What a unique murder mystery!! I love all things wedding themed and this is no exception!
I didn’t trust anyone, nor did I solve the Case! It’s a very easy and bingeable read which I highly recommend

This snarky read is full of females behaving badly, frenemies, and wild deaths.

A group of five women have been close since childhood, and now two of them are getting married and having their hen do’s within weeks of each other. Tansy has upstaged Farah as per usual by announcing her sudden engagement and wedding plans, and the other women are secretly concerned at what a bridezilla the whole situation has turned Farah into. When they go away for Tansy’s hen weekend and someone winds up dead, the friends quickly grow suspicious of everyone around them.

This one reads as juicy, gossipy, and a bit unrealistic. The reader has to take reality with a grain of salt and just enjoy the wild ride.

The story is told in third person, and switches rapidly from one character to another in random paragraphs. I found the format to be disjointed and not as easy to read as it could have been. I also found that the girls were written very strangely in the chapters from the past. As four year olds they spoke more like ten year olds, throwing me off and making me go back to check how old they were supposed to be.

The characters are all quite awful, and you really won’t be cheering for anyone. They are full of secrets and lies, even from their best friends of all these years. I found the plot to be entertaining and the ending did manage to surprise me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC. All opinions are my own. Rating this one 2.5 rounded up to 3.

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.

It was the title that first grabbed my attention. This thriller keeps you on the edge of your seat. You want to who is next or why this is happening. It’s an interesting case of who dun it and it was okay. We read that we don’t really know what’s going on in our friend’s lives or what secrets they keep. Con is that the pov change unexpectedly and it’s hard to keep track of who is who.

Overall it was okay. I would recommend. 3 out of 5

Thanks NetGalley and publisher for this arc.

3.5 stars rounded up. This book gave me some major Pretty Little Liars vibes. That show has always been a guilty pleasure of mine, so this was a fun read.

I didn't find the characters were not likable or relatable, but the drama was definitely entertaining and the mystery kept me guessing. I found all the major players suspicious at times. I didn't particularly care about any of them, but this was still frothy and fun.

I read an ARC of this book from NetGalley. All comments are my own.

⭐️: 4/5
☕️: 4/5

Wooooowwww that was…a lot….

Bride-to-be drops dead at her hen do making all her bridesmaids suspects of her murder. The bridesmaids in question? Best friends since grade school. Who did it? Who will be left to catch the bouquet? Did they even like each other in the first place?

I LOVE me a good mystery! This was fairly light hearted with lots of backstory on the group of friends. HOWEVER the consistent jabbing and tearing down of each other in the friend group made me VERY appreciative of my friend group 🥰

The mystery was good, the suspense was good!! The reasoning for the murder was…quite frankly…bloodless…(My FBI agent looking at this 👁️👄👁️) but hey, the murderer got the job done sooo 🤷🏻‍♀️😂

I was so excited to receive this arc and wow, it did not disappoint! I was hooked right away and couldn’t put the book down and I did not see that plot twist coming! I can’t wait to recommend this book to my clients coming in who are looking for a good murder mystery! Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for this arc, in exchange for an honest review.

Who will be left standing when the bouquet is thrown? In Kate Weston's gripping novel, 'Bouquets and Betrayal,' the answer is anything but predictable.

Lauren, Saskia, Dominica, Farah, and Tansy were once inseparable, bound by a shared history and a closely guarded secret. But as adulthood beckons, their lives diverge into paths laden with conflict and resentment. From shotgun weddings to spiraling career ambitions, each woman grapples with her own set of challenges, all while struggling to maintain the facade of friendship.

This book was essentially unreadable for a multitude of reasons. First, the formatting is jumpy and hard to follow. The author wrote thought processes for 4 year olds as if they were fourteen instead but the 6 year old versions of them act like they’re 10. It’s like the author has never even met a child before. The version I read needs to be run through by a proofreader several more times. The book makes an absurd amount of Midsommar references and spells it wrong every single time. It came to a point where I was pretty sure the author had never actually seen Midsommar, just had an idea of the vibes and was determined to make pop culture references that don’t actually track very well. Finally, this book would be massively triggering for anyone in recovery with no trigger warning.

I will be DNFing at 25% as personally I don’t enjoy books written in third person. However the mystery element does seem intriguing. Would prefer if each chapter was a different perspective.

Five women who have been best friends since grade school get together for a weekend retreat for a bachelorette weekend ("hen do" in England.) It would be the perfect backdrop for a rom com, if only the bride didn't drop dead on the first night. What could have been passed off as an unfortunate "accident" suddenly seems must more sinister when another woman drops dead at the next "hen do." Do these friends just have bad luck? Or is someone targeting them due to the secrets they hold? Perhaps even one of their own? Because there's more in these women's closets than just some bridesmaid dresses....

If you are looking for a fast-paced, darkly funny, a bit over the top thriller - look no further! This story is loaded with twists and turns and more than one suspicious femme fatale. Everyone has a secret to hide. I'd loosely classify it as a cozy murder mystery!

My problem with the book is just the exhausting and eye-roll-inducing trope of female friends who actually dislike each other, shown by cruel gossip, painful betrayals, and just general lack of supportive friendship. Like, we get it... women are petty... ha ha! What a novel stereotype! That aspect took away from the book for me because I wasn't rooting for any of the characters.

But make it to the end and it will give you the gasp that you're looking for out of a thriller!

Great book! Love all the twist and turn to figure out what really happened. I had my suspicions but could not really pin point it. Like that a back story was provide through out the book as well.

Five childhood friends are drawn back together as adults to celebrate the upcoming wedding of their quirky friend Tansy. This doesn't sit well with Farah, who has been planning her own lavish wedding for over a year and now feels upstaged by Tansy's event. At the "hen party" at a wellness retreat, Tansy suffers a fatal allergic reaction and dies. But who knew about her allergy and who hid her Epi-pen? As we get closer to Farah's lavish event, more people associated with her wedding are found dead. We get back stories of each of the women as well as a look into their current lives and secrets and one huge secret which they all share.
The cover art is fantastic, the premise was promising, but with too many characters to keep track of, I found it hard to establish who was paired off with who, who is holding a grudge against who and how were the secondary characters related to the five women. The story picked up for the last third, but by then I had already surmised who was the killer. A compilation of "Sex in the City" set in London and "Murder She Wrote." A nice effort, but it needs a bit of tidying up in order to hold reader's attention through to the end.

You May Now Kill the Bride
by Kate Weston
Pub Date: May 14, 2024
Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.
The bride-to-be drops dead at her bachelorette weekend, with all of her bridesmaids as suspects for her murder, in this wry thriller full of deadly twists and characters you’ll love to hate.
I loved the cover and the title is perfect for this thriller/mystery.
What originally appears to be a lifelong tight-knit group of besties is actually a gang of jealous, hateful, shady women who are harboring secrets of their own. Tensions start to show fissures within the group, and we have blackmail, betrayal, secret affairs and all sorts of drama and chaos.
This was a really fun read. I enjoyed the pettiness of each of the characters, all of them pretty much unlikeable but in a way that didn’t ruin the book. This was a new author for me and I will try another book of hers soon I hope.

Totally captured by the title of this book and the cover, i mean, it's pretty gorgeous!
Unfortunately I wasn't very involved with the story. I really liked the various PoVs, even if they were a bit distracting at times. And the plot was very interesting. The main characters are girls who have known each other since they were children. Despite all the problems they've faced in life, their friendship persists, and now they even have to attend a wedding together. What a joyful moment! Until it's not!
What on the surface seems like a loyal and transparent friendship, slowly turns out to be a drama, jealousy, betrayals are the order of the day. Little by little we get to know these girls, and we begin to understand their way of thinking, but unfortunately the story didn't keep me "attached" to the pages as much as I expected, and for this reason I don't feel like giving it a high rating. But it's a light story, and a decent thriller.
Thank you to NetGalley and the Penguin Random House for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!
This book will be out on 14 May 2024!

What a whirlwind! This book was so delightful! I loved the suspense and intrigue especially as little secrets from each of the main characters came out. I also loved each of the characters but kinda wish it was just one POV at a time instead of being 3rd person omniscient and alternating between the different characters throughout the chapter. It still made for some interesting stories and overlap though. I liked the moments of levity between the twisty murderous moments. I do think it wrapped up too quickly at the end but I didn’t see the reveal coming so I count that as a major positive in my book. The story was well paced and kept me wanting more and more.

NO SPOILERS:

first i’d like to thank NetGalley for the arc!

upon reading the blurb for this book, i was immediately drawn into it. i was very excited, and it sounded like a very compelling thriller.

however, personally, i just did not enjoy this book. there were so many characters i struggled to really even get to know them, or even remember who was who even a good portion into the book. i found every character to be unlikeable, which i guess was the premise but it didn’t work for me. my confusion made me not wanna finish the book, and i nearly dnf’d multiple times.

that being said, in the last third of the book i did begin to enjoy the book quite much. i thought i had the murderer figured out and was pleasantly surprised to find out i was wrong, multiple times. despite the character confusion, i was impressed by the author’s ability to intertwine the past with the present.

overall, i rated this book 1.5 stars, and unfortunately wouldn’t recommend to others.

I loved this book! It was equal parts witty, mysterious, engaging, and surprising. When Tansy is murdered on her bachelorette weekend, her childhood best friends are maybe not as devastated as they should be. As more and more murders take place, it becomes clear that one of them is the murderer…but which one? And why?

This book was "alot" - far fetched, fast paced and delightfully "tongue in cheek". It was entertaining but slightly unsatisfying. I didn't really like any of the characters and in the end made me feel concerned about women friendships...Lol! Like the author says in the acknowledgments, I'm grateful none of MY friends are like the characters in this book....or at least I don't think they are????