𝗠𝘆 𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴: 3 ½✨⭐️
THE STRANGER AT THE WEDDING
🤍𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗿𝗲: thriller
📖 288 pages
𝗘𝗺𝗼𝗷𝗶𝘀: 💍👠🩸😱🚂🕵🏻‍♂️💀🐇✍🏼📔
𝗣𝘂𝗯 𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲: 8/13/2024

𝗪𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗜 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗻𝗱? 👍🏼

💛𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲💛

Thank you @macmillianaudio @henryholt @netgalley for the #gifted copy!

This thriller is an easy, bingeable read that quickly pulls you in. The story is told from multiple POV & timelines, setting the scene well & keeping you intrigued about how everything will connect. The inclusion of diary entries & Greek mythology stories adds an enchanting layer to the eerie mystery.

Throughout the book, I found myself eagerly taking notes, trying to connect the dots & understand the characters' motives amidst numerous red herrings. While it’s full of secrets, death, & mystery, something was missing to give it a full 4 star rating. However, the unexpected twist at the end elevated my rating, making the conclusion particularly satisfying.

𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗶𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲:
◽️ multiple POV & timeline
◽️ Greek mythology
◽️ a shocking ending

𝗣𝗹𝗼𝘁: Annie, who never believed in love, meets Mark during their morning commutes. They connect deeply at a trauma survivors' counseling session, despite hiding their troubled pasts. Their whirlwind romance leads Annie to feel sure about their wedding day. However, at the altar, she notices a stranger in the crowd. This encounter makes her question Mark's past & their seemingly random meeting.

The Stranger At the Wedding by A. E. Gauntlett, follows the shotgun wedding of Annie and Mark. Though Annie never thought she believed in love, she falls in “love at first sight” with Mark upon meeting. The story opens up with the wedding, leaving brief breadcrumbs about the stranger, Cameron, and the uneasiness left with his presence. As the story continues, secrets are threatened to be revealed that could change everything- and make Annie question whether or not it was love at first sight or a well concocted scheme.

This story adds in brief stories of Greek gods and Norse gods, which was charming at first. Who doesn’t love a good rendering of Pandora’s box? But I found as the story progressed, it would flip into Greek mythology without warning and caused me to pause and re-evaluate what was going on. Is this different in the physical book? Maybe. But the narrator of the audiobook didn’t easily distinguish the change in narration.

Overall, I’d give this story 3.5 stars, rounded up. I feel like sometimes I’ll read a story and I’m just not in the right place. If I were to pick this story up at another time, I might have enjoyed it more. I feel like this one will be a major debate for end of summer reading!!

As always, thank you NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for this ALC in return for a an honest review!

Annie meets Mark on the train during her commute to work. At first, they just exchanged glances over several encounters until Annie got the courage to slip him her number. The only problem was that she didn’t see him on the train for weeks and loses hope. Their paths cross again at a therapy group and take off from there in a whirlwind romance.

This book will take you through their meeting, quick relationship and union, and hints at a troubled past that they are each hiding from each other.

At their wedding, all is perfect until Annie spots someone unfamiliar in the crowd. She gets an instant dread that her hope for a happily ever after may not be her reality.

It goes through perspectives of Annie, Mark, and Cameron who is hired by someone who knew Mark’s first wife who went missing to track down the truth about what happened to her. Cameron reveals infidelity and a not so perfect marriage between Mark and Hope.

Will the secrets come to light for both Hope, Mark and Annie? Who is the mysterious man at the wedding? And can they get their happily ever after?

I did the audiobook on this one and had to rewind a few times to catch what POV I was reading from. It could’ve been more clear the character in the scene and time frame.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan audio for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. Release date 8/13/24.

Wow this book had me at the beginning and would not let me go! It was so fast paced, I did not want to put it down. So so good!

I really enjoyed this audiobook. The author has a way of capturing my attention instantly. THE STRANGER AT THE WEDDING is a hard one to put down and can easily be listened to in a days time. Highly recommend.

Many thanks for my gifted copy!

The Stranger at the Wedding was a blip of what happened in this book. The story was okay (and a bit evil) but it was very hard for me to follow the character POVs while listening to the audiobook. That is the leading factor to my lower rating.

Thank you NetGalley, MacMillan Audio, and Henry Holt & Company for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you MacMillan and Henry Holt for early review copies of this slow burn suspense read. This is one book that I preferred to read, the non linear timeline was easier to engage with through the book, it worked better for me as I didn't have long chunks of time to get into the audio, which I think would have made that easier to get into. The narration and production for the audiobook were strong as always though and I valued the pacing and style of the audiobook. For listeners I do recommend getting into the style of the book and giving it time to unfold if you listen to it!

For the book, this is a wild slow burn, I wasn't sure at first what kind of themes would ultimately be present, I thought it might be more a standard rich bad people with secrets kind of story but once the pace gets going and things happen, it's kind of a twisty wild read. I ended up enjoying it a lot but I will admit I needed to stick with it for it to have a pay off... a little too slow burn at the start but the later part of the book was strong!

3.5 ⭐️’s
Told in multiple points of view, this book was rather a slow one. It starts at Annie and Mark’s wedding, where Annie is unsettled by a stranger in the crowd that no one seems to know. The more she glimpses him, the more unsettled she becomes. We then are thrust back to Mark’s first wife, a wife that has gone missing with no trace. A marriage that had its issues (something the reader determines from Hope’s diary), leaving Mark as a person of interest in our minds. It hasn’t been that long since Hope disappeared, but when Annie meets Mark on a commuter train, she’s in love at first sight. Taking a bit to connect, they are soon in a whirlwind relationship and getting married, but where is Hope?? Mark and Annie have some bumps along the way, but seem to have weathered the storm, but when the stranger shows up at their home, Annie’s past secrets come to light. All is not what it seems and it’s a good twist…that is if you don’t see it coming. Interspersed stories of mythology made the story not flow as well as it could and frankly, I could have done without them. Overall it was on the slow side, disjointed and fairly predictable. As a dual read/listen, the book was voiced well and the narrator helped move the story along, but in the end it was just OK. Thank you to Bloomsbury Publishing, Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for an ARC and ALC of this book.

This is a slow burn, and not really in a good way. Sadly I couldn't get into the story or the characters. There was no feeling, no emotion, nothing to keep me wanting to come back. The plot line is non-linear, which I usually am fine with, but this one was not executed well and was very confusing.


I was given an ARC copy of the audiobook from NetGalley.

Annie thinks she's found her true love in Mark, but a stranger at their wedding throws everything off kilter.

This was a really good twisty thriller. Here's what I loved:

The multiple stories: You get this story from so many sides. At first, you follow Annie as she experiences her wedding day. From there, you get Annie's childhood, along with Mark's first wive's (Hope) journal, and the detective Mark's father hires to find Hope. All of these stories come together to really pain the picture of what is going on.

The mystery: I found myself hooked and wanting to know what was going on the entire time. I didn't trust anyone which is the sign of a good thriller.

The setting: I love British novels because the settings are always amazing. Annie owns a farmhouse that truly jumps off the page.

The narration: Loved the narration. Her British accent really got me hooked.

All in all, this was a good and twisty thriller.

Thank you to the author and publisher for the gifted copy!

4.75 stars!

When Annie’s big day is shaken up by a mystery wedding guest, the perfect life that she’s planned for herself begins to spiral…. This book was honestly a wild and shocking ride. It is definitely one of my favorite suspense books that I’ve read in quite a while - A.E. Gauntlet was able to sneak in so many clues that I am now questioning my media literacy. All throughout the story, I never knew who to believe or trust. Unreliable flashbacks and stories made for such a well rounded game of clue! Every single character made me suspicious and could have motive for trying to disrupt Annie’s happily ever after.

The main characters in this book were very interesting and had complex backstories, which I did not expect for a run of a mill mystery novel. However, this novel was so far beyond others that I’ve recently due to it’s major attention to detail and gripping storytelling. This was such a fast listen for me! I literally finished it in a day, sparing no second and listening while at work. The narrator was great and I liked her cadence for this book. I would definitely recommend to all!

Thank you so much Netgalley and Macmillan Audio (y’all are my favorite) for this audiobook arc!

I love a good “who the fuck did I marry?” trope! Watching this story unfold was very entertaining and I didn’t see the ending coming. 😊

This is a twist of a book with sophisticated deeper meanings and love worth killing for. Think deep, think hard, and love harder. I enjoyed every detail this book had to offer. It was different from a usual mystery thriller, but in this case a refreshing different. This work is exquisite and complicated but beautiful at the same time.

Thank you to NetGalley for the audio ARC! This is a great one to listen to - the narration is great. I really the beginning of the book but the story did turn kind of weird. If you like the kind of book where you wonder what you just read - I recommend giving this one a try.

This is an interesting thriller in that it doesn’t really go where you think it will go. It is ostensibly about the marriage of Annie and Mark, and the man who crashes their wedding. This stranger has some unsettling conversations with the key players, and the story moves backwards and forwards from there. We learn about the pasts of bride and groom, as well as what happens after the wedding. There were a number of things that I liked, including the unpredictable twists and the mythological stories woven into the book. I listened to this on audiobook and the narration was wonderful—it definitely kept me interested. Ultimately, I found that there were a few unresolved or unbelievable elements that prevented me from giving this five stars, but it was very good. Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to review this audiobook.

This is a pretty good little mystery, but a little slow at times. It didn’t have quite the suspense it should have had and none of the characters are very likable. I didn’t feel that urgency to keep reading that is key to me truly loving a book.

Synopsis:

Annie never much believed in love. That is, until meeting Mark. It’s a whirlwind romance that propels Annie through their courtship, all the way to her wedding day—a day she couldn’t have predicted for herself once upon a time yet now feels surer about than anything in her life.

But as Annie stands at the altar, casting her eyes over the rows of well-wishers, she spots a stranger in the crowd, and she soon learns that her new life isn’t going to be the happily ever after that she had planned. Who is the stranger at the wedding? What really happened to Mark’s first wife? And was Annie and Mark’s meeting as random as it first appeared, or is something more sinister at work?

Review:

I enjoyed the twists in “The Stranger at the Wedding”! 🤯 It was a solid thriller with enough suspense to keep me hooked. The storyline was gripping, and the mysterious guest’s revelations added a lot of intrigue. However, I felt it didn’t bring anything particularly new to the table, which is why I’m giving it a three-star rating. ⭐⭐⭐ Despite that, it was still an enjoyable read, and I’d definitely recommend it to anyone in the mood for a dependable thriller with some good twists. 👍📚

I love the narration. I loved hating Mark. He was super hateable. Otherwise I don't have a lot to share about this one. .

2024 is the year of thrillers apparently because I’ve read so many this year! When I saw this book, I was immediately intrigued by both the premise and the narrator! Ada Shelby from Peaky Blinders and I was totally sold!

So let’s talk about that, I LOVED the narration. Sophie Rundle is a phenomenal actress and I love that she’s narrating books. She gave these characters, but especially the main character, life! I would definitely listen to any future audiobooks she’s a part of.

Now on to the story. Not going to lie, I guessed the ending almost immediately. Perhaps I’ve read too many unhinged thrillers but I saw right through the red herrings here.

That being said, the suspense and the drama build up was very well done. I was engaged and even somewhat surprised with some of the smaller twists in such a good way.

I would definitely read more from this author. One star taken away because of the predictability.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I wouldn’t have expected to find this was a debut novel. Well done A.E. Gauntlett.

The wedding day is a day for celebration. It also may be the last day Mark really feels like he knows his bride. It starts with the appearance of a stranger. A few quick conversations with the invited wedding guests and the hairs on Annie’s neck have become bristled.

The story is told alternating between multiple perspectives, a diary and flashbacks. The only reason this isn’t getting a 5 from me is that the audiobook didn’t make it immediately clear which character was telling their part. It may have been clearer in the book with a title or otherwise, but the narrator didn’t make it easier to know who was speaking. All I could go on were context clues. I had to listen to this book twice because I was incredibly confused the first time around. I am still unsure if Annie was telling the truth or if she was an unreliable narrator.

There are questions that I didn’t feel were answered. Hope, the box. Where it came from, how it was built and where it was stored. What happened to her ultimately.

I really enjoyed the story being told in conjunction with Greek mythology and tying it in with Annie’s job.

Thank you to A.E. Gauntlett, NetGalley and McMillan Audio for the ARC of this very interesting read.