Member Reviews
I enjoyed reading The Wedding Murders. It was a fast paced and interesting read. The swapping time frames within the book kept the story going. It was told from 3 perspectives; the present, the past and memoirs. Secrets were slowly told throughout. It was a classic whodunit, fun, lighthearted and cosy read that I was able to read in one go. It's not necessarily unique but would definitely recommend to others.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers Harper Collins UK, One More Chapter, for an Arc in exchange for an honest opinion
A decent enough who dun it style book. I loved the fact it was written from 3 perspectives, the present, the past and also by exceprts of the memoir. The characters are all well written and the back and forth timeliness gives a much better understanding to who they all are and what their motivations are. It's got a good pace and the cuts to the past mean it never gets stale. It's all a bit far fetched but then again, it is a fiction so it is what it is. I wasn't convinced by the characters immediate bond with these much older characters she'd never met before or that hearing a noise would immediately make you think someone had been shot...... or that a bride would choose a wedding venue purely vased on the fact they managed to see and remember the code to the gun cabinet but whatever lol. Its a decent enough story as long as you don't think too hard about it
Thank You to the Publisher for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.
The title of this book could lead you to believe this is just a cozy mystery. In fact, it is anything but.
The central character, Libby, is invited to accompany her older boyfriend to a wedding. The boyfriend Matt was once a member of a successful pop band which has long since split up. The groom is also a past member of the band. This will be the first time all the members have been together since the split.
Over the course of two days, past secrets are threatening to surface with disastrous consequences .
The story moves along at a good pace and kept me engrossed. To be fair this book exceeded my expectations and was well worth reading.
I found The Wedding Murders a really pacy, exciting read. The way the book was presented and the of swapping time frames kept it fresh and me turning the pages. Would definitely recommend.
This novel is told in three ways. We have the present with Libby and Matt attending the wedding, flashbacks to the band's past and extracts from Simon's tell all memoir. I found this was a really clever way of telling the story as the secrets are slowly revealed to the reader. It helped to chop the story up and keep the suspense moving along. We are quickly told that there's a secret that the band are keeping and Libby is determined to find out which naturally puts her in danger. The story isn't overally unique in the secret itself or who was involved in the murders but it's still a very enjoyable book.
Wasn't quite what I expected, the description didn't overly prepare for me how much would be following a band through their career in flashbacks. Overall it was a fun mystery with a bit of scare factor, But I saw so much of it coming that it didn't particularly thrill me. It also took a really long time to get going. I was over a third of the way in wondering what I had missed because nothing was happening on the mystery front. Worth a read on for a cosy weekend though, I read it all in one sitting which is always a good sign.
Thanks to NetGalley, Sarah Linley and HarperCollins UK for the ARC of The Wedding Murders.
When Libby and her boyfriend of 18 months Matthew are invited to a wedding for one of his ex-bandmates, it seems like a great opportunity to get to know more about Matthew's past. The band members haven't seen each other in years, and a trip away at a lavish country manor sounds like the perfect way to spend the weekend.
The wedding very quickly takes a turn however when a bridesmaid goes missing and another guest almost dies. There is clear tension amongst the group and when one member threatens to publish a memoir that exposes secrets from their past, it appears that someone will go to no limits to avoid the past coming back to haunt them.
This book was well-paced and gripping but I would say that you 100% have to not take this too seriously. Libby's suspicions that there is a murderer afoot seem to go from 0 - 100 in all of 5 minutes, and in reality given that she had never met any of them before it's a tad on the unrealistic side. I also found some of the references to her 7 year old son (who sounded more like a 4 year old) a bit random and it was odd that the band was never named,
Despite that, I enjoyed the 'who dun it' element of this storyline and didn't figure it out before the reveal.
Overall, a fun lighthearted thriller which served its purpose as a bit of escapism, but perhaps not for fans of the dark and gritty thrillers.
Thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK for providing me an ARC of this book. The cover and the title intrigued me at first, even though it was not what i was expecting, i did enjoy it. This is a well paced thriller, that I would recommend to anyone who is looking for a short read. The end felt a bit too rushed, the writing,is good. I didn't find some of the characters that interesting as others but the story itself it's interesting enough to spend a good time trying to solve the mistery.
This is a tremendously enjoyable book! Split between the present day wedding, sections from Simon’s memoirs and back in the 1990s with the band, the story rolls out at a great pace. Libby is a likeable main character, though I did find the passages about her her detective enquiries a bit unrealistic. I particularly enjoyed the days of the band forming, and the Dales setting was a bonus. I highly recommend this book.
Libby's boyfriend was a member of a moderately successful band back in the 90s but when the bank broke up so did the relationships among its members. Why then has Daniel invited them to his wedding? Oh the dangers of a colleague writing a tell all as Simon is doing. All is a bit weird but ok and then bad things happen. This is mostly told by Libby, a journalist, who decides she's got to get answers. Matthew tells the story of the band in the 1990s. I liked this for the different approach to what's becoming a trope and for Lucy, who has a good take on the world. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. An entertaining read.
Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this novel..
I am afraid I did not even get to the murder, it was far too fluffy and superficial for my taste. I shall not be finishing it.
I was expecting this to be a cosy whodunnit, but it wavered between band memoir (like Daisy Jones), psychological thriller (could she trust her boyfriend) and a wedding magazine article featuring a country house. The main character, supposedly a sensible single mother and investigative journalist puts herself in peril too many times for the reader’s credulity. The writing is very good and the sense of place is well explored, but there are too many unanswered questions around the motives of the characters. I’m not a fan of multiple timelines and POVs when they seem to add nothing to the story, which was the case here. The style of writing is good and there is definitely promise, but the editing should have been harsher.
Thank you Sarah Linley and NetGalley for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.
As a big thriller reader, I was very excited about being taken into the world of The Wedding Murders but unfortunately I did not find myself as engaged as I expected. I enjoyed the character development and I liked the way the writing was split into the past and present but I did feel intrigued by finding out the mystery part of it.
Overall, I did read it quickly and it was an easy read which I would recommend to others.
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.
This read had the feeling of an old school, English crime read. The wedding of the year in a beautiful yet remote location. What could possibly go wrong?
I found myself gripped whilst reading this and could not help but race through it as I wanted to know what would happen. I think a lot of the plot is fairly predictable, however towards the end, Linley throws in some unexpected twists that I really did not see coming and suddenly the tension and drama ramped up. Linley creates the perfect atmosphere as well, the whole read is very tense and I was on the edge of my seat just waiting for something to happen.
This book has chapters set in the present day, flashback chapters and excerpts from a memoir. All of these combine to tantalisingly hint at the dark truth and Linley slowly reveals the many many secrets of the characters. I particularly enjoyed the use of flashback chapters to hint at the truth.
The characters are a good mix, not particularly likeable but that is the point. They all provided entertainment and left you questioning who you could trust.
'The Wedding Murders' is a very tense thriller with a wonderful atmosphere.
Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK for an advance copy.
This story had such a lovely cosy-mystery feel with the perfect setting. The characters were well developed, if unlikable (which suits the purpose of the novel), and I particularly enjoyed the chapters set in the past tense. The end felt a little rushed, perhaps a little less developed than the rest of the novel, which was interesting and detailed, but apart from that a very enjoyable read! I really enjoyed this author's writing style and will be on the lookout for more of her books!
An entertaining and well paced thriller.
The book read like a proper who dunnit , giving the reader plenty of chances to guess the murderer, unfortunately I didn’t guess correctly.
Libby and Matthew are invited to a wedding of an old friend of Matthew’s.
Matthew is a successful businessman who in his younger years was a member of a band , Daniel also a member of the band is getting married and sends all the band mates an invite to his wedding , secretly hoping to convince them to reform.
The story goes back and forth in time but does so in an easy to read way without confusing the reader.
There are differing points of view also in the story which again doesn’t baffle the reader and combines effortlessly.
The writing is of a high calibre and the story is kept at a moderate pace to keep the reader invested in the story.
A great read and different to the run of the mill thrillers!
Thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK, One More Chapter.
Thanks to NetGalley, the author and Harper Collins for the ARC of this book!
When you think of a wedding, you would normally think about joy and laughter and tears (happy tears), but this is the complete opposite. If you had any doubt in your mind about the trust you have in your partner, would you accompany them to a wedding near the woods for someone they no longer talk or associate with anymore? Who can you really trust?
They say two can keep a secret if one of them is dead, but what if multiple people know the secret? What would you do to keep that secret and what would you be prepared to do if said secret got out? That’s the overall journey of what our protagonist is trying to uncover.
This story goes back and forth between storylines and timelines so that you can attempt to get the full picture of what happened. I was left with many questions I had hoped would be flushed out to get the full picture of each character, but enjoyed the dual timeframes as well. Some characteristics of the band members seemed to be stereotypical and could have been a little more dynamic.
Without giving away the big reveal, you’re left with one major question: would destroying someone else to bolster your reputation be worth it?
For a girl with wedding bells on the horizon, Libby doesn’t know much about the history of the man she may wed but finds out rather quickly at a posh wedding they attend. This affair is the marriage of one of his bandmates: Matthew was once a part of a famous rock band and this event brings them all together for the first time in many years. But all those years, depicted in flashback chapters, were rife with drugs, sex, bad behavior and a particular incident that seems to be making its way up to the top of the list of things they’d rather forget.
It seems one of the members has decided to write a tell all book, including this indefensible event that would cripple all of their lives as they know it if it was made known. None of the remaining members want this book published, needless to say, and have bribed, cajoled and threatened the author without success. But the sequence of events that starts with Libby’s walk in the woods the morning of the wedding, snowballs into a series of devastating events that erases a few lives as well as the publication.
Once the wedding was underway it was nonstop intrigue and action among the characters that kept the reader turning pages.
The scariest cozy mystery I have ever read! I loved the gorgeous manor setting and the super suspicious guests. Highly recommended to all those who enjoy a good puzzle.
3.5 stars
A wedding weekend was supposed to be perfect if it weren't for the secrets from the past turning up. Libby and Matthew are supposed to be carefree wedding guests, but Libby is no longer sure about Matthew.
This story is told in two time lines, which I really enjoyed. As much as I liked Libby, I didn't enjoy the parts about the band that much.
All in all a solid well paced thriller
Thank #NetGalley #Harper Collins UK, One More Chapter for the ARC of this book