I enjoyed this book! It was a great read. I enjoyed the storyline and characters. Interesting premise with the locked room and slightly different for this author. But a great read overall! 4 stars!

A group of friends with many secrets are invited to an engagement party on a remote private island. Old secrets resurface and new secrets emerge, the twists keep coming!

Birds of a Feather.

There’s no shortage of despicable characters in this story so identifying any redeeming qualities will be as challenging as figuring out whodunnit.

If you’ll permit me another idiom, Liar Liar Pants on Fire would be appropriate too because of the inferno of accomplished defections, spins, and outright lies.

As a reader, you know something’s amiss but what? Does the veneer finally crack? I had my hopes from early on.

I’d thought a cast of six was rather small for a locked room, but wait, there’s more! Also be prepared for a corpse pile up of the bloody kind.

I don’t normally read locked room thrillers - so scary - but figured I’d take a chance since I normally like this author’s work. Pretty Little Wife was a favorite and Darby Kane has been an almost auto request for me.

A fun buddy read with Jayme including the usual lively discussion.

Thank you to William Morrow Publishers, Darby Kane, and NetGalley for my advance copy due to publish January 30, 2024

TIME TO TELL THE TRUTH

Emily Hunt went missing on the Saturday afternoon of her graduation weekend but nobody noticed until Sunday afternoon.

Her body was found floating in a river, and a quiet loner was blamed because of ONE text message he sent her, which sounded like it could be a threat.

Twelve years later, her college friends gather to celebrate an engagement on a private island in Maine—with only one way in and one way out. Of course, you can only get to the Island during low tide, and a storm is coming in, making leaving the Island impossible.

Cue the ominous music…

When the close knit group, sworn to secrecy from what really happened, twelve years ago, find a dead man in the trunk of a car with a note: “time to tell the truth” it’s only the beginning of a plan designed to get a confession out of the REAL killer.

But, who lured them to this Island?

Been there, done that.

This trope has been done so often, and this one didn’t stand out from the crowd for me.

Perhaps it will be a better fit for readers who only read this genre on occasion, or for those who cannot get enough of “FINAL GIRL” type horror movies. If that is you-this will be available on December 5, 2023.

Thank You to Avon books for the gifted ARC provided through NetGalley. It was my pleasure to offer a candid review.

What a wild book! It was read at breakneck speed, because like all Darby Kane books...the twists were so good!
Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

The first half of the book had me intrigued but the second half went down hill. The ending was fine, but it was a bit of a let down. It was tough at times to differentiate the characters from one another and some of the reveals were expected. Thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for the ARC.

The Engagement Party is an interesting premise and a locked room mystery.

A dead girl, and 12 years later an engagement party in which everyone but Sierra was present when the dead girl was found.

The book was hard for me to read - it was long and would have been better had it been more compact and focused. I had a hard time with the characters - following them and understanding them

College friends are invited to an engagement party on an island. Ruthie is engaged to Will, Will went to school with Cassie and Alex (now married) and Mitch who brought Sierra as a guest. Right from the beginning we know that there are a lot of secrets and the “friends” do not want to share them.

The first half of the book dragged for me a bit. The second half was better, but it was a pain trying to keep track of all the stories that were being told. We got there in the end but it was too convoluted and had a few too many twists for me.

Overall, not a bad book but not for me. If you like always guessing and not liking most characters, you might be into this story.

Ehhh I’ll be honest on this one. This was probably a 2.5 for me. Rounded to 3! This was definitely a fast paced thriller, but not for my taste. I liked 1 out of the 7 main characters in this one. Most of them were unbearable to me, which made me really struggle to get through this one. I just felt like this was one of those horror movies that had way too many twists and turns that were so far fetched and unbelievable. It was a lot of action packed into a short period of time that didn’t make a lot of sense. I really liked Pretty Little Wife so this was a bummer to me. But, that being said, I can see a lot of people enjoying this one.

College friends get back together at a remote cabin to celebrate an engagement. They had suffered a huge loss right before their college graduation. The engagement party DID NOT turned out as planned. Some unexpected guests showed up trying to dig to the bottom of that college tragedy. A fast game of Cat and Mouse - who will survive and who is responsible?

Thank you to William Morrow Books, NetGalley, and the author for a digital ARC of this book!
Publication: 12/05/23 ☺️

Darby Kane? Say no more.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨

I need Darby Kane to start getting some more credit because I have yet to read a book by her I haven't loved.

The Engagement Party is her upcoming release and follows a friend group that is coming together for, you guessed it, an engagement party years after their graduation celebration comes to a horrific end.

I know that synopsis sounds like a million other thrillers you've read before, but I promise this one shines.

Friend group reunion is my absolute favorite trope to read in thrillers so I was hooked right from the beginning. But what I love about all of Darby Kane's books is how mean they are. And I mean that in the best way possible. The characters are flawed, there is always a ton of gruesome violence, and you really feel like there's something at stake for the people you're reading about.

Not to mention this books has a jaw-dropping twist that I quite literally gasped at. You should read it for that reveal alone.

I kept getting the characters mixed up in my head so I got a little confused in the beginning, but it was a wild ride from there.

The Engagement Party comes out December 5,2023. Thank you to @hkdimon and @thrillerbookloverspromotions for the advance copy.

If you don't want to wait until December, check out The Replacement Wife, my favorite Darby Kane

This was a slow burn locked room mystery for me. There were a lot of different secrets and story plots to keep track of. It got confusing trying to keep track of all the characters and who belonged to each reveal. Sierra was the only character I could root for at all. The rest just weren't likeable. I don't mind unlikeable characters but when you combine them with a plot that was a little loose, and very convoluted, it just not a total win for me. Not bad just okay. Will continue to read this author as Pretty Little Wife is one of my favorite reads ever.

Who killed Emily Hunt all those years ago? Secrets have a way of festering no matter how long they're kept, and when Sierra is invited to a posh wedding in Maine, she doesn't realize the tensions, resentments and obsessions going back decades. As the killer makes moves to ensure the wrong person continues to be blamed, Sierra inadvertently dives into the heart of the old murder. A tense story for thriller lovers!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.
This book took me forever to get through. And extreme storyline that kept getting more and more complicated and some very unlikable characters.
I felt like I kind of had to push myself to finish this one. I just was not a fan. The description made me want to like it but it was a no from me.

Oh I love a locked room murder mystery. This was absolutely nail bitting unputdownable gripping thriller. I loved this!
I just reviewed The Engagement Party by Darby Kane. #TheEngagementParty #NetGalley
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I've read and enjoyed several of Darby Kane's previous books so I was very excited for her upcoming release, The Engagement Party. Unfortunately, this one fell flat for me. It started off on a positive note, but pretty quickly I lost interest in the story line because it was so unbelievable. In addition, all of the characters are unlikable (which normally isn't an issue for me) and I wasn't able to form a connection with any of them.

I have read every book by Darby Kane, so I was super excited to read her latest - the engagement party. I loved how it was told from multiple viewpoints and you had to keep learning about the past to understand stand what was going on. This book grabbed my attention from the beginning and had my up late reading it. I highly recommend you check out this thriller.

A group of college friends meet up for the first time in twelve years in order to celebrate an engagement. Soon after they arrive on the secluded island, they find a dead body in the trunk of a car. A storm is coming in, and there is no way to cross back to the main land until the tide goes back down. To make matters worse, as the storm rages, they also lose power. We soon begin to learn that some people are hiding secrets, and they will soon be forced to explain everything.

This locked room mystery had some “And Then There Were None” elements from the famous Agatha Christie book. Fast paced and easy to read! I devoured this one in a single day. 3.5 stars, rounding up to 4!

Thank you so much to NetGalley and publisher for this ARC!

This one was a bit difficult to review. While I enjoyed the book and did want to see it through to the end, it didn’t meet my expectations. “Locked room” thrillers need to be done a certain way or else they become boring and repetitive in that closed setting. The twist didn’t have a shocking factor and there was not much character backstory besides the little bits sprinkled in here and there. I would say it’s a decent read but not one that I’m crazy about.

The Engagement Party by Darby Kane starts out well with a "closed room" style mystery with college reunited for an engagement party. Soon, a dead body shows up in the trunk of a car. What starts out as a rather classic mystery for me became one mired in too many characters, none of whom were terribly likeable. The emphasis on dialogue as opposed to scene setting and description made for a difficult read. Hard to get into the story and really couldn't relate to the characters and their seemingly shallow motivations. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy.

The Dedication is so touching and epigraph is thought provoking. Unexpected and unthinkable happens in this book. There are different characters and the book has been narrated from each of their POV.

After 12 years a group of friends gathers on a remote island for an engagement party but secrets from past are binding them and the prevailing mystery on island seems to have some connection with the Emily’s Murder that happened 12 years ago on a graduation weekend. While what’s most shocking is each of them is harbouring a secret of their own and when the secrets unveils, they buried truths also find their way out.

The more you will delve in the book, the more you will find yourself engulfed in secrets, murder mystery, suspicion, mystery of island and complex web of relationships. The truth is twisted and with unexpected twists, it will keep you guessing till the end.

You can expect the following:

•Atmospheric setting
•Killer on Loose
•Secrets from Past
•Buried Truth
•Vibes like When There Were None
•Brilliant Whodunnit
•Murder Mysteries
•Shocking Revelations
•Complex Relationships
•Suspense & slow-burn mystery
•Twists and Turns
•Alternating POV

Thank you Netgalley, Author and Publisher.