I was hoping to finally have a 5-star read from this author but, unfortunately, I'm giving it a 3.5. This is my favorite trope, so I had high hopes. Sadly, it didn't quite work for me. This was compared to Scream, so I was expecting a fun slasher, but it takes way too long for any deaths to happen in the current timeline. Things pick up when the killing starts towards the end, though I still wouldn't compare it to Scream. Aside from the slower pace, I also didn't like the main character, Tessa. She was kind of annoying with her woe is me attitude and the way she kept jumping to conclusions. I just never warmed up to her. While most of the twists were predictable a few surprised me. I did like the setting, and the prologue was great and got things off to a good start. I thought the ending was fun as well, although it was a bit over the top and unbelievable. Though The Bachelorette Party wasn't the book I hoped for, it was okay, and the deranged ending was enjoyable enough that I'm rounding up to 4 stars. I still hope to give one of Camilla Sten's books five stars one day! So far, the Resting Place is my favorite.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC.

four friends meet every year on a secret remote island to visit with each other. but something happens and they are not heard from again. Tessa is fascinated by the story and decides to to investigate.

This was far too overdramatic for my tastes. It read less like a tense thriller mystery and more like an episode of a reality show or a soap opera with a mystery plotline. I didn't connect with the characters and the plot was a bit messy.

This is a very compelling, twisty whodunit that is also a quick read because you won't want to put it down! The character development wasn't strong and the ending was a bit predictable for me but the overall writing and story were great!

I really enjoyed this book. It kept me engaged and it only took a few days to read. I think this is going to be a good book club option for several clubs. I plan recommending to my book friends and I look forward to reading more by this author.

Scream meets The Guest List in this wickedly compelling and compulsively page-turning thriller of friendship and murder from the author of The Lost Village, Camilla Sten.

Ooof. I was so excited to dig into this, after reading and loving The Resting Place.
The first half of the book was okay. But the second half was an absolute mess.
Character development was overtly lacking. I had zero emotional anything for any of them. The FMC, Tessa, starts jumping to conclusions as soon as she steps foot on this wicked little island. Not in a organic way either. No, she's going balls to the wall, straight for the gold in Olympic hurdles.

Irene and her quest for vengeance was so contrived and illogical, I mean just so way out there, it was almost comical. Almost.

Then somehow we manage to find all these "friends" on the very same deserted island of tragedies past, only to watch them turn into a bunch of unhinged savages wielding a shot gun, blowing holes into each other, with some goober chef standing by like he's got stake in the game of revenge, but really, he just comes off looking stupid and wholly ornamental.
The pieces of Matilda's bones that Tessa finds in the end, in an oh-so-beautiful and personalized rosewood box, was just tactless and deranged excess.
And who the hell is Franz?
I'm so sorry. I am always appreciative for the opportunity to read every single arc, I truly am. But I am also always honest. And this just didn't work. At all.
Again, I have loved previous books from this author and The Bachelorette Party will not deter me from reading any of her future works.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press | Minotaur Books for this arc in exchange for review.

Pub date: 6.10.2025

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Publishing Group for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.

This title is published on June 10th, 2025.

'The Bachelorette Party' by new to me author Camilla Sten was a very well written thriller that, although the plot lacked surprise and there was no shocking twists, it kept me well engaged throughout. Initially, I struggled to identify which character was which, but that quickly solidified in my head as the vast majority of the main characters had a clear and defined personality that allowed them to stand out from the pack.

The writing and plot didn't rely on typical clichés and one part of the original timeline mystery seemed to be deliberately left open; never to be known by the reader in much the same way it wasn't known by the characters in the modern timeline.

And while Tessa (the main character) lacked some gumption and is as much fun as a wet weekend at a Swedish beach, I was still rooting for her throughout.

4 out of 5. .

(Press the link below to see this review posted as 'Peter' on GoodReads.)

Thank you to Camilla Sten and NetGalley for this ARC. What a read, could not put this one down! Past and present time lines that meet with a twist I did not see coming, I am very impressed. Usually I can pick what is going to happen at the end, but not with this one, I was on the edge of my seat. What could possibly go wrong when a bachelorette party goes to a secluded island where no one can hear you scream? Lies and secrets will come out, no one can hide on this remote island. Readers who enjoy a good suspense/mystery/thriller will really enjoy this one.

Started off a little slower, but I really ended up enjoying this one. The story isn't an entirely unique one, but it is well written and pulled me in regardless. I didn't even mind that I had figured out most of it, because it kept me interested. The dual timeline was great as well. I liked learning about the past mystery in between the action of the present story. If you're looking for a quick suspense filled mystery, this one is perfect!
Thank you to St Martin’s Press, Minotaur Books, and NetGalley for the eARC!

I was disappointed with this one. I've read Sten's other novels (English translations) and was a big fan. However, this one fell flat. The storyline was generic and underwhelming. There were no outstanding characters and only a vague passing at character development. While the opening prologue was strong, the rest of the book, unfortunately, couldn't live up to the high bar. Overall, I'd pass on this one.

It took a little bit for me to get into this one but as the story progressed and the tension grew I found myself not wanting to set the book down and overall I enjoyed reading "The Bachelorette Party".

I liked that the story was told in a dual timeline, that it was a locked room mystery and lately I have enjoyed Podcasts/True Crime elements being incorporated into the plot so those things worked well for me and held my attention.

I've read a few books from this author and really enjoy her writing style, I look forward to reading more from her in the future.

Thank you Camilla Sten , Net Galley and St. Martin's Press- Minotaur Books for providing me with an ARC of this book.

Another ARC I was pumped to get, and one I very much enjoyed!

First of all, you know I love a good past flashback to present time storyline. I was very curious about what had happened to the 4 girls who disappeared 10 years ago, and I did wonder how it had connected to the new characters.

I will say, I definitely had a feeling who the “bad guy” was going to be, so that wasn’t necessarily a shock. However, I still like the way the story came together in the end, and I definitely found myself rooting for the main character to figure out the mystery.

Also, side note, I absolutely LOVED the commentary on bisexuality! As a bisexual women, I’ve had to have the same conversations the FMC had SO many times, and I feel like the author wrote the feeling so well, so that definitely added more points for me!

Also, the story was so engaging and it definitely makes you question how a mistake can affect your entire life. I did feel like the author also did a great job with the violence and visceral reactions/emotions, which I always feel like add a lot to a good thriller!

This book took me a bit to get into it, It started off kind of slow, and probably could’ve been a little shorter. I didn’t really care for the Tessa character.

I am a big fan of this author. I was not a fan of this book.

Four friends have disappeared from an island off the coast of Sweden. We get a little peak at them towards the end of their trip. Unfortunately they never made it home.

Called the Nacka Four, the mystery is still strong ten years later when a group of four once more makes the trek to the remote island. Only now there is a pricey resort there and a woman who seems suspicious to Tessa.

Tessa blew her own professional life apart and is now looking for a new juicy story to podcast about. But someone else on the island is looking for revenge.

I wanted this to be something more. I think we all guessed who did what to whom.

Not for me but I still love the author!


NetGalley/ St. Martin’s Press June 10, 2025

3.75/5 Stars

Ever get that feeling that you’re being watched? That something just isn’t right but you can’t quite put your finger on it. That’s exactly what our MC experiences; but unfortunately for her, she’s trapped on a remote island in the Baltic Sea with her oldest friends. This book leaves you wondering who to trust, and dreading the answer to if they’ll ever get off the island. Intriguing and suspenseful it’s a real page turner!

The writing is great. The plot, albeit slightly familiar, does draw you in. Im very grateful to the author, Camilla Sten, and to Minotaur Books for allowing me the opportunity to read and review this book vis NetGalley. As my first read of Ms. Sten, I will sure be checking out other works by this author soon.

With that being said, let’s get to the few issues I had.
Firstly, a few of the characters have similar names and that can get a little confusing. (Anna/Annaliese, Linnea/Lena, Tessa/Tilly). But opening prologue was awesome, the rest of the dual timeline was just meh. I felt like I could have skipped all of the past dialogue and still understood the story. There’s also a lot of internal monologue that sort of ran on and on; and those two issues together felt like filler material. If the present day chapters could have been more suspenseful, and the scary bits scarier, this book would have been amazing.

I was super excited to be approved to read an advanced copy of this book, so first and foremost, thank you to the publisher and to NetGalley.
I read this in a day and a half, in between caring for three small kids and Christmas shopping, as I had a difficult time putting it down! I've been reading quite a bit of locked room books lately, or books that put a spin on the locked room theme, like The Bachelorette Party does. I was really invested in essentially all of the characters- Who killed the original four women on Isle Blind? Why did Tessa end her relatively popular podcast? What secrets was Chef Adam hiding? Of course all the answers are revealed, in time, but Camilla Sten does a fabulous job of building the tension along the way. The book is told in two timelines- Tessa's in 2022, and Matilda's in 2012. Matilda was one of the original four girls who was killed on the island, so her part is essentially explaining what was going on with her, her life, and her friends and her boyfriend in the days and weeks leading up to the fateful trip. One conclusion I was able to draw from this was that women can really be backstabbing devils, and sometimes the people you love are the ones you should watch out for the most. . . . And I'll leave it at that. Will I be recommending/selling this one? Of course, just like I did with The Lost Village. I really enjoy Sten's writing style, and will absolutely continue to read essentially everything that she writes. You probably should, too.

The Bachelorette Party by Camilla Sten was pretty much your average thriller -- a group of four women, dubbed the Nacka Four, mysteriously disappear on a secluded island off the coast of Sweden and ten years later another group of women head to that same island to celebrate a bachelorette party.

Tessa, our main character, is a podcaster turned social pariah after something terrible happened, presumably around her podcast. You won't find out what that thing is though until you're practically done with the book and by then it will be hard to care. Tessa is struggling with the fallout of this mysterious situation and she's broke which becomes her defining personality trait in this story. With less than 20 bucks to her name she joins her sister and friends at a luxury resort on the same small Swedish island those four girls disappeared at ten years earlier. She feels like an outcast, and can't quite get the hang of the social dynamics between old friends who have new lives. When one of them mysteriously and suddenly leaves the island at night, leaving only a note behind, Tessa begins to suspect that what happened to the Nacka Four is now happening to them.

Overall, the book was a typical thriller. It was fast paced, had dual timelines and was full of twists and turns that unfortunately were pretty predictable. The Bachelorette Party is a 3/5 star read for me, however I did read advanced reader copy so I am hoping that the editorial team will clean it up a little bit more before publishing. The biggest issue I had with the book was the amount of unnecessary exposition from Tessa, especially her inner thoughts. The author spent so much time telling us how Tessa was feeling and yet we are strung along for most of the book around the "big thing" that Tessa is carrying. I really hope the editors trim a LOT of fat here. I get that in first person POV it's really easy to over explain the character's experiences and it was just too much here. I also didn't like any of the characters, but not because they were annoying characters but because they kinda all blended into each other.

Overall I think I would recommend this book if you want an easy beach reach or something similar. Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

2.75 ⭐️: Ten years ago, four girls known as the Nacka four, disappeared off a small island without trace. The case has remained unsolved. Tessa grew up engrossed with true crime and even started her own podcast, which has now crashed and burned. The Nacka four have been her main obsession. When her best friend invites Tessa to her bachelorette party on the same island the girls disappear, Tessa believes this could be the opportunity to save her podcast and solve the case.

I enjoyed the multiple timelines. The plot itself wasn’t bad. I never wanted to stop reading at any point but I did have a few issues. The first being, there are a lot of characters introduced at once. This could be more of a personal problem though because I am bad with names. The letter Caroline ‘left’ was weak. The author needed an excuse for her to be missing but this was a poor attempt. Sometimes, there are emails or phone logs randomly at end of chapters, with no page breaks, that don’t make sense. This could be edited in the future. The ending was chaotic. I half guessed the bad guy, but, at the same time, I don’t know if I’m satisfied with the ending.

“The Bachelorette Party” by Camilla Sten is a thrilling ride that kept me hooked from start to finish. What starts as a seemingly innocent celebration quickly turns into something far darker, as secrets are uncovered and past events come to light.

One of the things I really appreciated was how Sten maintained the suspense throughout the story, even as it jumped back and forth in time. This structure was a little confusing, but she handled it brilliantly, slowly revealing important details that kept me guessing.

The twist at the end completely blindsided me—I definitely didn’t see it coming! Sten does a fantastic job leading the reader down one path, only to pull the rug out from under us with an unexpected turn that made everything click into place in a way I hadn't anticipated.

Overall, The Bachelorette Party is a suspense-filled mystery that kept me engaged until the very last page. If you’re into psychological thrillers with a twist, this one is definitely worth checking out.

I liked this book but I had some problems with it that keep me from giving it a higher rating. I usually like books that go back and forth in time but there wasn't enough distance between the time periods and I kept getting the characters mixed up. The characters seemed very stereotypical, and there were too many 'secrets' that kept me from enjoying the book more.