Note – I received a copy from the publisher through TLC Book Tours in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. No affiliate links were used in this post.

About The Hunting Party

Hardcover: 336 pages
Publisher: William Morrow (February 12, 2019)

Everyone’s invited…everyone’s a suspect…

For fans of Ruth Ware and Tana French, a shivery, atmospheric, page-turning novel of psychological suspense in the tradition of Agatha Christie, in which a group of old college friends are snowed in at a hunting lodge . . . and murder and mayhem ensue.

All of them are friends. One of them is a killer.

During the languid days of the Christmas break, a group of thirtysomething friends from Oxford meet to welcome in the New Year together, a tradition they began as students ten years ago. For this vacation, they’ve chosen an idyllic and isolated estate in the Scottish Highlands–the perfect place to get away and unwind by themselves.

They arrive on December 30th, just before a historic blizzard seals the lodge off from the outside world.

Two days later, on New Year’s Day, one of them is dead.

The trip began innocently enough: admiring the stunning if foreboding scenery, champagne in front of a crackling fire, and reminiscences about the past. But after a decade, the weight of secret resentments has grown too heavy for the group’s tenuous nostalgia to bear. Amid the boisterous revelry of New Year’s Eve, the cord holding them together snaps.

Now one of them is dead . . . and another of them did it.

Keep your friends close, the old adage goes. But just how close is too close?

My Thoughts

First I want to say that I really enjoyed this book. I’m on a thriller kick and this was one that was easy to get lost in. I loved the isolated setting and the setup of a group of old friends coming together.

That being said, I felt a little disconnected from the characters and the setting. It wasn’t quite as atmospheric as it could be–although maybe I felt that way because I had just finished a thriller that was incredibly atmospheric and this one didn’t bring the setting to life quite as much as that one did.

I also felt disconnected to the characters. In some ways I think it worked for this story… the friends were disconnected from each other and we were disconnected from them. But I also really wanted to have a connection with some of them and I think some of their personal stories would have gripped me a bit more if I had one.

I really did like a few of them, though. By the end I even found myself really invested in and cheering for one I didn’t think I would care for at various points throughout the book. I didn’t predict the ending… but I honestly didn’t think too much about what the outcome would be as we went through. Foley did a great job of dropping hints throughout that by time you knew who had been killed it could have been a few different people.

I think this is coming off as a pretty lukewarm review, but overall I really enjoyed the book. If you are looking for a thriller to read, this one is definitely worth a look.

Purchase Links

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About Lucy Foley

LUCY FOLEYis a former editor at Hodder Fiction and has been both a literary agent and a bookseller. An avid painter, she now writes full time and lives in London, England.

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