Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to receive this book for an honest review.

You May Now Kill the Bride is not your typical murder mystery. A group of friends get together for one of their weddings.
A murder takes place and you have to try and figure out who is killing them off and why. There is secrets that come out and all the drama that follows.

It was an interested read.

You May Now Kill the Bride is an electrifying thriller by Kate Weston, offering a darkly comedic and suspenseful tale about old friends, bridezillas, and the secrets that bind—and ultimately tear—friendships apart. Published by Random House Publishing Group, this debut adult novel takes readers on a wild ride full of twists, tension, and complex characters who may not be who they appear to be.

The story follows five women—Tansy, Farah, Lauren, Saskia, and Domenica—who have been friends since grade school, navigating the ups and downs of life, love, and personal struggles. As they prepare for two weddings within their circle, their pasts and secrets begin to resurface, unraveling the fragile bonds they’ve worked so hard to maintain.

Farah, excited about her own upcoming wedding, has planned an idyllic bachelorette weekend in Ibiza with her bridesmaids. However, Tansy unexpectedly announces her own engagement and plans a bachelorette retreat at a wellness camp just before Farah’s event. Farah, despite her resentment, tries to keep the peace and manage her jealousy. Meanwhile, the other bridesmaids—Saskia, Domenica, and Lauren—bring their own drama and baggage to the group dynamic, creating the perfect environment for conflict and resentment.

The story centers on five friends who, despite the years and growing distance between them due to life’s personal and professional demands, gather for a bachelorette party in hopes of rekindling the bond they once shared in school. The location—a wellness retreat—seems like the perfect place to relax and reminisce. However, the shadows of their shared past loom over them, and tensions start to build as old grudges and resentments resurface.

The novel’s main plot revolves around Tansy, the bride-to-be, whose wedding plans are thrown into chaos when she dies suddenly after an allergic reaction at the wellness retreat. The five bridesmaids are thrust into the spotlight as suspects, each with their own motives and secrets. As the investigation unfolds, it becomes clear that this death might be connected to something much darker from twenty years ago, and the question arises: Are these women truly innocent, or do they each harbor something more sinister?

What makes You May Now Kill the Bride so thrilling is its unpredictable nature. Weston expertly weaves together the characters' complicated relationships, their long-held secrets, and the mounting pressure as they each become a suspect in a deadly game. With every chapter, Weston throws in surprising twists, keeping readers on the edge of their seats, never knowing who to trust or what will happen next. The characters are multi-dimensional, with each one holding onto deep secrets that could unravel everything, and the clever writing ensures that no one is fully innocent or fully guilty.

The story dives deep into themes of friendship, betrayal, jealousy, and the cost of keeping secrets. The way Weston handles the dynamics within the group—especially the tension between the women—is incredibly engaging. She brilliantly explores how the weight of past actions can haunt people, and how a single event, like a wedding, can bring all of those suppressed emotions to the surface.

What truly sets this book apart is the dark humor that punctuates the suspense. Weston has a knack for balancing the seriousness of the plot with sharp, witty observations about the chaos of wedding planning, the complexities of female friendships, and the absurdity of the situation they find themselves in. The result is a thrilling, yet sometimes laugh-out-loud, reading experience.

You May Now Kill the Bride is a must-read for fans of suspenseful mysteries with a touch of dark comedy. The twists and turns are relentless, and the unpredictable nature of the story will leave you questioning everything you think you know about the characters. If you love a good girlfriend murder mystery with complex characters and no shortage of shocking revelations, this book is for you.

Rating: 4/5 – A gripping, suspenseful, and darkly comedic ride. A perfect choice for mystery lovers who enjoy a twisty, unpredictable story!

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for my DRC!

Honestly, I'm not quite sure how I feel about this book. For starters, I didn't like any of the characters in this book, at all. It seems that every single woman in this book was fighting to be the most toxic friend and partners in this story, though in a weird twist Eva is the exception. Meanwhile the 5 childhood friends seemed to constantly be looking for ways to stab each other in the back or one-up each other.

Another part of the story that was hard to get through was the POV. It was multi-POV, which is fine and honestly very insightful in a thriller/mystery book, but not when it's 3rd omniscient with constant character jumping, even within the same paragraph. I had times where I had to backtrack to remember who's POV I was currently in, and it gave every single character the same voice, only make it harder to differentiate between the women. There were tidbits of personality spread across the women, just enough to give a semblance of individualism while their internal voices stayed eerily similar. Also, how are you 3rd POV omniscient from the killer's perspective and never really drop clues about who the killer was? That was my big drawback from using this POV; it's unrealistic to not have slipped somewhere in the killer's thoughts but sure...

Overall, it was hard for me to get past how the author decided to write the women and their relationships with each other. They're all toxic and I don't care about any of them or what happens to them. And the ending is confusing because while the killer is caught, are there no repercussions for the actions of the other women leading up to that point? The killer is arrested and the book ends, and ironically, this is the one book where I'd have loved to have an epilogue or even little blurbs like at the end of Legally Blonde telling me where the women and their families are now. It was a very abrupt end to a drawn out story with every conceivable scandal possible, and I probably wouldn't recommend this author. Though a masochistically curious side of me saw that she wrote a couple YA, and I almost want to read them to see if she's capable of writing girls/women without making them horrible people. (Though she did write these characters as teens and they were horrid so...)

You May Now Kill the Bride is an interesting murder mystery. When one of the friends in the friend group is getting married, all the girls band together to go to her hen do. They all least expect her not to make it out alive. This starts a short murder spree where several people surrounding the friend group end up dead, but who is killing them and why? It's an interesting mystery about a friendship built on a secret and the mess that ensues afterward.

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publishing Company for this Advanced Readers Copy of You May Now Kill The Bride by Kate Weston!

This book was fast paced and silly and had some really fun twists, but the characters were absolutely insufferable! I know that was the point, and I did enjoy it, but I found not one single character that I liked or wanted to root for. These girls were the woooorst! But I really enjoyed the pacing and the slow reveals of their wrongdoings. A fun read for sure.

I wanted this to be better than it was. Such a good idea.

I know it was it was supposed thriller/suspense?? But honestly I would’ve preferred it been strictly friend drama book 😂

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for a chance to read and review.

You May Now Kill the Bride by Kate Weston was an entertaining enough novel, albeit slightly too long. If you are looking for women behaving badly with less of the drama than the Real Housewives franchise, pick up this book. The action was hidden underneath the women’s drama and the characters were pretty insufferable, yet this book was compulsively readable until the 80% mark when the drama just became tedious.

Have you ever picked up a book because you expect to at least know the basics of what will happen? That was me with this and kept being so pleasantly surprised.

My thoughts

I think you'll like this book if you're trying to find a quick story that you're not going to take super seriously. I really wouldn't say that any of the characters were particularly likeable, but I was just interested enough in the shenanigans that the women got up to that I kept reading through until the end, and overall I had a good time. If you are a fan of Young Rich Widows (review here) or other humorous women's fiction, you'll probably enjoy this read.

You May Now Kill the Bride is an engaging standalone mystery thriller by Kate Weston. Released 23rd May 2024 by Penguin Random House on their trade paperback imprint, it's 352 pages and is available in paperback, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout.

This is a very dark and sardonic "mean girls" thriller murder mystery. It's written in alternating third person PoV with alternating voices from the main characters (a group of "friends" who are together for a wedding getaway where the bride gets killed). The narrative is choppy and unclear in places with respect to *which* of the suspects (it's a closed circle) is speaking.

-All- of them are narcissistic, jealous, neurotic, and unpleasant. On the plus side, it is snort-out-loud funny in some places, and the prose is well polished and quite finished.

Three and a half stars (mostly for the few over-the-top laughs and the well rendered prose - there are some technical issues with rapidly changing PoVs, but otherwise it's well written).

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

"You May Now Kill the Bride" by Kate Weston has an interesting concept. Childhood friends reunite for a bachelorette weekend only for the bride to end up murdered.

This story is an at times funny, murder mystery that provided plenty of background on the characters. For me, it felt almost like a detriment to do so as the characters grew increasingly unlikeable as the story continued.

It was evident that the relationships were all dysfunctional as there was constant complaining and bickering throughout. I felt as though I had a hard time caring about the characters and whether or not they died.

All in all, it was a nice concept but the execution was a little lacking for my personal taste.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House for this gifted ARC.

Childhood Friends, Deadly Bachelorette

You May Now Kill the Bride by Kate Weston is a wry thriller that revolves around five childhood friends—Lauren, Saskia, Dominica, Farah, and Tansy—who reunite for a bachelorette weekend. The story takes a deadly turn when the bride-to-be, Farah, drops dead, making all her bridesmaids suspects in her murder. Through flashbacks and present-day events, secrets and grudges come to the forefront, making everyone question their friendships and trust.

Overall, You May Now Kill the Bride is a thrilling and entertaining read that offers a fresh take on the murder mystery genre, enriched with humour and keen insights into female friendships.

I wanted to like this one more than I did. A bride suddenly dies at her hen party. Pretty soon it become apparent that she was murdered when something she was allergic too was only found in her glass. As the story unfolds, and more people die, suspicion begins to fall on her closest friends. All of whom may have had a reason to kill.

Unfortunately, none of the characters were very likeable, which is probably intentional. I felt that the mystery seemed to drag on and then was wrapped up too quickly.

This was entertaining enough but overall did not work for me. I found all of the characters to be obnoxious, which may be the point, but I was rolling my eyes throughout the whole story. If this was supposed to be a satire the commentary fell flat for me. 2.5 stars.

A deliciously dark and witty thriller with a cast of flawed characters. There are many twists and turns which kept me guessing throughout. An entertaining read.
Many thanks to Random House and to Netgalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

Thank you NetGalley Random House and Kate Weston for my free digital copy. I was drawn to this book by its title and I was not disappointed. What could go wrong when five childhood best friends get together at a bachelorette party? Murder of course. Readers who enjoyed “Dial A for Aunties “ and “Counterfeit” will enjoy reading this book. It has the perfect mix of mystery and humour.

One of the best psychological thriller that I've read this summer! I could not stop reading this I had to know what happened next. One of the best books I've read this summer. I absolutely loved it. I want to reread it already!!
5 star read!!

A group of old friends attend a bachelorette weekend and when the bride dies, suddenly everyone is a suspect. Overall, the characters were full of secrets and bad decisions that made for a rather unlikeable cast that had you constantly questioning their choices and yet you're interested in finding out who is behind everything. Readers who like a lot of drama will like this one.

*3.75 rounded up. I was into this story from the beginning. I wanted to know who the murderer was and the girls' secret. I liked how we flashbacks to different times in their lives to understand the foundation of their friendship more. It also gave us insight on who the murderer might be. Having multiple POVs was amazing. I could somewhat guess the twists but not fully which I enjoyed. There was a lot of murders, the line in the description saying "Who will be left standing when the bouquet is thrown" is so accurate. I get why there were multiple murders but I was put off once the third one happened.


Thank you to Netgalley and Random House for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.