After a painful divorce, Ellery Wainwright decides to vacation alone at the luxurious Resort at Broken Point in Big Sur, California, for what was supposed to be her twentieth-anniversary trip with her now ex-husband. Ellery is yet to come to terms with the end of her marriage and a wedding being held at the resort doesn’t make it any easier. In a shocking turn of events, Ellery discovers the body of the groom in the hotel pool after it was assumed that he had absconded leaving his fiancée at the altar. With inclement weather trapping them inside the resort, the wedding guests and other travelers are cut -off from any help from the outside and after another member of the wedding arty is found dead under mysterious circumstances, Ellery and her new friends Nina and Ravi join the search for the killer - not an easy task with a hotel full of guests among whom are people with secrets they would kill to protect. Complicating matters further are rumors of missing items from the resort’s renowned art collection indicating the presence of a thief as well as a murderer. Ellery is desperate to get go home to her children, but with no way out of the resort and with a killer in their midst, she struggles to keep it together as she is drawn into a complex web of lies, secrets, murder and deception.

I’m a fan of Agatha Christie mysteries and I loved The White Lotus, so when a book is described as “The White Lotus meets Agatha Christie”, you can’t blame this reader for going in with high expectations.

Let me begin by saying that I loved the premise, the atmospheric setting and the suspenseful vibe and liked that the author wove Ellery’s personal journey into the murder mystery narrative. The novel is well-structured and I thought that beginning each chapter with a brief description of a card left for the guests daily featuring a quote, a brief weather forecast and details about one piece of artwork featured in the in-house collection was a nice touch. I could sympathize with Ellery and did like how the author addressed themes of loss, family, trust, grief and healing. I enjoyed the first half of the novel but was more than a tad disappointed as the narrative progressed. Firstly, I didn’t find any of the main characters particularly interesting (in fact I liked a few of the supporting characters more) and one particular detail (or omission, to be precise) annoyed me to no end. Moreover, plot development in the second half of the novel left a lot to be desired. As far as the “mystery” goes, the plot became convoluted and long drawn, the twists felt contrived for the most part, and the ending was overall unsatisfying. I couldn’t wait for the book to end, eventually losing interest long before the final reveal.

Though there were aspects of the story I did like, I had hoped for a more engaging mystery and that’s where The Unwedding by Ally Condie fell short for me. However, many have enjoyed this novel more than I did and I would request you to read other reviews before making a decision about reading this one.

Many thanks to Grand Central Publishing for the digital review copy via NetGalley.

This was just an average read for me. I was sort of confused on the mystery involving the art so I wasn’t connecting with the story. I thought it took too long to let the reader know what had happened to Ellery in her past. Also, the ending was so freaking long! Once we found out who the murder was I thought it would wrap up nicely, but we got like three more chapters (which I just skimmed).

Thank you to Novel Suspects Insiders Club for allowing me to read this ARC! #novelsuspects

I can see why The Unwedding is showing up on summer must-read lists everywhere and why it's also at least one celebrity bookclub pick. It's because it's fabulous! Locked room mysteries are my absolute favorite, and The Unwedding nails all the critical aspects. There's a full cast of characters, which is essential for a whodunit, but they're portrayed in such a way that they're easy to keep track of them individually and their relationships. A luxury resort cutoff from everyone due to severe weather and a washed-out bridge makes for the perfect setting. When so many books don't live up to the hype of must-read lists and bookclubs, The Unwedding does, With a totally unpredictable ending, I can see it being in beach bags everywhere this summer!

The Unwedding follows Ellery, recent divorcee, who travels to a resort in Big Sur, CA bc she absolutely cannot let her ex go where they were supposed to celebrate their 20th anni with his new gf. After she finds a dead groom, she realizes maybe she should’ve stayed home.

I haven’t read a thriller in a hot minute but this one was FUN. I love when rich people start pointing fingers at each other and Ellery is me on the sidelines, watching all the chaos. The book does follow your basic, oh no natural disaster, everyone is stuck with a killer on the loose, who can I trust?? plot - but honestly if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

normally I get overwhelmed with the amount of characters in murder mysteries, but the author wrote them so well that it was easy to keep track. Ravi and Nina as a nosey friendship duo taking Ellery under their wing was my fav. I also loved the art descriptions and weather announcements at the beginning of each chapter!! They were so cute and made you feel like a guest at the resort.

The pacing of the book was a bit too slow in the middle and the flashbacks to Ellery’s accident didn’t really add anything to the plot, but overall I enjoyed it and I didn’t guess the ending at all soooo a successful thriller in my book.

DNF at 35% this one was quite boring, i felt so disconnected from the characters in this one. It follows all the locked formula without any magnetic characters to like.

While this book had such a good premise and so much possibility, I left feeling quite underwhelmed and wanting more. The author did a fantastic job of creating a setting of a beautiful and exclusive resort near Big Sur, California. I found that to be the most satisfying part of the book. I felt like the back story of the main character Ellery to be just a bit overdone. We get it, she's divorced and she went through an unthinkable trauma. We don't need to continuously hear about it over and over. I also felt like the cast of characters was too broad; there were so many that I didn't really end up caring about any of them. Overall, the mystery element of the story wasn't strong enough to keep me interested, and I found the plot to be so incredibly slow. I just wished that there was more to the mystery element than there was. It wasn't for me, but there are likely many who would find it entertaining.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book. All opinions within this review are my own.

The main character was complicated and intriguing so she held my interest. There were so many other characters to keep track of, I felt a bit lost. I ended up looking forward to the conclusion.

I picked this one up because it had such great reviews already. I love thrillers and it did not disappoint in that fashion! Great storyline and easy to follow and keep me reading late into the night. I didn't want to put it down!

A cozy, locked room mystery set at a luxury resort in gorgeous Big Sur. Ellery is flying solo on what was supposed to be a 20th anniversary trip with her husband Luke after he divorced her and moved on with a new girlfriend. A small wedding is being held at the resort which further adds to her misery until a pair of friends, Nina and Ravi, add her to their circle and cheer her up. When the groom shows up dead the next morning and a treacherous storm takes out the bridge and only road into the resort, the trio make it their mission to find out who killed him. Overall a fun read, but there are backstory bits interspersed throughout regarding an accident Ellery was in a few years prior that don't lend anything to the story and probably should have been cut. The ending could have used a bit of editing as well. Ellery magically figured out a number of things that were totally obscure and almost every character had a "reveal", most of which felt forced and irrelevant. Especially Nina's in my opinion.

If Reese Witherspoon, tells you to do something, you do it.

Reese chose The Unwedding, as one of her book clubs top picks and that's all I needed to hit request.

Ally Condie, does not disappoint. Not that she could ever. I have been a fan of Condie, since I first got my paws on The Only Girl in Town.

The Unwedding is gripping, fast paced and will have you guessing until the very end. I totally felt The White Lotus vibe which allowed me to visualize what was playing out right before me. I would love to see this book made into a movie or mini series.

Check out this teaser :

Ellery Wainwright is alone at the edge of the world.

She and her husband, Luke, were supposed to spend their twentieth wedding anniversary together at the luxurious Resort at Broken Point in Big Sur, California. Where better to celebrate a marriage, a family, and a life together than at one of the most stunning places on earth?

But now she’s traveling solo.

To add insult to injury, there’s a wedding at Broken Point scheduled during her stay. Ellery remembers how it felt to be on the cusp of everything new and wonderful, with a loved and certain future glimmering just ahead. Now, she isn’t certain of anything except for her love for her kids and her growing realization that this place, though beautiful, is unsettling.

When Ellery discovers the body of the groom floating in the pool in the rain, she realizes that she is not the only one whose future is no longer guaranteed. Before the police can reach Broken Point, a mudslide takes out the road to the resort, leaving the guests trapped. When another guest dies, it’s clear something horrible is brewing.

Everyone at Broken Point has a secret. And everyone has a shadow. Including Ellery.

The Unwedding is the debut adult novel from Ally Condie.

"Ellery had already reserved a spot at the Resort of the Broken Point in Big Sur long before her husband told her he wanted a divorce. She decides to go anyway but she is grieving for the life she thought she had, especially since there's a big wedding on the grounds. The night of the wedding Ellery finds the groom dead, floating in the pool. A big storm washes out the roads and traps everyone at the resort. Now the best man is also dead at the bottom of a cliff and the bride is missing. Ellery and her new friends, Ravi and Nina, are determined to find the killer."

This is a "locked room" mystery, except the room is a resort. I have never been to that part of the country so I struggled to visualize the resort. The pace starts off slow - lots of grieving from Ellery (the author explains that in her notes) There aren't a lot of clear clues about the actual killer so that was a surprise. There are a couple of reveals that aren't really twists. The pace picks up with about 40 % left and the story flows quickly to the wild, explosive ending. The lightning is a nice touch. I like that there's resolution to most of the character arcs. We want to know what happens, even if they are fictional people.

A good story from Condie.

📚 #BOOKREVIEW 📚
The Unwedding by Allie Condie
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / Pages: 320 / Genre: Psychological Thriller

Ellery is celebrating her 20-year wedding anniversary at a luxurious retreat in Big Sur, California, all by herself away from her children and her now ex-husband so he wouldn’t spend it with his new girlfriend. Heartbroken and homesick for her children, Ellery is quickly befriended by Ravi and Nina, two BFFs on vacation. There’s also a wedding happening that week, a huge storm, and then people start disappearing.

This @ReesesBookClub Pick of the Month for June was such a fun, twisty mystery. I loved the setting, the complicated characters, and all the drama.

Thank you @NetGalley, @GrandCentralPub, and @AllieCondieBooks for my gifted copy. I loved it.

I went into this thinking it was going to be a thriller. It started to take a turn about 13 chapters in when there was a body discovered in the resort pool. A storm had caused a landslide blocking off the only way into the hotel, so no one is able to leave. Ellory is there on what should have been her 20th wedding anniversary before she was asked for a divorce. She makes friends with Simon and Nina, friends who travel together. The three of them take it upon themselves to solve the murder (?) of the man in the pool. He was meant to be married the day he was found.

I wasn’t expecting a whodunnit/cozy mystery so it took me by surprise and may have lowered my rating a bit because I was in the mood for an action packed thriller. I found myself skimming the last 5 chapters or so to see how it ended.

This one won’t be memorable for me. 🤷🏼‍♀️

"Something old, something new. Something borrowed, something blue. Someone lost, someone wed. Someone broken, someone dead."

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I've been reading and having a good time with Ally Condie's books since Yearbook was published back in 2006 (Utah girlies gotta support Utah girlies after all), and that hasn't changed now in 2024 with The Unwedding.

Ellery Wainwright is freshly divorced, and spending what would have been her 20th wedding anniversary, alone in Big Sur California at a luxury resort. As she is battling the complex emotions of losing your person, there are actually people getting lost and murdered at the resort during a massive storm that traps all of the residents together, miles away from civilization with no way to call for help.

Though the end of this story got a lil wild and a smidge unbelievable, it was still a great time, and I basically flew through 90% of the book in one night. Not my greatest move since every sound outside of my house had me convinced someone was coming to murder me, but definitely atmospheric. Don't cast me in a thriller movie any time soon — I won't be entertaining and will just hide under my covers until someone comes and stabs me to death.

As a first foray into the adult thriller world for Miss Condie, for me this was a success! Easy, enjoyable read with just enough twists and turns to keep me turning pages until I was at the end.

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The Unwedding was published on June 4, 2024. Thank you to Grand Central Publishing, NetGalley and the author for the digital advanced copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Unfortunately The Unwedding was a miss for me. I’m always drawn in to the premise of a locked room mystery and this one started out strong. After Ellery’s marriage ends, she goes alone on what should have been their 20th anniversary trip in Big Sur. Unfortunately, there’s a wedding happening there this weekend and it’s leaving Ellery to feel more alone. But then she discovers the groom’s body in the pool - and a natural disaster cuts off access to the resort, no one can get to them and no one can leave.

At this point I was all in! But then the middle fell flat and dragged a bit and the ending felt very convoluted with too many pieces. I would try another book by Condie but this one wasn’t for me. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the free ebook to review.

Unfortunately, this didn’t do it for me. It had all the ingredients for a great summer thriller. But, it was extremely slow placed and I just did not care for the main character’s backstory.

Ellery Wainwright was not supposed to be at The Resort at Broken Point alone. After reading about it on a list of 50 Places to Visit Before You Die, her husband Luke had suggested that they book a room at the luxury Big Sur resort for their twentieth wedding anniversary. That, of course, had been before he pulled the plug on their marriage, blindsiding her with his uncompromising desire to leave her.

Still, he’d suggested during their divorce mediation that she go ahead and take the vacation anyway, as the deposit was non-refundable. Going by herself felt wrong, but she knew she’d have felt even worse had Luke gone with the girlfriend he acquired only a month after their split was finalized. So here she is now at the child-free resort, surrounded by couples and other adult family groups, many involved in a wedding set to take place there over the weekend. She can't help but feel self-conscious about her status as a recent and unwilling divorcee, as if she's the worst kind of interloper in paradise, a blot of solo grief on what should be a picture of communal merriment.

Fortunately, she soon makes the acquaintance of Ravi and Nina, a pair of friends who vacation together annually and make it a habit of cultivating interesting new people. School teacher Ellery, with her likable, unobtrusive manner, fits their bill. Despite her sorrow, Ellery finds herself warming not only to the unusual pair but to the friendly faces who cross her path as her stay continues.

Paradise starts feeling a little less perfect when the wedding is suddenly called off. When Ellery later finds the groom’s body floating dead in the infinity pool, things take an abrupt turn for the worse. As disasters – natural or otherwise – continue to pile on the resort, Ellery, Ravi and Nina begin to wonder if something far more intentional than accidental is going on. But Ellery still can’t help second-guessing herself when asked her opinion on what’s wrong:

QUOTE
She hadn’t trusted her gut in so long. After the divorce, when she’d expressed concerns about the children and how they were handling things, Luke had said dismissively, “Kids are resilient. And I don’t have to manage your anxiety anymore, Ellery.” The words had hit her in the face like a slap. She hadn’t even thought she was being unusually angsty. She’d thought she was parenting. It was your job to pay attention. Wasn’t it?

Ellery took a deep breath. “I mean, everything’s wrong. We’re trapped here. The roads are out. I can’t get home to my kids.”

“You know what I mean,” Ravi said. “Is anything wrong, like murder?”
END QUOTE

Trapped on the premises as the body count ticks upwards, the three friends will not only conclude that murder is afoot but also attempt to figure out whodunnit, if only to protect themselves from the killer. Could the murders have anything to do with the valuable works of art going missing from all over the resort? Are all of the guests really who they claim to be? In her desperation to get home safely to her kids, what will Ellery risk, even as a murderer waits in the shadows, watching for their next opportunity to strike?

Ally Condie’s adult mystery debut features a clever set of interlocking puzzles that will have readers flipping back and forth through the pages, as I did, to reexamine all the clues. But it’s really the way she writes about grief that will resonate with any reader who’s known the pain of heartbreak. Ellery’s sorrow is at once unique and entirely relatable, as she reflects on what she’s overcome to reach this point:

QUOTE
Sometimes she wondered if she were grateful for the lessons learned after the accident had happened just over two years ago–were they what had made it possible to survive Luke’s leaving? Other times she felt that that was not the case at all–that the accident, followed by the divorce, was such cruel timing, so many things piling on top of the other, that there was no way she could possibly be all right.

We’ve been through worse, [her best friend] Abby had said. And she was right. Death was the worst thing, wasn’t it?

Even asking the question was a luxury only afforded to the living.
END QUOTE

A survivor through and through, Ellery is our everywoman guide through an unimaginable time. Everyone should be as lucky to have a best friend like hers, though I do wish she’d realized that her ex-husband really is a jerk. Most importantly, she learns that her unhappiness does not define her, and that she can use her unique combination of skills and outsider status to do good and bring a murderer to justice, while also coming to terms with her past and finding the strength to move wholly forward into her future.

I thought the premise of The Unwedding had great promise. A closed room mystery at a luxurious resort and a suddenly canceled wedding? Sounds like a fun and suspenseful read. Unfortunately, the book didn't quite deliver, at least for me. I think the novel had a bit of difficulty figuring out what it was, and there ended up being too many competing plot lines (and backstories) in addition to the murders. Thus, it was hard to get momentum going and I never got hooked by the mystery. The setting was interesting and there were aspects of the characters' stories that I enjoyed, but it just never came together for me.

I have read Ally Condie’s YA dystopian series, Matched, and was excited to receive an ARC of her first adult novel, The Unwedding.

Ellery arrives at a luxury resort in Big Sur for a trip by herself. She had planned the trip with her husband but divorced before they went and decided not to let the paid trip go to waste. I was excited to read a book set in Big Sur as I traveled there last year. Once at the resort, Ellery meets some other individuals traveling and also finds out there is a wedding that weekend. There are a lot of characters in this book, I did find it kind of hard to keep track of who was who. Ellery finds herself face to face with the bride to be and intertwines herself into the lives of the wedding party.

This is a locked door mystery with similar vibes to the popular Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. Ellery finds a dead body in the pool and then everything starts sliding away... literally. The middle of the book was kind of slow to me but I stuck with it to find out who did it and if everyone would get out safe

Thank you to NetGalley, Grand Central Publishing and the author for an ARC of The Unwedding by Ally Condit for an honest review.

This was a solid mystery in the vein of Lucy Foley or Ruth Ware, with a locked room type of setting and a group of strangers. Condie did a good job with the characterizations - it was easy to keep them separate in my mind, while still needing to know more about them in order to form an opinion. The only thing that kept me from loving it was the ending. The wrap of the mystery was a little out of left field and and a little too incredulous. I liked it, and I think she is a good writer for adults. In my former life as a middle school librarian, her books were never checked in because the students loved them so much. I forsee that for her future writing for adults.