Have you read The Guest List by Lucy Foley? Need a plot summary or the Guest List ending explained? Want to find or discuss Guest List spoilers? Then you’re in the right place! Here is my Spoiler Discussion for the Guest List!
- The Guest List by Lucy Foley.
- Published on June 2, 2020 by William Morrow.
- Lucy Foley is also the author of The Paris Apartment (2022) and The Midnight Feast (2024)! I’ll link my spoiler posts to those books down below.
Don’t want spoilers? You can find my spoiler-free review of The Guest List here. Then be sure to come back and chat with us, as we have a lot of questions and a lot of thoughts!
Table of Contents for my Spoiler Discussion of the Guest List
- List of Guest List Characters
- Guest List Plot Summary
- List of Suspects
- Spoiler Discussion for the Guest List
The Who, What and Where of the Guest List
The What: the wedding of power couple Julia Keegan (magazine publisher) and Will Slater (star of a reality show).
The Where: The Folly on Cormorant Island, off the coast of Ireland. Locals say it was site of the massacre of a religious sect. It’s creepy. Some say haunted. Or cursed.
After the wedding is over and the party is underway, the lights go out. Then someone screams. There’s a body outside.
The book’s narrative flashes forward then backward, as the guests reveal and learn secrets about one another. Let’s talk about the guests first.
The Guest List: Groom’s Side
- Will: The ruggedly handsome groom. He’s the star of a survival show in which he’s blindfolded and dropped in a mysterious location from which he has to escape.
- Johnno: He’s the best man and has plenty of rough edges. He showed up at the wedding without his bespoke suit. Will’s show was his idea, modeled after a creepy game they and their friends used to play at boarding school.
The Friends (and Groomsmen)
- Femi, Duncan, Angus, and Peter
- Piers: the producer of Will’s show.
The Guest List: Bride’s Side
- Jules: The stunning bride. She’s the manager of a successful design and lifestyle empire. She has a half-sister, Olivia. Her parents divorced and her father remarried. She has only known her fiancee Will for a few months. Just before the wedding, she got an anonymous note that said her husband “isn’t who she thinks” and she shouldn’t marry him. Yikes!
- Charlie: He’s a longtime friend (and former crush) of the bride. Something dark happened to him at the stag party. He seems to have a history of drinking too much. Being around Jules again (and back with Will’s stag party friends) stresses him out all over again. And it stresses out his wife Hannah!
- Hannah: She’s Charlie’s wife and a bit jealous of her husband’s long history with the bride. She’s worried about the state of her her marriage to Charlie. She’s still haunted by the suicide of her sister Alice, whose boyfriend uploaded a revenge porn video that led to Alice taking her own life.
- Olivia : Julia’s younger half-sister. She dropped out of college after her boyfriend broke up with her. She’s here to support Jules, but also seems very fragile and distraught.
The Guest List: The Staff
Aiofe (pronounced Eeefah) and her partner Freddy – they are the wedding planner and chef.
The Guest List Plot Summary with Spoilers
Immediately after the ceremony, Olivia walks into the ocean and nearly drowns. Afterward, Olivia confides in Hannah that after a breakup she dated an older man and got pregnant.
Johnno finds out that Piers, Will’s producer, wanted both of them to star in Will’s show. But, unbeknownst to Johnno, Will told Piers that Johnno wasn’t interested. Yikes, Will is a backstabber!
Olivia recalls the moment she learned that Will, her sister’s new fiancee, was also her own mystery lover and the father of her baby. Uh-oh, family secrets.
Hannah learns that Charlie cheated on her with Jules.
The ushers blindfold Will (just like in his show) and take him to the Whispering Cave. Johnno stays after and confronts Will about the fact that he blocked Johnno from being in his show.
Johnno recalls how, years ago, he and Will pranked a fellow student during their game. They blindfolded him and tied him up and he drowned as a result.
Will tells Olivia to keep quiet about their affair – she’s the one who wrote her sister Jules the note warning her about her fiancé.
Hannah learns that Will was the one who uploaded the revenge porn video of her sister.
Jules overhears Will and Olivia arguing about their relationship.
After the lights go out, the groomsmen form a search party and finally find that body – it’s Will…
Who were the prime suspects in The Guest List? Many had a motive.
Johnno, who resented Will for depriving him of the chance to be in the show.
Jules, who found out that Will was concealing his affair with her half-sister Olivia.
Olivia, wasn’t the biggest fan of Will and was also distraught about having to keep the secret from Jules.
Hannah, who wanted revenge for her sister’s death.
Who was the killer in the Guest List?
The killer was Aiofe, the wedding planner. She was the sister of Darcey “Loner” Malone, the boy Will and Johnno pranked.
After Loner drowned, he was (supposedly) buried on the island. Johnno, who is always unlucky, gets blamed for Will’s death. He was holding the knife, standing over Will’s body, when the police came.
Spoiler Discussion for the Guest List:
What did you think of The Guest List?
Here are some of the things we discuss in comments- join the discussion!
The Will/Jules/Olivia Love Triangle
Did Will really not know that he had been involved with both sisters? Olivia used Jules’s apartment as a spot for her trysts with Will. Had Will never been to Jules’s apartment?
Did Johnno deserve what happened to him?
Yes, he and Will carried out the prank that caused Darcey/Loner’s death. So maybe they both got what they deserved. But many of us (including me) felt a little sorry for Johnno.
Where is Darcey/Loner’s body, anyway?
Aiolfe tells Will that there is nothing in the grave, but Johnno claims that Loner’s body was found by the caretaker. What happened to Loner’s body? Who is telling the truth?
What happened to Pete?
He went out with the search party. They notice he’s missing, but he never shows up in the story again. Did he come back? If not, where is he? Check out the comments – Pete was found. He’s alive!
I want to know what YOU thought! Talk to me in comments! If you want to join the discussion, leave a comment. I will reply to every comment, so if you also want to subscribe to the discussion and be notified of my replies and other people’s comments, toggle on the bell next to the comment box and leave an email address.
Spoiler Post for The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley
Do you love books like the Guest List? I did a whole post on Best Mysteries and Thrillers Set on an Island
Also, here are links to some other Destination Wedding Mysteries and Thrillers:
Her Dark Lies by J. T. Ellison – I have a spoiler post for Her Dark Lies here!
Every Vow You Break by Peter Swanson – my spoiler post on Every Vow You Break is here!
The Guilt Trip by Sandie Jones – you can find my discussion post for The Guilt Trip here.
Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Sutanto – if you need a break from wedding murder, this one was super light and funny!
If you love spoilers, check out my Armchair Book Club – it has all my discussion posts
Thank you for the post! I was kinda lost at times because I listened to the audiobook and let’s just say I have a very short attention span lol.. Will screwed many people over! If this was a horror novel, each character would take turns in stabbing him lol
Lol same! Audiobooks are good for helping me practice my listening comprehension, which is pretty bad. Let’s just say I rewind a lot when I realize my mind has drifted! And yes, Will was not the greatest guy, was he!?
I listened to the audio and was pretty lost too!
My question is: what happened to Peter? And why did they keep calling him by his full name in the end – Peter Ramsay? I loved reading this book but there were so many loose ends. I wish the writer talked about what happened to the characters after a little more. And am I the only one who felt bad for Johnno? Yes, he killed that kid but he never meant for it to happen and he does not deserve the consequences of Will’s death.
You are right – what did happen to Peter? I feel like the first/last name thing is kind of British, but why not the other characters? And I also felt sorry for Johnno who seemed to always get screwed over in one way or another. First Will blocks him from being on the show, and then he gets blamed for Will’s death.
I had the same thought about Peter. Two other remaining questions I had:
1. Right, I remember that. The couple going at it on the bed and she interrupts them. Aoife says they a) were not the bride and groom and b) were both wearing wedding rings. That rules out most people besides Hannah and Charlie. Were they just two random guests? I don’t think any of the groomsmen were married as one of them made a a remark about Will being the first one of them to get married. Anyone have thoughts?
2. That is a very good point.
the couple caught might have been from The Download magazine or they could have been anyone like random.. yes..
olivia was using jules apartment but she had lied to him that it belongs to her.. and assuming that pictures of jules or anything else contradicting her lie might be hidden or covered by Olivia how was will supposed to know the connection between the sisters..??
I read the book from the library back in the summer and I don’t remember every detail so: did the book suggest that Will never visited Jules’ apartment, either before or after the hookup with Olivia?
well there is no question of Will visiting jules apartment before the hook up with Olivia as he befriended jules only after breaking up with Olivia like when he started ghosting her.. and it has been mentioned throughout many times that they both got engaged pretty quickly so I am assuming that Will did not visit jules apartment in london as that was not her main residence anyway..
Thanks! I do remember that Jules and Will didn’t know each other that well. Clearly!!
This point about the apartment has bothering me too. Olivia says Jules is going to be at the apartment after the party. Do we really think that Will never goes to her apartment even though they meet at that party? This really bothers me. Otherwise I enjoyed the book.
The same address and unit number…. The same furniture, etc. Well I guess she could have moved out and it was “now occupied” by Jules, but again, the coincidence is too far unbelievable.
I wondered about the married couple too. At first I thought it was Hannah but she left the guy that she danced with soon after she found out about Will and her sister.
It’s possible that Will has never been to Jules’s apartment because the book does talk about her house somewhere else which is where they live 🙂
Duncan was also married to Georgina, she was was barely mentioned at all later in the book, I think maybe it was her and someone else from the party
yes I felt it was unfair to johnno too..
I just finished the book and looked for your website because I was not satisfied with the ending. I didn’t like the fact that Johnno took the rap for Will’s murder. I wondered if the author meant that to be final, or if she meant to leave open the possibility that the truth would come out. I did enjoy the way the book was structured, revealing the killing and the perpetrator at the end, but I wished for one memorable character. Perhaps the narrator could have been more developed? I’m kind of grasping at straws here. Also, I don’t know enough about the Irish legal system (am from US) and wonder what Johnno’s punishment will be.
I agree! The killer was not someone I ever suspected, so I loved that. But poor Johnno. Maybe there can be a courtroom thriller featuring his case. Justice for Johnno!
I feel like Johnno was resigned to taking the fall for Will’s death since he had such guilt about Loner’s death.
Definitely agree!
I love that idea!! And…let’s find out what happened to Peter. Please 😉
Poor Peter!!
actually I had connected the dots pretty much earlier and I had guessed the killer way too many chapters before the big reveal.. as it was highly suspicious about aoife offering such a huge discount when none of the other wedding planners did something like that as Jules was pondering about.. also I was wondering about where was the “hot” elder sister mentioned before when johnno saw the dead boy’s mom arriving at the school.. little things like that.. I had also guessed hannah’s sister’s disgusting boyfriend and Olivia’s unfaithful love interest must have been the same guy coz of the behaviour pattern mentioned.. this was not a satisfying enough book for me.. I am never able to guess as much with agatha christie..
Wow, you’re good! I figured out that Olivia had the fling with Will and suspected that some relative of the boy who died might have a revenge motive, but I didn’t suspect Aiofe at all.
remember hannah coming across the grave of the little boy on her morning walk she took on the wedding day and how aoife got kinda annoyed and told her to take the right route and move on ahead..?? if someone is detail oriented he or she could sense the plot unfolding much earlier than intended..
Clearly I read too fast 🙂
I didn’t understand why there was no body in the grave…I thought they had found little Malone’s body…
Yes – Johnno said that the body washed up and the caretaker found it. But then when Aoife is about to kill Will, she tells him that there’s nothing in the grave, that the family didn’t have anything to put in it.
This plot hole has really been bothering me! How could editors let that slide? Thank you I can sleep now after reading this lol..
They need a bunch of mystery readers to find the holes!
Re Darcey’s body, I think that Will’s dad and the local police chief, who Johnno said were drinking bodies got rid of it to cover up the murder. Johnno said he thought there must have still been marks on Darcey’s hands from the ties and Freddy probably came forward to Will’s dad to report that he saw Johnno and Will taking Darcey. And Will’s dad knew about “Survival”, since it was a school tradition. I think he knew it would be a huge scandal if the autopsy got out, so arranged to have the story be that the body was lost at sea or something like that. But I agree it’s definitely not made clear!
Ooh, that is a good theory. But yes, I wish some of these things had been explained!
They described the grave occupant as a girl because of the name.
I would rather read non fiction as audio books.. I have not tried much but I wont enjoy listening to fiction.. I would rather daydream about the locations, characters, incidents etc. at my leisure in my head..!!
I was 5 hours into this audiobook, and gave up because I still had about 5 hours to go! This post is great because it filled me in on whodunnit, but also confirmed that there was WAAAYYYYYYY too much going on for me to care much about anyone. So, thank you for the recap!
So glad I could help!!
I’m just here to know what happened to Charlie at the stag..
Yes, more details on that!
I think they did Survivor on Charlie like they had done to all the boys at school?
Aiofe married Freddy? Definitely couldn’t have expanded on that?
Didn’t the caretaker find Loner? Why would the grave on the island be empty? He must have been buried somewhere else?
Who was hiding in Johnny’s room? Was that Aiofe and wasn’t there someone peeking inside the room the first night from outside?
The craziest question is WHO WAS THE COUPLE Aiofe caught having sex!?! That’s driving me crazy! Was it Jules real mom and read dad?
Definitely a lot of loose ends!!
Charlie does tell Hannah what happened to him at the stag party, so that wasn’t actually a loose end. Also, Johnno says that he had been imagining Loner’s ghost in his room. I think the couple Aoife caught was just random guests. She would have known all of the important guests from the night before the wedding.
But what happened to Pete? Did he get sucked into the bog?? He disappears from the search party, but then he’s never mentioned again.
Calling Pete! Where are you?
I assumed this was Hannah and Luis? I feel like there was a slight gap in their evening/story through the chapter break, and her motive/lead up! Could be wrong though…
Interesting theory and I like it!
I think it was Duncan’s wife Georgina and someone else
Ooh, good theory!
Charlie told Hannah, but yeah honestly I was more interested in that element. Maybe its because I get nervous in big groups of people my age cause I get the feeling about to be bullied lol so I really found myself sympathizing with Charlie, even after how he had acted I felt bad when he told Hannah what happened and it ended in a fight like…i want to know how they’re doing after that.
The stag party played a version of the survival game on Charlie. He was already standing out cause he didn’t go to thier school, so he gave into drinking after they heckled him, then someone (I think Johnno?) Brought Magic Mushrooms and they all had them
They were daring each other to do stuff, like swim out in the water etc. Other shenanigans. This part I’m fuzzy on cause I was at work listening to this so what the dares were i think I lost that part.
But basically when Charlie came back from one of the dares they had left him, everyone was gone, camp they made was gone, and he had stripped down for the dare and his clothes were gone. And it was freezing, and I think the combination of the alcohol and drugs was making his perception even worse of it
So when they came back for him, Charlie was laying on his side crying. He had just been so humiliated, but also I feel like since Hannah and Jules both said that Charlie on his own was mild mannered, etc. Charlie might have reminded Will specifically of the little boy at school who died. “Weak”, eager to please, to fit in, etc.
Because Charlie said it was Will pushing everything, so I think it was meant to show a mirror of what happened with Darcey
That is such an insightful analysis!
How very perceptive of you. That makes total sense. I felt Charlie was not fully “developed” as a character, but seeing it from that perspective, he has more substance.
I thought it was surprising to have Aiofe be the killer since her connection & grievance with Will aren’t revealed until the end. I guess clues were her telling Freddy how nervous she was. I really wonder what will happen to Johnno at trial. He’s innocent of Will’s murder but guilty of another one because he followed Will’s lead. It’s somewhat of poetic justice, & I feel sorry for him. I’m looking for redemption for him because he seems to have remorse. I guess the best part was that the truth set Jules and Olivia free to love each other as the sisters they are.
Interesting analysis. Aiofe was the last person I suspected! And I agree, I would have liked to know if Johnno was convicted.
Another aspect I liked or perhaps a theme of the book was older siblings trying to protect or find justice for their younger, more vulnerable siblings.
Wow, I hadn’t thought about that. Yes, there were three (?) pairs of siblings: Jules and Olivia, Hannah and Alice, Aiofe and Darcey/Loner. All with revenge motives…
As soon as we saw the grave of the drowned child I knew it was Will and Aoife was the killer. She had the biggest motive. I did assume she was the mother not the sister.
Hi Arte – you are so observant! I was onto Hannah but I didn’t even consider Aoife. (Sorry about the comment approval. I get a lot of spam and now that I’ve approved you, your comments should go through!)
When Will and Aoife are in the tent before the wedding, he asks her about living on the island. She says she likes it because she has always been a “loner” and that in the winter months it’s all about “survival.” I did not pick up on that when I read it the first time. It was hard for me to keep track of everything with the different narrators and time jumps.
I missed the part where Hannah finds out Charlie cheated on her with Jules. Was it a one-night thing at the wedding party or was it an ongoing affair?!
Lol I get it – I’m a fast reader and I miss important things ALL the time. Hannah always sort of suspects Charlie and Jules have done it, but I think she assumes it was before she and Charlie were married. Charlie admits it to her about two-thirds of the way through the book, in the scene where he tells Hannah what happened at the stag party. After that, Hannah just flat-out asks him. He says yes, he and Jules did it once. She says, “when you were teenagers?” And Charlie doesn’t really answer and then she says “when we were together?” He tells her it was one time and both he and Jules were drunk. Jules had just broken up with a boyfriend and Hannah had post-natal depression so she and Charlie were in a “dry spell.”
Ohhh juicy! Thank you so much!!
I don’t think I missed anything in this feed, and agree with some that the open-endedness of Pete not being found is mysterious but without major motive, I think it was a red herring.
The thing I MUST have missed is the background and or outcome from the boys finding Freddy supposedly dead?? From my (possibly wrong!) memory, the boarding school boys found Freddy dead with something in his hand…? Then I don’t remember it being mentioned again?!
The boarding school search party sees Freddy coming toward them in the dark and says “what’s that in his hand?” And then in their next section they realize it’s just a flashlight. He’s not dead. And then they notice Pete is missing, which drives us all crazy. That never gets resolved. Then they find Jules’ crown and shoe. Then they find Will’s body.
Silly me! I think I mis-read/interpreted how they found/saw him and stupidly assumed while excited! I do like an occasional loose end, so it’s not all perfectly tied up… but I feel like Pete is a bit of an odd one.