New Release: The Stranger at the Wedding

By A.E. Gauntlett (April 2024)

Dripping in lies and laced with jealousy, this marital mystery is hard to put down.

There are no spoilers in this review! 

Annie never believed in true love, that is, until she locked eyes with Mark through the bustle of a crowded commuter train. Scarred by tragedy, the pair are both damaged and lost. They embark on a whirlwind romance, and decide they want to leave their pasts behind them. Six months later and ready to take the leap, they stand in front of each other at the end of the aisle. But, across the room, Annie spots an unfamiliar, and certainly not-invited, face amongst the crowd of guests. The stranger’s presence begins a spiral of events that will see Annie and Mark’s relationship tested by dark secrets. Love, obsession, and promises of forever make for a twisty mystery that is hard to put down.

I know that we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover - but this one had me intrigued from the second I unpackaged it (thank you Bloomsbury!). Innocent white, sinister red, and a hidden line made me incredibly excited to start this book. It is shrouded in mystery from the outset.

We are thrust straight in to the wedding day. This hooked me instantly. The plot of this book is such that we hop through multiple perspectives, and multiple timelines. This adds to the sense of mystery as the climax builds. As a reader, you are constantly trying to pick up clues as to what is going to happen, so it was interesting to me that Gauntlett chose to focus so much on the characters’ pasts. I will say that though I enjoyed the multiple POVs, I was so determined to figure out the mystery that I found myself racing through the ‘past’ timeline sections - they turned out to be important, of course, I’m just impatient!

The past is a key theme within this book - it is clear that it has shaped the characters, but we spend the entire book trying to piece it together, which becomes part of the mystery. Lying is also a key theme - because of this, it becomes hard to tell what is a true clue, and what is a red herring - can we trust all of our narrators? Again, we come to figure this out as we go along.

I will say that I found there to be very few likeable characters in this book. One of the only ones mildly relatable ones was our ‘detective’ Cameron. I, personally, enjoy when I dislike characters because it means that they are human, and flawed. Their twisted motivations make for an interesting read, after all.

This book has many layers. On top of the multiple POVs and timelines, the main narrative is intercepted by snippets of Greek mythology, which hark back to the characters’ own stories. I really liked this touch. I think it took the book to the next level, making it more than a thriller, but a well-developed allegory about love, rooted in history.

I pieced together the story and guessed the twist a few pages before it happened - it’s definitely a page-turner. There were a few grammatical errors which I assume will be ironed out as the copy I received was an ARC.

Laced with the poison of obsession, this is a complex, well-written thriller with more layers than an onion. It is clever, disturbing, and twisted - just like its characters.

Thank you Bloomsbury for gifting me this ARC.

The Stranger at the Wedding will be released in April 2024.