J R Alastor is a mystery writer whose books are known worldwide. The writer has spent years in solitude on an island, no one knowing anything about the popular author, then suddenly, six other best selling authors are invited to the island for a murder mystery retreat. Of course, all six accept the invitation, they are not going to refuse the chance to meet the legend. Mila Del Angel has been hired to ensure the week on the island for all the guests runs smoothly, she hires a chef and a housekeeper, and has her strict instructions about the mystery games the guests are to play. until the host appears.
After one guest is found murdered, the others all start to question the reasons for the invites, but maybe their questions have come too late.
This is a great locked room murder mystery, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a tense thriller, it kept me guessing, and I did not see the ending coming.

I'm nearly at the end, but i still can't figure out the denouement of this riff on "And Then There Were None"
Intriguing

This was genuinely fantastic! This genre of book wouldn’t be my top choice but when I read the blurb, I really wanted to give it a go. Haven’t read anything like it in that it was so brilliantly done.

For a debut novel - amazing! Loved the intricate story line and it kept me hooked the whole way through - that doesn’t happen often for me but with this, my intrigue was peaked continually!

At times I did get a bit mixed up but think that was more to do with my own attention span than the writing 😂 but the ending wrapped everything up nicely for me!

Character development was so detailed and well done, I loved how each person’s story got me thinking about their role in the retreat.

Thanks so much to NetGalley for the ARC :)

I had high hopes about this book but it was too slow and clunky for me. I got a bit confused by whose POV I was reading. None of the characters were particularly likeable and it seemed a very long winded way of saying the obvious.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to finish this book. I found it heavy and slow. Based on that, my rating will be low but have see some positive vibes on bookstagram.

5 stars all the way!
This was a riveting read from beginning to end.
It was well thought out, with twists and turns as you were led through the adventure.
It ticks all the boxes for me.
I would highly recommend it to anyone who loves murder mysteries.
It also has a satisfying ending which isn’t always a given.
I’m looking forward to future novels by this author with eager anticipation.

A very messed up story with so much going on you don't know who is trustworthy and who isn't. There were points where it felt a little long winded but overall a very enjoyable story!

What an absolutely intriguing, clever murder mystery! This book will tie you up in knots with its skilful misdirection, layers upon layers, intrigue stretching back across years. Completely gripping!

This is very much for fans of And Then There Were None. It is a tight murder mystery set on a remote island. A mysterious and reclusive author has invited a group of authors to a writer’s retreat at their home on an island. Three staff members have been hired to take care of their needs.

Things are not as they seem, games are afoot and menacing instructions are left for the guests. Messages and totems harkening back to their past sins. However things soon take a very dark turn and the guests find themselves being hunted unless they can work out how to solve the game.

I found this absolutely fascinating. It was a really clever book and the depth of detail with the characters, matching up their secrets and past sins and their current plans was brilliant. We manage to cover so much so fast and you can never be sure who to trust. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. Fantastic, isolated setting, morally questionable characters and a challenging game to solve!

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House UK for an advanced copy of Ande Pliego's debut - You Are Fatally Invited releasing 13th February 2025.

I absolutely devoured this book. Right to the very end you're kept guessing and are cleverly led down false leads here and there, which really builds an atmosphere and makes you feel like you're in amongst it with the characters.
Your loyalties change towards characters as the story progresses and I loved how you hear from each author's perspective as one by one they're picked off. I enjoyed learning the links that connected each character and how everything intertwined to lead to these 6 people being invited to the island.
All the classic tropes are there, done in a way that keeps you engaged and excited to read to the next chapter to see what happens next. A thoroughly enjoyable read and I look forward to reading more from Ande Pliego in the future.

A murderous retreat. Mila is invited by a mysterious benefactor to be administrator on an island get-together for authors. Creepy things happen and people get knocked down like skittles. On the plus side, the food is good! A fun read with lots of red herrings.

This book was quite hit and miss for me. I loved the idea of a murderous writing retreat and it did have some vibes of a demented game of cluedo (as referenced in the book).

Usually I love dual/multiple POVs but for me all of the voices were the same so i was constantly flicking back to the start of the chapter to remember who was speaking.

I also saw one reviewer describe it as needing to do too much thinking while reading this and that's exactly how I felt. There were so many different secrets and plot points happening all at once I felt I needed a spreadsheet to keep track of it all.

I was intrigued by this. Six writers are invited to an island by a bestselling reclusive author. They are excited to meet the said author but he never appears. Instead they are greeted by an events manager who has an agenda of her own. It sounded great when I read the blurb. In reality I didn't enjoy it at all. Why?

Firstly, there are too many points of view. Normally this isn't a problem for me but in this case I found it hard to distinguish between the voices. As the book went on, it became increasingly difficult to follow and to determine who was who. Various people are murdered and it's never really clear why. In two cases it's incomprehensible. We're told throughout that the authors deserve to die because of what they did but were their crimes really bad enough for them to have to die?

By the end I was just desperate to finish. There are lots of this type of mystery around but this one misses the mark for me. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

Oh I was disappointed with this!

I was excited by the premise of this book and the title was interesting too - however, for me, that's where the interest stopped.

Here we have 6 murder mystery writers all invited to the private island of renowned writer J R Alaster. Met at the dock by Alaster's assistant and host of the island Mila. The writers are expecting a relaxing few days of writing and sharing of ideas but they walk into what amounts to a game of life size Cluedo where the dead body keeps changing but the murderer is seemingly the same. Each of the 6 has a secret in their past that Alaster has discovered and he is hell bent on making them pay....with their lives. Who will be left standing at the end of the break and will Alaster every reveal his identity?

My issues with this book are many sadly. I was not a fan of the narrative flipping between the characters and I struggled to keep track of which character was telling the story at times because none of them had their own distinct voice - instead you got hints about who was narrating as they often referred back to the things that had happened in their past, without this it would have been near impossible to tell who was talking. I struggled to understand why some of the characters were killed off - I couldn't tell what they had done that was so bad that they needed to die. The scenarios got increasingly less believable as the story progressed and I am unsure how the characters who survived got off the island without revealing what had happened.

If you are looking for a story in this genre with a similar (but better) plot I would recommend 'And Then There Were None' by Agatha Christie which is much better and makes far more sense than this did.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a variation of the well known Agatha Christie novel, Ten Little Indians. It followed the same outline of the plot but went a bit more in depth with the characters and background storyline. It got slightly complicated as it went along and I found the continual jumping from one character to another doing the storytelling a bit annoying. I sometimes lost who was telling the story at certain times and the background story was a bit confusing. There was the usual twist at the end which I hadn’t worked out so that was good. Once I started reading, I felt that I knew where the story was going but it was still a fairly good read.

A locked room murder mystery that has you on the edge of your seat from start to finish! Just brilliant!
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for my ARC

Wow! What a great book. So many twists and turns. Kept me guessing right to the end. I was shocked at the ending! Read this book now!

I was really excited to read You Are Fatally Invited by Ande Pliego.

I’m a fan of Agatha Christie, and for me it channelled And Then There Were None.

In this case, J.R. Alastor, a celebrated but notoriously private author invites six authors to his estate on a private island for a writer’s retreat. He’s enlisted the help of an Events Manager, Mila, to run the event. Mila herself hasn’t even met the host and is hosting the event on his behalf.

The best-selling authors Aston, Cassandra, Olivia, Rodrigo, Violet and Fletcher are all keen to impress their host and outshine each other. However, as the games progress and their host doesn’t arrive - they are left with more questions than answers before things quickly spiral.

The book moves along from the perspective of the invited authors and also from Mila. It initially took me a while to get the characters established, but after that I whizzed through the book and loved all the twists and turns and reveals along the way.

This is a debut and I can’t wait to read Pliego’s next book!

Huge thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, Random House UK, Transworld Publishers | Bantam, for making the e-ARC available to me in exchange for a fair and honest review.

A locked room murder mystery featuring a group of thriller writers on a retreat that goes wrong. There are so many locked room mysteries out now that it can become repetitive, but “You Are Fatally Invited” brings a fantastic Agatha Christie-like feel that was captivating from start to finish. Mystery and thriller readers will love this!

Thanks for the opportunity to read in advance!

It's centered around a collection of thriller authors who find themselves entangled in a murder mystery of their own and is full of sly self-referential humor and staggering stakes that--just like the murder and thriller novels the book references--make you keep the lights on as you furiously turn the pages

Very clever but a bit over clever for me, with six writers invited to a weekend writing convention that turns into a locked room murder mystery. Clever plot twists and a good ending, just a bit too much “stuff”.