Full Book Summary of The Guest List by Lucy Foley
A psychological thriller during a glamorous wedding on a small island off the Irish coast (the perfect place for a murder mystery), The Guest List by Lucy Foley is great read with tons of unexpected twists. Here’s a summary to remind you of everything that happened and all the disturbing secrets before you read my full book review. If you haven’t read the whole book yet, I highly recommend you do to get the full effect of the small but important details, sinister secrets, and different perspectives that make such a captivating thriller.
Chapters 1-2
Inside the wedding tent on an island in a remote location off the coast of Ireland where the electricity keeps going in and out, the wedding guests at the wedding reception hear someone scream somewhere outside in the storm. The day before, the wedding planner, Aoife, along with her husband and chef, Freddy, are getting ready for the destination wedding of Will Slater, a rising television star, and Julia ‘Jules’ Keegan, a popular magazine publisher. Aoife and Freddy have bought and fixed up the old castle on Cormorant Island to host weddings, and the happy couple along with wedding party will be staying in the castle.
Chapters 3-5
Hannah, a plus-one, and her husband, Charlie, one of Jules oldest friends and her best man, take the choppy boat ride to the secluded island for the rehearsal dinner even though Charlie doesn’t think Jules should marry Will. Jules is trying on her wedding dress when Will comes in, but they’re interrupted by Will’s best friend and the best man, Johnno, who has forgotten his suit.
After Will says he can borrow a suit, Johnno, a life dropout according to Jules, goes to one of the towers to drink with Will and the other ushers who all went to boarding school together, and Johnno tells them he’s starting his own boutique whiskey business.
Chapters 6-7
When Jules goes to check on her half-sister and bridesmaid, Olivia, Jules gets mad that Olivia hasn’t tried on her dress or even taken it out of the box, but Olivia can’t get herself to care. When Jules confronts their mother about Olivia’s behavior, their mother just says that Olivia’s having a hard time because of a breakup and other difficulties in life. Jules feels envious that their mother actually acts like a mother to Olivia but never did with Jules.
Chapters 8-9
When they arrive on the island, Hannah finds Will incredibly charming and attractive, but Charlie seems weird around him, ever since the stag party Hannah notes. To avoid the visitors, Olivia hides away in the Whispering Cave on the island where she runs into Hannah who’s avoiding being there while Jules and Charlie catch up. Olivia admits to Hannah that she dropped out of university after her boyfriend Callum broke up with her.
Chapters 10-13
Aoife visits the graveyard on the island as she thinks about the times her family came to this island as a kid. At the rehearsal dinner, Jules is telling everyone how Charlie was her sailing instructor as a teenager, and Hannah realizes Charlie and Jules are flirting with each other.
Flash forward night of the wedding, a waitress enters the tent in shock saying she saw a body outside. When the waitress faints, a few of the men volunteer to go out into the storm together to see what happened.
Chapters 14-15
Jules’ dad arrives with his latest wife, and then her mom gives a back-handed speech at the dinner about being proud of herself for having a strong, independent daughter. During dessert, Johnno tells Hannah that him and Will both did a screening for the show Survive the Night, but they only liked Will. The other ushers comment that the idea must have come from a ritual at their boarding school glory days where boys were taken out of their beds in the night and dropped in the woods to find their way back.
Chapters 16-18
The ushers start a rowdy drinking game and pressure Charlie into playing even though he seems uncomfortable. Hannah leaves and runs into Olivia who convinces Hannah to go back to the cave to talk where it’s quiet. Olivia admits that to get over Callum, she started hooking up with a much older man in London, Steven, who eventually ghosted her after she got drunk at Jules work party with him.
Chapters 19-20
Charlie and Jules leave the game, and Jules asks Charlie if he left her the note a few weeks ago saying not to marry Will. Charlie doesn’t know anything about it, but Jules still thinks he’s jealous of Will. When she gets back to her room, Jules finds a pile of seaweed in her bed which Will says is an old joke they use to play at school as he gets rid of the seaweed.
Chapters 21-23
Hearing a noise, Aoife goes out into the night to find Johnno crying, noting that he looks like he’s seen a ghost, but he says it’s just too much to drink. The next morning, Hannah goes for a walk on the island and finds a child’s grave that has flowers in front of it. On the way back, Hannah gets her feet stuck in the bog, and two of the ushers come to help pull her out even though she still feels like they’re laughing at her.
Chapters 24-26
While getting ready the morning of the wedding, Jules finds the note she kept after it was dropped in her mailbox saying that she shouldn’t marry Will because he’s a liar and a cheat. Flash forward to the wedding night, the hunting party of ushers are out in the wind looking around when one of them brings up it feels similar to the time a kid at the boarding school died during one of the survival pranks. Then, they run into Freddy in the darkness.
Chapters 27-29
Olivia feels worse in the morning and goes to find Hannah again, but outside their room, Olivia hears Charlie and Hannah in an argument. As the guests are getting off the boat, the boat captain tells Aoife there’s a storm coming in. While Johnno is getting ready with Will, Johnno keeps thinking about how much better Will’s life has been than his own even at school when Will never got in trouble and had tons of admirers.
Chapters 30-31
As Jules gets ready to walk down the aisle with her dad, her dad won’t tell her his first impression of Will since they just met last night. Jules knows this means it was negative, but she ignores it and feels better when she sees Will at the end of the aisle. As the reception is starting, an usher jokingly apologizes about what happened at the stag party, but Charlie snaps at Hannah when she asks more about it.
Chapters 32-34
Johnno runs into the producer of Will’s show (that was actually Johnno’s idea), and the producer says he was disappointed that Johnno didn’t want to be on TV, even though Will told him that the show didn’t want Johnno. Aoife has to stop guests from going near the bog and into the graveyard near her family’s plot.
During pictures, Olivia wanders off to the beach alone to get away from everyone and then uses her razor blade to cut her leg. She thinks back to finding out she was pregnant from Steven, but, when she texted him about it, he completely blocked her. Even after she ended the pregnancy, she still couldn’t get ahold of Steven. The thoughts are so overwhelming that she walks into the sea.
Chapters 35-37
The producer explains they wanted both will and Johnno for the show, but we told them that Johnno wasn’t interested. After seeing a commotion by the cliffs, Jules runs to see Will pulling Olivia out of the water, but Olivia trying to fight away from him. Instead of feeling concerned, Jules is furious how it looks to the guests.
When Hannah tries to tell Jules that Olivia is struggling, Jules yells at her to stay out of their business. Hannah goes to find Olivia and tells Olivia about her sister Alice who ended up committing suicide after her ex boyfriend at university posted a video of them hooking up online. Alice never told anyone she was struggling, so Hannah encourages Olivia to tell someone about her struggles.
Chapters 38-40
Flash forward to the wedding night, Freddy tells the ushers that they’ve called the police, but as the ushers continue looking, they notice one of the ushers has wandered off. As Will is giving a speech at the reception, Olivia is thinking about the first time she met Will after him and Jules got engaged when she realized Will is Steven. He pretends not to know her, but Olivia realizes that the night she went home early at Jules’ party, Will went back into the party where he met Jules.
Chapters 41-43
As Johnno gives his drunken best man speech, he makes a bunch of back handed comments about not being able to stand Will even mentioning he never actually bought a suit because Will wanted him to pay 800£, but everyone thinks he’s joking. Then, all the ushers tie Will up and carry him to the cave for a game of Survival, but when the other ushers leave, Johnno doubles back to the cave to tell Will he knows about the TV show.
Back in the marquee, Hannah breaks up a fight between Charlie and usher, and Charlie admits that they left him in the wilderness naked for hours before coming back for him on Will’s orders. Then in the ensuing argument, Charlie admits he slept with Jules once while him and Hannah were married.
Chapters 44-45
Back in the cave, Johnno also confront Will about the younger boy who admired Will so much until he found stolen exam answers in Will’s room. That night, Will convinced Johnno to carry the boy down to the beach for “Survival”, but he couldn’t get out of the ties before the tide came in. After the boy died, it haunted Johnno since, but Johnno convinced himself that Will didn’t realize the tide would come in.
They called it a tragic accident mostly because Will’s dad was the headmaster and friends with the police. But supposedly no one knew it was Will and Johnno who did it. Right when Johnno says he’s going to tell everyone the truth, Aoife comes looking for Will, so Johnno helps her untie him and return to the wedding.
Chapters 46-49
When Jules confronts Will back in the tent, he gets so mad that Jules gets frightened and gets an uneasy feeling about the whole day. Hannah starts dancing with someone else at the wedding. Olivia trips on the dance floor because she’s drunk, so Will carries her out.
Chapters 50-52
Jules leaves the tent to see Will and Olivia together way off in the distance. Thinking of the note she left Jules to not marry Will, Olivia tells Will that she’s going to tell Jules the whole truth, but Will threatens her with photos he had of Olivia. Flash forward, the ushers outside find Jules crown she was wearing, now mangled, and a woman’s shoe, and they note that they haven’t seen Jules since the cake cutting.
Chapters 53-56
While talking with some of Will’s friends from university, they tell the story of Will being so broken up by his break up with a smart girl that he leaked a video of them, and Hannah realizes Will was the ex boyfriend of her sister Alice. Flash forward, the ushers note the storm has died down, and now with the light from the moon they finally see a body. In the darkness a short distance any, Jules overhears the conversation between Will and Olivia, and throws down and stomps on her crown in a rage.
Jules pretends to be fine and asks them both to come back into the tent for the cake cutting.
Chapters 57-64
Flash forward, the body the ushers find is Will stabbed in the chest. As Hannah watches Jules and Will cut the cake, she thinks of revenge for her sister as Will leaves the tent to wash off the cake that Jules violently smeared on him as a “joke”. Jules feels like the cake wasn’t enough for Will humiliated and tricking her, and she can feel rage building.
Johnno is trying to find his way back to the tent to confront Will again but is having a hard time under the influence. Will’s inside the castle cleaning himself up when all the electricity goes out. Flash forward again, Johnno walks up behind the ushers all bloody and holding the cake cutting knife.
Chapters 65-End
With all the electricity out, Will runs into Aoife on his way back to the tent who confronts him about the boy he killed at school. The boy was Aoife’s little brother, and Aoife has been looking to confront Will so she gave Jules a huge discount to have the wedding celebrations here. Freddy was another younger boy at the school who saw Will and John’s carry the boy out that night and told Aoife who it was.
After talking and overhearing Will’s lack of remorse in the cave with Johnno, Aoife decides to stab him with the cake cutting knife she has. A little while later, Johnno stumbles upon Will’s body and realizes he never could have harmed Will, but when the cops show up they arrest Johnno for the murder. Jules apologizes to Olivia for everything’s that happened and says she would have broken it off with Will had she known.
Read the Full Book Review
Now that you’re reminded of what happened and all the crazy plot twists, check out my full book review. There’s so much to dissect from this book, and more recommendations like this one.
