise to fame and destruction tale.

This was an ok story. It was a fairly quick book to read, but I found it lacked something that you need to grip you.

The premise is good, but the execution of the story was disjointed. The characters were annoying and the events that unfold are unbelievable, both now and then.

The story is essentially a reunion of a band that fell to pieces in the 90s and all come back together as one of them gets married at a fancy country estate hotel. One of the band mates is writing a no holds barred book and it would appear there are plenty of people with reasons they don’t want the truth to come out.

It dragged out for longer than was necessary and for that and the other reasons I have sited, I give this 2.5/5 rounded up to 3.

This is an absolute gem!!! I’ve been so excited about this book and it hasn’t disappointed.absolutely will be recommending this book to anyone who will listen to me.

This book was okay, I enjoyed it, but quite middle of the road. Libby never felt like a fully fleshed out character, but I liked reading about the band members. Also, some of the characters that played a big part of the plot, did not feel like we got to know at all and their motivation until the "i'm evil and gonna make a speech admitting to everthing" kinda moment.

A group of ex-boyband members with dark secrets in their past reunite for the wedding of one of them, but the old tensions simmer and eventually implode into murder, betrayal and all sorts of skeletons falling out of old closets.

As far as murder mysteries go, this was a perfectly okay one but it didn’t really blow me away, mainly because I didn’t feel any sort of connection – emotional or otherwise – to any of the characters, and the end reveal felt extremely far-fetched… I have no idea how the murderer intended to pull the whole thing off successfully!

It was an easy and entertaining read though, and I did enjoy the way the flashbacks to their music industry past of the Nineties were slipped into the modern day narrative to create an additional level of mystery.

I’d be likely to recommend this to someone looking for a quick, unrealistic murder mystery thriller with a touch of Nineties nostalgia.

Great plot to get yourself lost in. This book has everything. A real fast paced thriller. Will get your heart racing on more than one occasion. Very well written. Highly recommend this book

I quite enjoyed the plot although it could have been a little more punchy and could have been narrated with a little more feelings. I don't know if that was the style of the book since Libby was a journalist and the author wanted for the story to come out matter of factly but it was good read and plot.

This was easy to read and I liked the main characters and how their story unfolds but I did feel it was a.bit predictable. I wasn't shocked by the ending and feel there could have beenore.depth..

I loved the sections of the book set in the past, looking at the band's rise to fame and subsequent self destruction. I enjoyed the extracts from Simon's memoir too.

I also really liked being able to empathise with Libby and her feelings of not really fitting in at this wedding.

What I wasn't as interested by was by the mystery in play here, whether or not someone really was murdered as a result of a gunshot being heard in a hotel that is used for hunting occasionally. And whether or not someone was in fact murdering wedding guests.

I was intrigued by the big secret the band members desperately wanted to keep secret, and it shocked me for the reveal. Equally enjoyed getting to know the band members both in the present and past.

It is an enjoyable novel, that I'm glad I had the opportunity to read.

Thank you to One More Chapter and Netgalley for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily.

The plot had a great premise but I did not connect with the characters. Still a good read.
Many thanks to Harper Collins UK and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

EXCERPT: Prologue

Darkness engulfs her as soon as she steps out of the clearing. She tries to get her bearings, but nothing looks familiar. She needs help. Fast.

She pulls out her phone, her hands still slippery with blood, but it's run out of battery. Damn it. She starts to run through the woodland, praying she's going the right way.

Branches tear at her face as roots twist around her ankles. She stumbles and nearly falls. She looks behind her but can't see more than a meter. Her heart is pounding and tears are streaming down her face, blurring her vision.

In the night, the trees have taken on a fairytale quality, a warning to little girls not to stray from the path. Moonlight stabs through the canopy creating pools of light. An owl screeches, the sound piercing the silence like someone being tortured. The undergrowth rustles with unseen creatures.

She needs to get back to the wedding.

She pictures the guests, dancing and drinking, raising their glasses to the bride and groom, oblivious to any danger. To the killer in their midst.

ABOUT 'THE WEDDING MURDERS': You are invited to the wedding of the season…

It’s the stuff of fairytales. A celebrity wedding in a grand manor house in the beautiful English countryside.

But then one guest goes missing.

And another almost dies.

Someone at this wedding will do anything to stop their dark secrets from being exposed.

You might not live to tell the tale…

MY THOUGHTS: 🤷‍♀️ I really wanted to love this book, after all weddings are usually fraught affairs anyway, and a murder or two would likely improve the atmosphere. But unfortunately The Wedding Murders failed to hold my interest. It actually took me five days to read this relatively short book.

The story is told over two timelines, the 1990's as the band struggles to become known and then becomes famous, and the current day when one of the now disbanded group members is getting married. There are also excerpts from Simon's soon to be published exposè on life on the road. He, for one, is not content to let what happened on tour stay on tour. Personally I felt these extracts added little to the book, and were merely 'filler' material.

There should be plenty of suspense and intrigue, but this is sadly lacking for the most part. The writing style is flat, as are the characters. I felt like I was reading an article in one of the less lurid newspapers reporting the event. At no point did I become engaged with either the characters or the storyline. I was so disinterested that I didn't even try to work out who the murderer could be.

However I didn't skip parts and I never debated not finishing. This is a light, quick read with an excess of sex, drugs and what passed for rock'n'roll in the 1990s.

⭐⭐.5

#TheWeddingMurders #NetGalley

I: @linleysarah1 @onemorechapterhc

T: @linleysarah1 @OneMoreChapter_ @HarperCollinsUK

#contemporaryfiction #murdermystery

THE AUTHOR: Sarah Linley lives in Yorkshire and works as a Communications Manager for a housing charity. She spent two years backpacking around South-East Asia with her husband. Their travels inspired her debut novel, The Beach. When she is not writing, she enjoys walking in the Dales with her dad and his dog.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Harper Collins UK, One More Chapter via Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of The Wedding Murders for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

For an explanation of my rating system please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com

This review is also published on Twitter, Amazon, Instagram and my webpage

Wedding Murders sound like an intriguing title and it did. The plot is an interesting one but the narration is not.

A band that’s already broken due to past secrets get together for the wedding of one member. Matthew is a member of this band and he goes to an English hotel for the wedding of their band leader. Libby is a journalist and she starts to investigate when the chief bridesmaid goes missing. Things start to go downhill with several other incidences start to occur and Libby can’t solve it because none of the band members are ready to speak about their past.

This book could have been better if not for the narration. The book is narrated in the POV of Libby. But I couldn’t follow most of the characters and Libby was one of them. The story was having too many plot lines and secrets and made it a bit complex.

All thanks to HarperCollins UK, One More Chapter and Netgalley for the eARC in exchange of an honest review.