It’s Friday, Friday, Friday!
“Remove all of the distractions, and here, in the silence and the solitude, the demons they have kept at bay catch up with them.”
– The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley
What’s up, friends? and how are you? I hope you’re doing well, taking care of your body as well as your mind, drinking plenty of water, staying cool, and checking in with friends and family.
My daydreams of catching up when up on a cloud of smoke, once again, I’m listening to books faster than I’m getting out the reviews. Amazingly, I can still remember some details. Usually, I’ll create a draft of notes when I listen to the book, then go back and clean it up for this post.
The Review
Title | The Hunting Party, A Novel
Author | Lucy Foley
Pages | 406
Published | December 2018
Genre | Mystery, Thriller, Crime
GR Rating | 3.64
Purchase | Amazon
Synopsis
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.
My Rating (3.95)
Another mystery thriller from Lucy Foley that I truly enjoyed, and I found myself not completely hating all the characters.
In a typical mystery murder, most, if not all, of the characters are despicable, and there isn’t a likable one in the bunch. This modern-day mystery follows the same pattern with a misunderstood archetype, the awkward one, the boyfriend that got away, and the pretty and popular one everyone wanted to be.
from The Hunting Party
“Sometimes solitude is the only way to regain your sanity.”
It begins with friends honoring a time-old tradition of ringing in the new year together. Since graduation, the friends don’t see each other often in their busy adult lives. Careers, children, and life would tame their previous party ways and keep the friends from seeing each other as often as they desired.
The story begins in 2019 as Heather, the manager of the lodge at Loch Corrin, prepares for the guests’ arrival. Heather wants to make sure everything is perfect.
from The Hunting Party
“I suppose we all carry around different versions of ourselves.”
It turns out that everything is not what it seems [but isn’t that always the case]. I think what burns my butter is that I didn’t think anyone could be so lost, naïve, [ok] stupid. Book smart she was, common sense smart …not so much. How can you be so gullible to think they’re famous? So I’ll do exactly what they did, cut off my friends and family, and then I can become a writer, just like her.
Florence gets the job moves into Helen’s guest house, and begins to immerse herself in work. It’s at this time that Helen decides to travel to Morroco with Florence in tough to do research for an upcoming book.
The group of friends arrives during a terrible snowstorm along with other guests at the lodge.
from A Hunting Party
“They were jealous, of course—jealousy being a natural corollary to ambition.”
As we draw near to the New Year’s festivities, too much alcohol is to blame for bringing out the not-so-nice personalities. Secrets, deception, infidelity, and finally, a murder would turn everything upside down.
Just like the classic murder mystery, the most complicated and not-so-nice character was destined to be axed. You can feel the tension rising, and then you’re just counting the pages and chapters until that character bites it, but not before revealing a few secrets about the remaining friends.
I liked that the story was easy to follow, and the characters weren’t so complicated that it made me lose focus on what was happening. There weren’t ten different backstories crisscrossing with one another, making the story heavy and confusing.
This is a great summer read in my Good Reads Challenge, and I can’t wait for another Lucy Foley mystery.
My Good Reads Progress
I’m still reading Grimmer, We Sold Our Souls , and The Amazing Grace Adams.
What books are you reading this summer? Share them in the comments.
Thanks so much for visiting the blog today. Don’t forget to follow and subscribe, as I really appreciate the support. — Peace