Member Reviews
I discovered Maria Frankland earlier this year, and for sure she is becoming one of my favourite authors. Great psychological thriller book that keeps you at the edge of your seat. I read this over a weekend.
Thank you @Netgalley, @Bookouture and @MariaFrankland for my free copy. My opinion is my own!
As with all other Maria Frankland thrillers that I've read, this read was great! I enjoyed it very much and LOVED the surprise ending! Definitely was NOT expecting that at all! It was a very fast read and held my interest the whole way through!
After battling cancer, Caitlyn is having a getaway hen-do aka bachelorette party. In attendance is her atrocious future in laws - mother and sister, her future teen step daughter, two sisters and a couple friends along with her bestie, Jen. After a long and revealing night, the bridal party wake up to the dead bride to-be. Some in the bridal party are hiding terrible secrets and one is a murderer, possibly.
As an investigation ensues, all secrets are revealed and the murderer unveiled. HUGE TWIST at the end that will leave you SHOCKED!
Absolutely brilliant. So very suspenseful and packed with twists. Once I started this, I just had to keep reading. Just wow!
Ten women, including the bride-to-be, Caitlyn, were spending time together in a rented apartment in Italy for a hen party. However, Caitlyn was found dead, and one of the remaining women is definitely responsible for her murder. They are all about to be questioned by the Gardis unit. Will the Italian police be able to find the murderer before another woman loses her life?
There is no shortage of drama as the women are questioned in a nearby apartment in the building. Some are unfriendly. Some are even catty. They all want to leave and go home. That is not about to happen. At least not before the killer is identified. Written with multiple POVs, this intriguing book will most certainly keep you guessing. Any one of the women could be the killer, and it is definitely one of them. With surprising twists and turns, the reader will certainly be trying to ascertain the killer’s identity, making this a well-written, exciting book.
Of course, there is a crime to be solved, and there are secrets, lies and more proving to be the case. With those factors, finding answers is certainly not easy. Even though there are characters easy to hate, there is no doubt that readers will be just as drawn to this story just as I was.
Many thanks to Bookouture and to NetGalley for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion.
Wow what a book, full of twists and turns. I didn't want it to stop when I started to read it. Fast paced brilliant book.
A slow story but that’s not a negative thing, the tension builds with every chapter to an ending that was a good twist, the plot was original with none of the characters being particularly likeable.and anyone of them could have been capable of being guilty.
This is a fun twisty thriller book! I enjoyed the storyline and thought the writing was very good. I liked how the story was being told from the different friend’s point of views. The middle did get a little slow for me, but quickly picked up again with an intense and unexpected ending!
Thank you to NetGalley for the advance reader copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.
A whodunnit with a twist... or three.
Catelyn is getting married and she has quite a group of women with her to celebrate her hen party, but what happens when someone doesn't make it?
A story full of jealousy, hidden agendas, cattiness, threats, drama, and secrets. The characters were a diverse group, which made it hard to make guesses, much like a traditional whodunnit plot; each with their own possible motives. This one was a pretty quick read, and at about halfway through I was thinking, "When is the 'totally gripping' part going to come?" Just when you think everything has come to light, there's more in store, which is what took this from a 3-star to a 4-star read for me.
Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for another opportunity to provide my feedback on another thriller!
Caitlyn is soon to marry Ben. She has been through a difficult recently as she is recovering from treatment for cancer. But her friends and siblings have insisted that she have a hen party in Dublin. They are a party of 10 and have rented an apartment for the weekend. They plan to have lots of laughs, play games, and, of course, drink lots of bubbly.
The following morning, one of the ten is found murdered. The Irish Garda are called in and each person is questioned separately in a room. That’s when some secrets and true feelings start to come out. From this questioning, can we discover who murdered this person and why?
This story is one of utter betrayal to a lovely young woman by the people she thought loved her best. While the one murdered gets her revenge, it’s how she get that revenge in this mind-boggling ending that makes the book. Don’t miss this one.
Copy provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.
The Bridal Party by Maria Frankland is a quick read that will keep you guessing until the end.
This book sucked me in pretty quickly and kept me questioning everything.
It was a brilliant read, perfect amount of twists, likable and unlikeable characters.
The writing keeps you tense as you see vulnerabilities everywhere.
Thank You NetGalley and Bookouture for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!
I've never read anything by this author before and really liked the sound of this book. The story line was unique but unfortunately I struggled with it quite a bit. I didn't really like any of the characters who all behaved so unrealistically and I didn’t care that much for them. It did however have a good ending although it was very unexpected and this did redeem it slightly!
The Bridal Party is a solid three star book. At first I had trouble keeping all of the characters straight, but they soon took on their own personalities and became for identifiable.
Unfortunately once the author disclosed who the deceased was (which came as no real surprise), the book plateaued. The remainder of the book takes place with each chapter detailing the police interview of each character. Since they all more or less tell the truth, this leaves each chapter providing the same information give or take a few details. The plot never really progresses until the suspects are arrested and the book concludes by revealing who killed the victim and why. I feel the conclusion is what saved The Bridal Party from being a two star book.
Thank you to Bookouture for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
#netgalley
#thebridalparty
A Hen weekend set in Dublin - this sounds seriously fun!! With these Hens however....not so much!
From the outset it is clear that this is a seriously miserable group of women. Caitlin, the bride-to-be brings with her friends from her childhood, university and work friends, a neighbour, alongside 3 women from her future husbands side. The first night of the weekend away see's tension, a topic atmosphere and a fair few heated arguments. Come the morning, someone we be found murdered in their bed! This is a bit of a whodunit, a bit of a police drama, and a bit of a a psychological thriller.
All in all a decent read, but not my favourite from this amazing author - just too many thoroughly unlikeable characters!!
My thanks to Netgalley, author and publisher for an advance e copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
Friends? Enemies? Who knows when ten friends embark on a hen party but only nine survive. Oh my! Interesting plot, characters and a gasp-worthy twist!
Many thanks to NetGalley and Bookouture for this ARC!
In the beginning it was a little bit hard to keep up with all the different characters, but once you got into it and got to know everyone it was much better. I really enjoyed how the book was set up, with all the different points of view. That way you gradually got to know every character and you learnt more about each of the women's lives as you got on and some secrets start to come to light.
I liked the ending very much and I did not see it coming, it was a nice twist.
Thank you Netgalley for the ARC!
I love a good thriller but this book was just very hard to get into and stay involved.
The Bridal Party is a domestic thriller under the guise of a "hen party."
I always get suckered into reading these types of books because they sound good. but after a few pages I see that I have fallen for a book that is not as interesting as it should have been.
I also found this on GoodReads under the title of "The Hen Party" not sure why, but it is the same description for both.
There was drama and female cattiness galore in this book! Initially, it was difficult to keep up with all the different characters. Also, the main scene backdrop seemed to be the police precinct, which also threw me off. Once the story got going, I feel things picked up and I found myself enjoying the development of things. It was interesting to see the POVs of the women at the hen party. I had no idea who to trust throughout the story, and I doubted everyone and their motives. There were definitely twists and turns, and oh so sweet revenge in this book! The ending made me change this from 3 stars to 4 stars! The ending was completely unexpected and brilliant!
Thank you NetGalley and Bookouture for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.
The first third of this book was a little slow for me tbh. It wasn't until things started happening that it really picked up. I really enjoyed reading all of the different points of view. It's really difficult to do a bunch of POV's. It typically is done either really well or not so much but in this book the author did a pretty solid job with the multi-POV. The author reminds me of Freida McFadden in the sense that she also adopts shorter chapters that are engaging and page-turning. The big twist was mildly predictable but it was still pretty well executed in my opinion. I was still shocked by it when I was finishing it because I hadn't focused on putting all the pieces together. Overall, it was a solid 4 star and anyone that likes the twists and turns of Freida McFadden should give Maria Frankland a try.
I appreciate being selected to read this arc. This book just wasn't for me. I found myself spacing out a lot on this one.