I thoroughly enjoyed this novel of mystery and suspense! I seriously kept guessing SO many times and going back and forth about who was who. The inclusion of a book within a book is so clever, and the addition of every trope you can think of was a nice touch.

If I’m nitpicking, there are several happenings close to the end that I didn’t quite buy, and this does have an ending like LOTR 3 has an ending, if you know what I mean. 😁

However, it was very entertaining, and I was hooked pretty early on. I can’t wait to see what Pliego comes up with next!

Thank you to NetGalley and Bantam for an eARC in exchange for my honest feedback.

Wickedly delicious, Ande Pliego's YOU ARE FATALLY INVITED is an atmospheric debut thriller featuring a writer's retreat hosted on a private island that turns lethal in this locked-room mystery.

The title, 'YOU ARE FATALLY INVITED,' hints at the deadly nature of the invitation to the retreat, setting the tone for the thrilling narrative that unfolds.

About...

Author J.R. Alastor hires former aspiring writer Mila del Angél to host a writing retreat at his private manor off the coast of Maine.

She has a revenge plan in mind with one of the invitees. The guest list comprises six thriller authors, all masters of deceit, misdirection, and mayhem.

One of the writers stole Mila’s book, ruining her life. When no one believed her claim, she was forced to watch her stolen work rise to fame under the thief's name. Struggling to make ends meet and care for her mother’s medical bills, Mila plans events. Then Alastor reaches out, offering her a chance for revenge at the retreat.

Alastor and Mila have a week of games planned, including Mila's murder plot. But when a guest turns up dead and is not the one she planned, Mila finds herself trapped. What is happening?

Who will remain alive, and who will be able to escape? The uncertainty of survival adds a layer of anxiety to the story. Who is the monster among them?

My thoughts...

Cleverly told, YOU ARE FATALLY INVITED takes us over six days to the epilogue two years later. This unique structure allows the story to unfold quickly and suspensefully, keeping readers on the edge.

The Wolf Harbor Estate in Maine sets the stage for the last week of October, promising a killer time. The other allure is why Alastor would engage with the world of writers after thirty years of obscurity.

Of course, it would not be a locked room thriller without a storm cutting off the island as the body count rises. Now, Mila must outwit a killer who seems to know every trick in the book and is possibly more intelligent than herself.

Complex and twisty, can Alastor be trusted? Who will make it off the island alive? The complexity of the characters keeps the reader engaged and guessing.

Recs...

If you are a Knives Out, Agatha Christie, or Clue fan, this one is for you!

Thanks to Random House and NetGalley for an advanced digital review copy in exchange for an honest review.

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Pub Date: Feb 11, 2025
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Thank you NetGalley for the e-ARC of this novel! Four stars, easily... I wish that I could give five, but I had a few issues that I feel like made it not quite five-star worthy.
First, the beginning of this book is an EXTREMELY slow burn and it took me a while to get completely hooked and invested. For example, Mila's narration is great, but every chapter of hers I read at the beginning felt extremely repetitive. Also, towards the middle of the book, Mila has some really dumb moments, and I hate the dumb female MC trope... so I found myself getting very frustrated with her character.
I like complex stories with lots of twists and turns, so if you're into that, I think you'd totally enjoy this story. However, I will advise that you take some notes or something to try to track who is who because it gets a little confusing mid-story.

Thank you for letting me read
Please note: this review is posted on my goodreads account

I love a great escape room plot, and this story has it. You are left guessing until the end about who the characters really are. And the ending was crazy!

This was Goooooooood!!!! This kept me guessing until the very end. I enjoyed the crazy twisty bendy turns and absolutely loved how I was completely gripped until the very last page.

This is an invitation to die for

J. R. Alastor has for thirty years been one of the leading writers of (grisly) thrillers in the world. He has also kept his identity a secret from the world, has never done an in-person event, with no one truly knowing who he really is or what he looks like. When a select group of fellow thriller writers receive an invitation from Alastor to attend a writer's retreat in late October on Wolf Harbor Island on his estate off the coast of Maine, they all readily agree. Some are well-established in the field, others are new to the game but have received acclaim, and all have a secret or two in their past they would just as soon hide. The invitations included a Non-Disclosure Agreement, which on the surface made some sense given Alastor's private nature....but do they actually hint at something more sinister? The invitees arrive on the island and are greeted by Mila del Angél, who introduces herself as the event organizer and who will take care of them on behalf of Alastor until he is able to join them. Each night the group will attend a dinner with mysterious puzzles to solve, starting the very first night. But Alastor is nowhere to be found, and very quickly one of the guests turns up dead...in a fashion closely linked to a murder in one of their own books. Can the remaining writers survive long enough to figure out who the killer is, and why they were chosen to come? There are connections between them of which not all are aware, and more than one has a motive for murder...who amongst them will make it out alive?
Most readers of mysteries have matched wits with the locked-room trope, from Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None" to those of a more recent release. Sometimes those locked rooms present as a remote area, often cut off by severe weather, where there are a limited group of people who could actually be the killer (or so it can seem), as is the case in this debut novel from author Ande Pliego. Here we have the invited writers: Rodrigo Sandoval, a lawyer turned writer; his wife and writing partner Olivia; Thomas Fletcher (whose work is more literary than pulp); Ashton Carter whose first book hit the bestseller lists out of the box (but is perhaps not up to the standards of each of his co-participants); Violet Blake, the youngest of the writers at 24, and Cassandra Hutchinson, in her 70's the oldest amongst them. Alastor's voice is presented via excerpts from his about-to-be-released guide to writing, inserted between chapters which are narrated by alternating characters. It is clear that trouble is brewing; the author is having fun playing with the conventions of this genre, and I found it an enjoyable read. The underlying mystery provides plenty of little twists, and the reader might feel like the seventh guest as the puzzles pop up. All and all, I found the book to be an entertaining read, with quirky (albeit not terribly likable) characters, and while the end wasn't quite the surprise for which I had been hoping (I have read more than a couple of similarly themed books over the last year, which might account for that), it was well worth the read. For readers who like mysteries/thrillers with a hint of horror and a dollop of dark humor (authors like Riley Sager, Lucy Foley and Julia Bartz spring to mind), I would recommend that you add this one to the proverbial nightstand. My thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine/Bantam for allowing me access to this intriguing story in exchange for my honest review.

Six bestselling mystery authors are invited by the mysterious and reclusive author JR Alastor to his remote island home for a mystery writers retreat that quickly turns deadly. In order to escape and find out why they were each targeted they'll have to reveal their deepest secrets...or take them to the grave.

This book hooked me from the beginning. It took off running and didn't stop until the end. All the twists and turns hit perfectly. By the end, however, with the way all the information is parceled out, I wasn't super surprised by the reveals. I looked at them more as a kind of confirmation of where I thought things were going at any given time.

I really did like that because everyone has those morally gray lines it really is hard to tell who is behind everything. I loved the way the book is broken up by days and also switches point of view between the guests with Mila - our event planner and erstwhile hostess in JR Alastor's bid remain anonymous - being the main protagonist.

The way Ande Pliego brought about this sense of trust/distrust was done so well. There are a few characters that are really easy to like, that was to make to the end, but then something is revealed that makes you question who they really are, and question your feelings for wanting them to survive. It's kind of brilliant.

This is definitely my most unexpected, and therefore more delighted read, so far this year. If you're in for a twisted, thrill-ride of a mystery, this book hits all the points.

When it comes to mysteries and thrillers, I'm usually on top of the "most anticipated" upcoming releases. You can imagine my surprise when I first heard about You Are Fatally Invited at the end of January, only to find out it was being released in a matter of weeks. Needless to say, I immediately hopped onto NetGalley and requested an ARC because I couldn't wait a few weeks after reading the description -- and was thrilled when I received the approval notification. From the second I had the ARC, I tore through this book!

The simplest explanation is that You are Fatally Invited is Clue (yes, the 1985 movie) but on a remote island in Maine and all the guests are acclaimed thriller authors. Without revealing too much, the guests begin to get picked off (in very particular ways) and those who remain must keep playing the game and survive.

Told from alternating POVs, I loved getting into each character's mind and did not find it difficult to jump around once I figured out all the players. The plot had several other creative twists on age-old murder mystery tropes, which really made it difficult to predict how it was going to end. It's only February, and I know this will be one of my favorites for the year!

I dnf’d this book about a third of the way through because I was too confused. It was hard to keep track of who was talking and whom they were talking about. Also, there were a lot of hints to past events without giving any actual details of what happened.

I have some BIG news to share...

You Are Fatally Invited, releases tomorrow (February 11th) and you do NOT want to miss this one!

I am sure you have seen this book plague all of social media and rightfully so.

This book deserves a standing ovation and Ande Pliego is an author to keep an eye on.

I was instantly transfixed and lost between the pages. I hungrily devoured this book in one sitting and was left with my jaw on the ground.

I need more and ASAP from this author, I am so excited to see what is next.

Check out this teaser :

When renowned anonymous author J. R. Alastor hires former aspiring writer Mila del Angél to host a writing retreat at his private manor off the coast of Maine, she jumps at the chance—particularly since she has an axe to grind with one of the invitees. The guest list? Six thriller authors, all masters of deceit, misdirection, and mayhem.

Confess the crimes, survive the tropes.

Alastor and Mila have masterminded a week of games, trope-fueled riddles, and maybe a jump scare or two—the perfect cover for Mila to plot a murder of her own. But when a guest turns up dead—and it’s not the murder she planned—Mila finds herself trapped in a different narrative altogether.

One by one, you’ll lose your turn.

With a storm isolating the island, and the body count rising, Mila must outwit a killer who knows literally every trick in the book.

Until only one of us remains . . .

My thanks to NetGalley and Bantam Books/Penguin Random House for the ARC of "You Are Fatally Invited" in exchange for an honest review.
If nothing else, this book could stake its claim to having one of the most attention getting titles of the year. Who could resist it? With a title like that, you just knew it could only be - #1. Your family's invitation to Thanksgiving dinner where everyone's get different political views. Or #2. A locked room mystery with a host of unusual suspects trapped on a remote storm stricken island.
Surprise surprise ....it's #2. with the added attraction of the host and guests all being best selling mystery authors. And with another big non=surprise......our host, mysterious, anonymous author J.R. Alastor plans to subject his guests to all sorts of puzzling clues and games, based on the secret sins each one is hiding. You would need something akin to a NCAA March Madness chart to make sense of everybody's scandals and exactly how they interconnect with each other. One thing's certain......these people will wish they'd gone on that 3 hour cruise to Gilligan's Island rather than this lethal shindig.
Assisting Alastor in all these murderous revelries is failed writer turned event planner Mila del Angel. But unknown to Alastor, Mila's using this opportunity to wreak overdue vengeance on one of the novelist guests, someone who wronged her terribly, leaving her life and future ambitions in ruins.
The guests themselves arrive with enough emotional baggage and darkest of secrets to fill out a dozen 'trapped-on-a=storm-tossed=island murder mysteries. So it's no great mystery when the 'And-then-there-were-none' body count starts to pile up.
In the first chapters, author Andre Pliego uses just enough measures of acerbic wit to poke some overdue fun at this well worn genre.
and all its tropes. I only wish the book had maintained that level of sardonic mockery all the way through. But as the bodies pile up and the expected multiple twists finally arrive,, the book (and we its readers) become immersed in the impossibly intricate mysteries. on display.
I'm in complete awe of how this labyrinth of a plot works itself out in the final pages. I'd recommend "You Are Fatally Invited" to any mystery fanatics who love to end up muttering multiple times "Well I didn't see THAT one coming."

This book kept me guessing until the end. I thought I figured it out several times and then something would happen to throw those theories out the window. It did start out slow but overall I really enjoyed this book. I will definitely read more books by this author.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

This twisty thriller kept me on my toes and had me dying to know what happened next. This book follows a group of 10 authors who were invited to a mystery authors private writing retreat. No one has ever actually met the host or knows their true identity so surely nothing will go wrong. Not long into the retreat people start going missing and secrets are revealed. This book was a real life game of Clue and I loved every minute of it. The plot and pacing were amazing in this book the pacing was so fast I finished this in a day. The characters were where this book fell a little short for me. There were a few characters really well fleshed out but some others felt very surface level. This debut novel knocked my socks off with its twists and turns and I look forward to reading more from this author in the future. I would like to thank NetGalley and the publishers for a chance to read this book for an honest review.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Man! I think maybe I don’t like thrillers, or I didn’t enjoy this one as much as I wanted to. The start was strong, but I soon became disconnected from the characters and the overall push and motivations from the person (or people?!) responsible for the chaos at this writer’s retreat.

The ending was unexpected but also felt like it just went off the rails. I think the worst part was that it was kind of boring, the cardinal sin. There are things happening, but the structure of the story didn’t inspire me to really care much about the climax.

A pass for me, but I’m sure there’s an audience that will love this—probably people more versed in thrillers than me.

This debut by Ande Pliego will have you thinking along the lines of And Then There Were None by the great mystery writer, Agatha Christie. J R Alastor, best selling mystery writer that no one has ever met, invites six mystery writers to his island for a retreat. The guests all have secrets they would like to keep as secrets. Their host does not appear, the writers are left with Mila del Angél whom Alastor has hired to act as host. Mila, herself, is an aspiring writer. The next morning the writers find that they have been cut off from the mainland and someone has been murdered. As upsetting as this is, Mila has plans of her own for a murder and now she is on this island with a murderer. As the body count rises, those remaining try to find Alastor and the murderer. Could they be one and the same?

This is an entertaining mystery. The POV moves between the characters as we try to figure out the clues that are given. We get snippets from the visitng authors own books. There are plenty of twists to keep us turning the pages. If you like mystery tropes, locked rooms, characters that are not very likeable, and revenge. This book is for you.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher, Penguin Random House, for an ARC. The review is my own.

A Review of “You Are Fatally Invited” by Ande Pliego

An Authors' retreat turned deadly

When anonymous and famously elusive author J.R. Alastor hosts a writer’s retreat for other thriller authors at his remote Maine compound the guest list reads like a who’s who of the best seller list. While none of the authors have ever seen Alastor in person, all are taken by his successful career spanning decades and are hoping to learn a few things to sharpen their craft over the days sequestered on the island retreat. As they enter the expansive Wolf Harbor Estate every detail has been meticulously planned. From the books lining the walls to the individual décor of each guest’s room nothing has been placed by chance. With Alastor delayed for the first evening, the group is treated to a welcome dinner where they are posed with a riddle. In fact, the entire retreat has been set up as a series of escalating games to challenge the writer’s wit and enhance their abilities… or so they think.
Not all is as it seems at Wolf Harbor Estate and just like the books and decor, nobody is there by happenstance. Someone on the island has an axe to grind and when the first body is discovered it all seems to be part of the story but soon the guests find that they are in a real-life game of survival. Nobody is who they say they are; all have secrets. Will the residents of Wolf Harbor be able to piece together the clues and play out the tropes before all have been eliminated? When revenge is on the menu, all bets are off.

You Are Fatally Invited is the debut novel by author Ande Pliego. Taking inspiration from timeless horror book and movie tropes, escape rooms, and the classic Clue board game, Pliego has crafted one of the best debuts I have read in a long time. Beginning with the map of Wolf Harbor Estate in the opening pages, I immediately noticed the mention of secret passageways, but that was only the beginning. The true labyrinthine nature of the estate is revealed slowly to the reader as the nightly murder games are played out. I particularly enjoyed the addition of the Museum room which added in an extra level of sinister with prominently displayed weapons from several well-known horror movies and television shows present. When these weapons, which are not props, but very real and very deadly, turn up missing after the room is broken into everyone is a suspect.
Like all good mysteries, You Are Fatally Invited had me guessing the entire time changing who I believed the Alastor character was. But it wasn’t just Alastor’s identity that had me guessing; with titles such as “serial killer”, “child murderer”, and “poisoner” to name a few trying to match up the author with their sin and occupation became a side game all its own. While some of the titles and occupations were quite easy to line up and even discussed, many others were not and at least one of the owners of their sin had me floored in a twist that I did not see coming.

Overall, the story was very well written. Every detail, plot point and twist have been carefully crafted to form a cohesive story. Each character likewise was also believable from the house staff to the eccentricities of the various authors. Even the shifting viewpoints of the various characters as we got to see parts of the story through their eyes only enhanced an already tense and suspenseful story with an ending that hints at a possible return to Wolf Harbor. Whether this happens or not remains to be seen, however, the conspiracy theorist in me wants to believe that the games that have begun have not completely played out to its end.
If you love mysteries involving games, riddles and characters that are hard to figure out Ande Pliego’s debut You Are Fatally Invited will suck you in and will not disappoint.
Full disclosure – I was provided a copy of this book as an ARC through Netgalley; however, I have voluntarily chosen to write a review. All opinions are my own.

You Are Fatally Invited is scheduled for a February 11, 2025, release.

You Are Fatally Invited by Ande Pliego was such a fun locked room murder mystery.
This book was so good that I could not put it down!
This is hands down one of the best debuts I’ve read in some time!
Flawlessly crafted and plotted to perfection I was hooked from the very beginning.
A wonderfully written story with intriguing characters.
I seriously can’t wait to see what Pliego creates next!

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Ande Pliego for providing me with a complimentary digital ARC for You Are Fatally Invited coming out February 11, 2025. The honest opinions expressed in this review are my own.

This is the first book I have read by this author. I really love the whole private island killer trope. I loved the setting. It’s very Christie’s And Then There Were None. I have read a ton of books like that. This one was good. I enjoyed parts of it. I think there were some things missing for me that gave it that “I’m obsessed” vibe. Some of the characters didn’t do it for me. I would check out other books by this author.

I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys private island thrillers.

3.5 - 4 stars (as a debut, I'm tempted to just say 4 stars, but I think 3.5 is probably more accurate to my feelings): This is a very solid and fun version of an isolated closed circle thriller. While the writing felt a bit workman like in places & it didn't necessarily break new ground, it delivers on the promise of the premise in a very entertaining way throughout

Author keeps you guessing until the very end; definitely a page turner until the gasp out loud finish. Everything is wrapped up neatly, which is satisfying, but I also wouldn’t have minded being left in suspense.