Darby Kane's "The Engagement Party" throws you headfirst into a whirlwind of mystery and suspense, whisking you away to a secluded island for a seemingly idyllic celebration that quickly takes a sinister turn. While the initial chapters may unfold at a slower pace, setting the scene and introducing the intricate web of relationships between the guests, the wait is amply rewarded as the tension ratchets up and the island becomes a pressure cooker of secrets and paranoia.

Gathering Clouds on Paradise Cove: The story hinges on a group of old college friends reuniting for the engagement party of one of their own on the stunningly beautiful, yet isolated, Isle of Whisper. As Kane masterfully paints the picture of their past connections and present resentments, you begin to feel the cracks in their seemingly solid foundation. Old wounds, unspoken truths, and simmering jealousies simmer beneath the surface, threatening to boil over when a series of unsettling events casts a long shadow over the festivities.

Twisting Tides of Suspicion: Just when you think you've settled into the rhythm of the story, Kane throws in a chilling curveball. A missing guest, a suspicious fire, and a cryptic note plunge the island into chaos, turning friends into suspects and every conversation into a potential clue. The author excels at building suspense, layering hints and red herrings with a deft hand, keeping you guessing until the very last page.

Characters that Captivate: Each guest harboring their own secrets and shrouded in ambiguity, the characters are the beating heart of "The Engagement Party." Kane imbues them with depth and complexity, allowing you to empathize with their vulnerabilities even as you question their motives. The protagonist, Sarah, caught in the web of suspicion surrounding her fiancé, emerges as a strong and resourceful figure, determined to uncover the truth even as danger closes in.

A Gripping Journey: While the slower start might initially throw you off, it ultimately lays the groundwork for a truly immersive experience. As the narrative picks up steam, you'll find yourself unable to put the book down, your pulse quickening with each revelation and unexpected twist. Kane keeps you on the edge of your seat, constantly questioning what you know and who you can trust, until the thrilling climax that leaves you breathless.

Overall: "The Engagement Party" is a masterclass in suspenseful storytelling, drawing you into a world of secrets, betrayals, and chilling revelations. While the early pacing might slow some readers down, Kane's deft character development, ingenious plot twists, and beautifully rendered setting ultimately deliver a page-turning experience that will stay with you long after the final page. So, pack your bags and your detective hat – a trip to Isle of Whisper awaits, with thrilling mysteries and chilling truths guaranteed to leave you captivated.

Darby Kane is an auto-buy author for me. My book club even read her last book earlier this year, THE LAST INVITATION!

This, unfortunately, is my least favorite Darby Kane book to date. I liked how it started, but didn’t like where it went. The craziness that happened on the island was too much for me to suspend disbelief, and I start checking out when things start getting too unrealistic. Locked room mystery/thrillers are hit or miss for me, especially ones with island settings because I feel like they’re so over-done.

However, I really like Darby’s writing, and I enjoyed the short chapters + multiple POVs.

Looking forward to the next Darby Kane book!

Murder, Mystery, college group of friends, vacation on a remote island in ME, Raging Storm? What could go wrong? Everything!!

This book is about a group of inseparable college friends who experienced an extra tragedy when one of their besties, Emily, ends up dead on graduation. Fast forward 12 years and someone is getting married. To celebrate they book a vacation home on a private island off of Maine. Everything appears to be great, until a dead body of one of their other friends is found. It appears as though everyone in the group is not who the seem to be. All the stories and tragedy they thought was buried resurfaces.

This was a good read even though some of it seemed a little far fetched. The majority of the characters were not very likable and incredibly selfish. There was only one character that I could come close to sympathizing with. I really liked the addition of the chapters reading Emily’s dairy, it helped to have her added perspective. I loved the locked room mystery style to this book, reminds me of Agatha Christie. The writing is done well and the storyline is great. It caught my interest from the beginning and had twists that I didn’t even consider. Another fun, quick thriller.

Thank you to NetGalley, William Morrow, Thriller Book Lovers Promotions and Darby Kane for the opportunity to read this book. My opinions are honest and my own!

This was a solid popcorn thriller. I enjoyed several of the twists at the end and the reveals throughout of what exactly was going on. I definitely liked Sierra and her relationship with Mitch, and I think I would have enjoyed more of their relationship (or even if the entire POV was from Sierra as an outsider from the friend group).


SPOILERS: Some of the characters decisions didn't make sense to me, and I wish we got more build up of character relationships. It was obvious from the start that Ruthie was involved in some way, but I wish we got a better explanation of why Will was interested in her enough to propose so quickly. It didn't really make sense to me and just felt convenient for the plot.

The Engagement Party by Darby Kane is an atmospheric thriller about an engagement party on a secluded island that goes horribly wrong.

Full of twists and turns and despicable characters, this novel will have your guessing until the very end. It was a great read to help finish out 2023

Thank you to the publisher, Netgalley, and the author for the ARC

I loved PRETTY LITTLE WIFE so when I saw a new Darby Kane, I was eager to read it. I love locked room mysteries, but this one fell flat for me. First, this book included my least favorite trope of all time. It's 2023 people- get therapy, not revenge. Secondly, the characters all sucked except #teamsierra. And lastly, the twist was a giant eyeroll. Was anyone invested enough in that character to care? Ugh! 2.5.

Still forever grateful for my ARC from William Morrow & NetGalley.

A tight knit group of college friends get invited to a weekend on an island to celebrate the engagement of one of the group. Sounds like fun even though this is Will’s 3rd engagement until they a storm and dead bodies surface - all pieces to the murder of one of their friend group long ago on graduation weekend. So many secrets and twists and turns in a who-dunnit that keeps you on the edge of your seat topped off with a whopping surprise at the end - my favorite kind of book!

Thank you for the ARC to William Morrow Paperbacks! #netgalley. #TheEngagementParty. #loveathriller

Group of friends gathering together years after college where something terrible happened. Who is involved? What happened exactly? They can't escape the vacation house with a killer on the loose. Average title but mystery lovers will read.

DNF at 35.6%. I really wanted to know what happened to Emily, but everything was too repetitive. To get a third of the way through with no movement forward was a struggle.

2023 was the year I fell down a Darby Kane rabbit hole. I burned through the first three standalone suspense novels and then patiently waited for The Engagement Party - a December release. Touted as a mix of And Then There Were None and I Know What You Did Last Summer, I buckled myself in and got ready for a ride. Unfortunately it was a ride I found bumpy and a little lacking.

Emily Hunt was murdered the weekend of her college graduation at an affluent New England liberal arts college. At the center of the mystery are her closest college friends, tragic Mitch, power couple Alex and Cassie, and emotionally bankrupt Will. Emily's murder haunts all of them, naturally they know more than they're letting on, and they'll do anything to keep the past well and truly buried.

Then Will, poor dumb bunny Will, gets engaged. For like the fourth time, but who's counting? His fiancée Ruthie wants to get the friends together to celebrate their engagement and picks a remote house on an island in Maine. As a storm is blowing in. Convenient. Also joining this house of horrors is Sierra, Mitch's business partner - who also happens to be in love with him. They're not on the island long before random weirdness starts happening and the first body is discovered in the garage.

I'll be honest, it was the comp to And Then There Were None that made me pick up this book, and when that comp is dangled before me I just expect certain things. I expect to hate pretty much everybody (check) and I expect nearly everybody to die (yeah, not so much). I mean, half the fun of this type of story is that the characters you hate are the bodies that start dropping. And while I quite literally hated everybody in this story, not nearly enough of them ended up dead in the end. Sorry, not sorry. In fact, the first two dead bodies are tertiary characters we never meet alive on the page. This is a problem because Kane does such a good job of making me hate everybody that to have most of them not die is just, well, a bummer.

I realize how this sounds, but if you're a suspense/thriller fan this is IYKYK kind of thing.

Sierra is the innocent bystander character that we, as the reader, are supposed to rally around. The one who gets sucked into the madness only because she's an idiot who's in love with Mitch. And ultimately that's what annoys me about her. Everybody in this story, literally everybody, wants to protect "poor, tragic Mitch." Look, I get it - his childhood was jacked up. But he's such an unlikeable, almost passive aggressive in his sarcasm, character that I just wanted him to die. And no, I won't tell you if he does or not.

Besides the fact that the body count isn't nearly high enough, the suspense thread is a blunt instrument. With a plot of this nature I want Machiavelli. Sorry, just do. I want twists, turns, who can you trust? This is more like a cudgel upside the head.

All that being said, there is a very nice twist at the end that I did not see coming and it was really good. Unfortunately by then I just felt a little worn down by it all. Too many of these horrible people left alive, not enough deviousness on the part of our villain. It's not terrible, but it's not really what I wanted. And well, it's all about me.

Final Grade = C+

It is dark and sinister full of twists and turns and seemingly locked rooms... well garages, and sheds, and... well you get the picture.

It's the kind of book that makes me want to grab a furry blanket, a cup of tea, and a baseball bat for the things that go bump in the night.

If you're looking for something that will have you guessing about absolutely everything until the end this is the book for you.

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for providing an advance copy of this E-Book, I have voluntarily read and reviewed it and all thoughts and opinions are my own.

Reading Between the Wines book review #140/115(met goal in Sept!) for 2023:
Rating: 3 ½ 🍷 🍷 🍷
Book: The Engagement Party
Author: Darby Kane
Available Now!!

Sipping thoughts: An Engagement Party should be an event for celebration, love and family and friends. Unfortunately, that is not the case for this cast of “friends”. Instead, they are met with a dead man, lies, secrets, and a killer. Throughout this book, you are pretty aware of one source of evil but the mystery is behind who really wants them dead. The very last reveal was a mouth dropping gasp for me and it really made the entire book worthwhile.

Cheers and thank you to @WilliamMorrow and @Netgalley for an advanced copy of @TheEngagementParty.

#TheEngagementParty #DarbyKane #WilliamMorrow #advancedreadercopy #ARC #Kindle #Booksofinstagram #readersofinstagram #bookstagram #nicoles_bookcellar #bookworm #bookdragon #booknerd #booklover #bookstagrammer #bookaholic #bookreview #bookreviewer #IHaveNoShelfControl #ReadingBetweenTheWines #fiction #thriller #suspense #mystery #MysteryAndThrillers #GeneralFictionAdult

Twelve years ago, college student Emily Hunt mysteriously vanished on the night of her graduation and her body was discovered days later. When a single, cryptic text was uncovered to Emily from a quiet, longer student at the college, the case was seemingly closed.

Flash forward those twelve years, and Emily's college friends have come to a luxurious and secluded private island to celebrate an engagement. As time ticks on, outsider Sierra Prescott--that is, the only one on the island unconnected to the past--notices that things at the engagement party may not be what they seem.

And when another body is discovered, this time with a note that reads "It's time to tell the truth," Sierra's suspicion is all but confirmed.

A very familiar suspense novel, "The Engagement Party" presents all the right pieces for the making of a great Christie-esque mystery: a decade-later reunion after a horrible tragedy, a secluded island with one way out, a foreboding storm, and the list goes on. Unfortunately, it was the unshakeable familiarity of this story that made it not work well for me. Where Kane had the opportunity to reimagine a tired plot line, there simply wasn't enough newness to keep me engaged; that and the presence of far too many underdeveloped, unlikeable characters made the 400+ page-count tedious by the end.

2.5 stars rounded up for a very been-there-done-that story, I'm hesitant to give Darby Kane another try after "The Engagement Party" and would recommend readers look elsewhere for their next mystery.

The Engagement Party by Darby Kane
My rating:
3.5 rounded up to 4
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Ruthie and Will are getting married and invite a few of Will’s closest friends from college to celebrate. All of them share a dark past. What they did not know when they accepted the invitation was there was more to that weekend than an engagement celebration.

I really enjoyed this thriller! It definitely had the elements of I Know What You Did Last Summer and In My Dreams I Hold a Knife by Ashley Winstead and also the Guest List by Lucy Foley. All of those elements made this one so intriguing for me as I had no idea what to expect.

Overall the pacing of this one was great until the end. The last 20% percent felt so long and lots of information / twists are being thrown at you all at once, it was easy to get lost. I did find it was a little repetitive and long towards the end, so that was my biggest issue with this one.

I would still recommend this for a fun whodunit book. I didn’t actually guess the main twists, which is satisfying to me! While some things were predictable, I didn’t have this one all figured out!

Thanks netgalley and William Morrow for the ARC! You can read this one now as it was published on December 5th!

I honestly wasn’t a big fan of the book. It was your typical stuck in a cabin story with a killer on the loose.

Wow! I loved this locked room thriller! Darby Kane has been an auto-buy author for me ever since I read Pretty Little Wife, but I have to say that this is her best book yet! I’ve read a lot of thrillers with a similar premise, but this one managed to feel completely unique. It had a healthy dose of horror vibes which added a fear factor that I wasn’t expecting (but loved!). The suspense is intense from the beginning and doesn’t let up until the very end. Definitely check this one out if you’re looking for a binge-worthy thriller!

The Engagement Party is a fast-paced locked room thriller set on an inescapable private island in Maine where a group of old college friends with complicated pasts have gathered to celebrate the engagement of their friend Will. The only way to and from the island is a causeway that is only usable temporarily at low tide. When bodies start to pile up and it's clear a killer is out for blood these friends will start to question eachother with no way to escape the island as a terrible storm rages on. I love love love a good Locked Room mystery and this one is reminiscent of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. This mystery thriller hit the ground running from the very beginning and kept me intrigued throughout. I couldn't put it down! It was a tense edge of your seat ride and will keep you guessing until the very end.

Read if you like:
Locked-Room Thrillers
Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None
I Know What You Did Last Summer
Slasher Movies/Books

NetGalley Review — my rating ⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

“The Engagement Party” by Darby Kane is a fast-paced thriller surrounding a 12 year old crime and a group of college friends with lots of secrets to hide.

This one showed a lot of promise. The POV switches between 3 people and “book notes” so you got lots of sides to the story. It takes place over a single night/day and — I won’t lie — all I could think about was why haven’t they slept or eaten?

This one could’ve been a 4 but the last 25% was really confusing to me. Close, but solid 3.

Thanks to @williammorrowbooks for the ARC! This novel released just 2 weeks ago so check it out!

#netgalley #theengagementparty #darbykane

All secrets eventually reveal themselves in due time. Just as all lies will catch up with you. "The Engagement Party" by Darby Kane is a prime example. It took 12 years, but the secrets and lies are about to come to light.

Of course, freaky weather, a secluded island, and an ominous feeling add to the ambiance of the plot. This part feels so over done and played out, but I enjoyed the characters and the twists more than I disliked the setting.

I think this is a great novel for someone looking for a thriller that is familiar and yet brand new.

So many years have passed since the death of Emily and Brendan. What happened to them? Somebody is willing to kill to get answers. But the question is who?

The reader is immersed into this story full of flawed characters all believing they have the same secret, until they arrive on the island for the engagement party of their lives.

Once there guilt, desperation, greed and revenge is mired with complacency the hunted becomes the killer and the lines of who's who gets blurred. That’s what happened in this excited fast paced title. One issue I had was the number of characters I had to create a flow chart of who’s who and how they are connected.

I received a galley copy of this title in exchange for my thoughtful and honest review.