An interesting premise: an anonymous author who goes by the pen name of J. R. Alastor invites other crime writers to their private island for a writer's retreat. Will they finally find out who he or she is?
Certainly not on the first night, where he fails to turn up.
And also, unexpectedly on the first night, one of the crime writers is found dead - murdered. Whodunnit?

Details are revealed throughout the story about the crime writers - it turns out they all have secrets, which Alastor wants them to confess. They refuse to, and end up being killed, one by one, by methods they have used in their own novels.

But who is Alastor, and where is he? Is he on the island.... or is he one of the crime writers?

I found this overlong, overcomplicated, and at times confusing to read. I had to go back quite a few times as speech changed from one person to another without any clear indication. But all the way through it keeps you guessing, as you try to work out who Alastor could be.

The twist at the end was a bit tame - I was almost waiting for a counter-twist.

Having said all that, it's a great effort from a new author.

This was a fab debut! I throughly enjoyed the whole book. The characters, story and twists made me fall in love with this very quickly! I am keeping my eye out for more from this author!

A group of bestselling crime novelists are invited to the private island estate of mysterious fellow crime writer, J R Alastor, for an exclusive writing retreat run by event coordinator, Mila. As the guests arrive on the island and the retreat begins in earnest, it suddenly becomes apparent that their host has planned far more than just a luxury literary getaway. Can the experts in writing crime fiction use their knowledge of the genre to solve the challenges that await and escape the island with their lives?

I felt the story had a really strong start and I finished the first chapter excited to see what came next. After that, I found I struggled to remain engaged until around the halfway point when the challenges became a lot more interesting and I’d begun to piece together more about each character. The story is told through the points of view of the different characters and switches regularly, and I did find it tricky to distinguish Fletcher and Ashton initially, and also Olivia and Violet. Violet didn’t really come to the fore, I thought, until closer to the end of the novel when she took on a more significant role.

The second half of the novel had me absolutely hooked, however, and I had to stop myself from skim reading to get to big reveals from each challenge the authors faced! I enjoyed trying to guess the characters’ backgrounds, motives, allegiances and connections and also the nods to classic crime fiction tropes, shared as snippets from a book written by their host, J R Alastor.

This is a really strong debut from Ande Pliego and I hope to read more by her in the future.

Thank you to the publisher, and to NetGalley, for access to an advance copy of ‘You Are Fatally Invited’ in exchange for this honest review.

6 authors are invited to a writer retreat by writing legend who no one actually knows the identity of, J. R. Alastor. His assistant Mila has been hired to oversee that the week runs smoothly. The week takes a sinister turn when one of the guests ends up dead…

This book has one of the best pre book maps I have ever seen, it is brilliant. Plus the author actually drew it herself. 😱

This is the kind of book where you have to concentrate extra hard and there are a decent amount of characters, lots going on and some sneaky clues in there! So if you like light and easy, this isn’t for you!

I enjoyed this and I thought it was really cleverly done. I love who-dun-it style murder mysteries and I thought this was done really well.

I am actually shocked that this is a debut as the attention to detail is incredible and it’s written so well! I questioned everyone constantly and loads of things shocked me!

Six thriving authors are invited to a mystery island retreat of murder mystery legend JR Alastor, a pseudonym naturally. They think they’re there for a brain storming murder mystery masterclass but find themselves being the characters in an ultimate, bloody locked room puzzle.

Thank you to #netgalley and #Bantam for my #arc copy.

Here is what I liked:
- the author’s clear love of detective fiction. This book plays by all the rules and the reader is also a player (just with less risk than the characters).
- the use of multiple POV, especially when you don’t know who is talking to you - it kept me guessing constantly and really freaked me out (in a good way).
-the pace - this gets straight to the point and doesn’t ease up, nothing here isn’t relevant to the plot.

Here is what I liked less:
- there is too much going on, it makes it hard to play along.
- I was guessing not working it out. The clues were either too obvious or just a process of elimination, which at the conclusion did leave holes.
- the premise and conclusion were a bit too neat.

I think if you’re a big thriller and or Christie fan you’ll have a lot of fun with this!! And if you’re not, it’s a solid thriller for all to enjoy.

I was immediately drawn to this book by its synopsis, a promise of a story with the theme consistent of a murder mystery following in the footsteps of the famous “and then there were none” by Agatha Christie, this book felt like an updated and modern twist on the story with it easily being envisioned as a playwright for another instalment of the “Knives Out” movie franchise.

The book is fantastically written, action packed, whilst remaining fast paced and mysterious. The illustrations and books format are a wonderful addition, and the character development/shock reveals is phenomenal, the author really managed to bring the characters to life, finding yourself routing for some and completely despising others. Told from multiple perspectives, this book manages to interlink all characters and the story really well, there are moments when the mystery element feels quite confusing, but those shock plot twists and reveals really make up for it.

This was different from anything I’ve read before. A locked room mystery where the guests on a private island have to solve a riddle every day - until a guest dies. Then deadly secrets are exposed but which secret belongs to which guest? The rules are simple. Confess and you’ll live. Don’t and face the consequences.

There are several POVs but the story is mostly told through event coordinator Mila. I liked her from the start even as her own lust for revenge marred her judgement.

I loved how descriptive the setting was. I could imagine the house - a riddle in itself - in detail and feel the tension of not knowing who might be next but there’s no escape. I didn’t guess “whodunnit”, realising too late I’d fallen for a clever red herring!

Thanks so much to Netgalley and Random House UK, Transworld Publishers for the ARC.

A group of writers with dark secrets, great story if a little confusing at times! Use of the game Cludo was interesting - the thief, the serial killer, the therapist......

Thank you NetGallery for access. The story is told from the perspective of each writer or 'character', which worked well until there was multiple twists & I found it tricky to follow!

Satisfying ending - would read more from this author!

I LOVED You Are Fatally Invited! Pliego's voice is gripping, and the setting of the island manor perfectly atmospheric for a deadly games thriller. There were multiple twists that I didn't see coming, and even times where I thought one person was one thing when it turned out to be the complete opposite! The cheeky epilogue (no spoilers I promise) had me chuckling. I ripped through this book in two days and can't wait for another book by Ande!

Really great concept - its like Richard Osman, Agatha Christie and Stephen King all having a dinner party to write the perfect murder mystery and see if it is actually possible to really get away with the perfect murder - or not at the case maybe.
Great story and I enjoyed my reading experience the whole time, perfect read with a cuppa and a blanket while it rains outside

An exclusive writing retreat on a secluded island takes a deadly turn in this locked-room mystery that attempts to pay homage to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. Mila del Angel, a struggling event planner, is hired by reclusive thriller author J.R. Alastor—often compared to the J.D. Salinger of his genre—to host the retreat for six bestselling authors. Mila has a personal motive for accepting the job: one of the guests stole her manuscript years ago, ruining her career and dreams. Alastor promises her a chance for revenge, but the retreat soon spirals into chaos when one of the authors is found dead under suspicious circumstances. As a storm cuts off communication with the mainland, Mila must unravel the dark secrets of her guests while trying to survive the increasingly dangerous situation.

The cast of characters includes veteran writer Thomas Fletcher, young rising star Violet Blake, YA thriller author Ashton Carter, the seasoned Cassandra Hutchinson, and husband-and-wife duo Rodrigo and Olivia Sandoval. While the retreat starts with riddles and games reminiscent of mystery tropes, it quickly reveals a darker side as the guests' sinister pasts come to light—complete with poisoners, killers, and more. Mila’s plan for revenge is derailed as the stakes rise, and she begins to question whether Alastor himself is more dangerous than she realized.

Although the premise is intriguing, the execution falters. The multiple perspectives, while adding layers to the mystery, feel muddled, with many of the characters' voices lacking clarity or distinction. This makes it difficult to fully engage with their individual stories or motivations. Additionally, while the early twists are well-crafted, the narrative eventually becomes too far-fetched, with the final act straining believability and undercutting the tension that had been carefully built up.

Despite these shortcomings, the atmospheric setting and the initial suspense may still appeal to fans of the genre. However, readers looking for a tightly plotted, grounded mystery may find themselves disappointed. While the book offers some clever moments, the over-the-top twists and uneven character development detract from what could have been a truly memorable debut.

Thank you Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine | Bantam, for providing me with an ARC.

Great premise, clever games and plot, but somewhat let down by the amount of times I had to go back and check things that had been confusingly laid out.

I think the book does character study beautiful and while the start was very slow it did pace better halfway through.

I love a good murder mystery, and I love a good read, so a murder mystery set in a writer’s retreat full of famous authors sounded ideal!

Six thriller authors have been invited to the remote house of anonymous author J.R. Alastor to take part in a writer’s retreat. Featuring dinner games and writing tips, this was an opportunity not to be missed. But when a writer goes missing, the authors realise the stakes may be higher than they expected…

It’s taken me a little while to write this review after reading it and I was initially unsure why. I think ultimately, although I absolutely love the premise, this book missed the mark for me in some areas which was disappointing. We are introduced to a lot of points of view at once, with each chapter having a different narrator, out of the six authors, one housekeeper and a mysterious narrator who is not revealed until the end. This felt like a bit of an overload to begin with, and I found it hard to keep track of the characters and work out who was who, and what each person’s relationship was to each other. They are all written quite similarly as well which made this job even harder. The characters remained my issue throughout – the plot works well to keep you guessing who the perpetrator could be – in fact, we’d gotten down to the last two and I still hadn’t really guessed! It does this by sacrificing any empathy you have for the characters though – I didn’t really feel that I was rooting for anyone by the end.

The plot starts well, with a game before dinner which sets a somewhat darker tone on the proceedings. However, I found the games a little confusing. We seemed to go from zero to one hundred very quickly, whereas I would have preferred a slower pace where we could introduce some more normal events of the writing retreat before the twists started to be revealed. Although the ending did tie things together, it did rely quite heavily on tell-not-show, where one character monologues a lot of events that the reader wouldn’t have been able to work out or guess to make the plot make sense.

Overall, You Are Fatally Invited didn’t quite hit the mark for me sadly, it was a great premise but had some pitfalls trying to create a twisting narrative. Thank you to Netgalley & Random House UK, Transworld Publishers and Bantam for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book was definitely an interesting one, it was very fast paced, but in some ways too fast because it switched character POV so often that you didn't get much time to properly get to know them well. Of course there were a few more central characters that you got more of, but I still found it a bit hard to get a grasp on how I really felt about them. The book definitely did what it intended by you never knowing what character you could trust, or what was really happening, it sort of left my head spinning a little bit. The last 100 pages were definitely where it all really started to come together and I did find myself wanting to get to the end and to finally know the answers. And I can honestly say I didn't see the twists coming. I didn't guess the outcome which is what a writer of a book like this wants so it was successful in that. It's a good read, I think other readers will really enjoy it. I think for me the jump in POV so often just got a bit confusing but other people will love that. A good read, solid 3 stars.

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.

Maybe because I was expecting an easy, Agatha Christie style read over Christmas but this wasn't really for me.
Certainly well written, I found I really needed to concentrate of whose perspective the story was being told from in each chapter which, for me, detracted from the story line somewhat.
I was a superb plot but I just found it a bit hard work. Sorry!

You Are Fatally Invited by Ande Pliego is a thrilling and wickedly clever murder mystery that will keep readers on the edge of their seats. When Mila del Angél, a former aspiring writer, is hired by the renowned and enigmatic J. R. Alastor to host a writing retreat at his remote Maine manor, she seizes the opportunity, especially since she has an ax to grind with one of the guests. The retreat’s guest list is a perfect mix of thriller authors—each a master of suspense, deceit, and mayhem.

What starts as a week of trope-fueled games and riddles takes a dark turn when one of the authors is found dead, but not the one Mila had planned to murder. Trapped on the island with a storm cutting them off from the outside world, the remaining guests must navigate a series of deadly twists, with the body count rising and the killer knowing every trick in the book.

Pliego’s fast-paced narrative is full of blood, gore, and spine-tingling suspense. Even the quieter moments pulse with tension as Mila races to outwit a killer who’s rewriting the rules. With locked-room mysteries, shifting allegiances, and shocking revelations, this book is a must-read for fans of dark thrillers and twisted games. It’s a captivating ride from start to finish.

Read more at The Secret. Book Review.

This book is an interesting plot and storyline with compelling characters. Enjoyed reading the book although it took me a while to get into the story

This fell flatter than a pancake. Sadly, IMO most of this is due to mediocre writing. The plot is seriously, if not ludicrously convoluted, the characters are all insufferable cardboard cut-outs that don't even come close to resembling anything remotely person-like, and what's worse, they're boring as hell. But what kills this baby dead is the writing. Everything is overwritten to within an inch of its life. There's no room for atmosphere or flow or even just air to breathe, everything is buried under an avalanche of stilted, lifeless, over-explaining prose that is trying so hard you can feel its muscles strain. The author just doesn't know when to let up, everything is always that little bit over the top... and it gets annoying very, very fast.
People rarely just speak; instead, they forever "coo" and "harp", they "probe", "huff", "rasp" "prescribe" and "bumble some excuse" or other. Breaths trip. Someone "gesture[s] with his chin to the far end" of a room. Speaking of rooms, no-one can simply walk into one, instead heels are forever sinking "into the luscious cream-and-navy carpet", unless they "graze the woven carpet", for no discernible reason except to be wordy for wordiness' sake. The prose is as purple as a jar of grape Gatorade: "my smile faded with his footsteps as I stared through one of the glass cases, sinking into the stirred waters of my musing."
"A growl curled in my throat", yeah well, a little honeyed tea might help with that. Some dude wrote a YA thriller "that had ripped my soul out through my rib cage last year" (ouch), which, apparently, counts as a compliment. (Also, glad we apparently finally managed to pinpoint the location of the human soul.) "A chill bit into the back of my skull", ouch again (skulls don't have it easy in this book anyway: "a thought scraped its fingernails bloody at the back of my skull", or, when an alarm clock goes off, its "shrieking grated against my skull, scraping my brain raw.").
Triple ouch or just occupational hazard? You judge: "I hoped [getting published] stung like a paper cut slitting your throat." Some paper cut, I guess...
For some reason, we're apparently supposed to feel for this character and their histrionics, which basically tells you all you need to know about the author's handling of her characters. Then again, throwing hissy fits is just the go-to reaction for these people; they can't just dislike the idea of a beach picnic in the cold, they need to be colorful: "A flare of annoyance shot through me at Alastor sentencing us to the outdoors in late October." Dude, you're not being "sentenced" to anything. You're just supposed to have a meal outside. Keep it down with the annoyance flare until you actually need one, okay?

This is an author very much in love with her own writing. Sadly, it doesn't feel like she was thinking very hard about what she was saying; some things don't even make that much sense: Alastor's mansion "had gone through extensive renovations, and now, the media called it the height of luxury. Not that any journalists had ever actually been here." So, um, how would they know about the "height of luxury" thing? And, "the media"??
Someone feels their "thoughts slipping like slimy fish out of [their] hands", which I imagine is an unpleasant thing to experience, but not as bad as feeling "[your] gut shrivel[ing] like an aged cherry.". There's also apparently some magic trickery of perception at work, undoing basic physics: "Our forms swam in the mirror of the blackened window, distorted shapes moving a second behind." A second behind?!? How is that even possible?? And how does it not make you want to run screaming from the room?
Someone wanders the nightly halls in search of some water because "I wasn't about to drink from the tap like an animal." Which is not only the most flimsy excuse for a "reason" to get a certain scene in motion, it doesn't even make sense, as of all the animals I've known in my lifetime, none were able or willing to manipulate the tap, instead settling for a nice bowl on the floor.

I also found it hilarious that six totally famous mystery writers stuck on an island OF COURSE talk about nothing but their respective books, or, in some cases, book, singular. Like, if you put Stephen King in a room with Dean Koontz and Stephen Graham Jones and Ramsey Campbell, would they spend the next hours holding forth on their latest novels and nothing else? Personally I like to think that they'd basically chat about everything BUT their books; anything else would be rather cringe-y, especially if their shop-talk turned out as inane as the one in this book ("I have always wondered how you [...] craft such graphic imagery. [...] What is your source of inspiration?"). But of course the characters in this thing are all one-dimensional clichés who happen to somehow have written a bestseller, so that's the one thing they talk about.
Which makes sense, I guess, because they're only ever called "the authors". It's the authors do this and the authors do that, "I guided the authors" here and "I directed the authors" there. They're not people. They're certainly not individuals. They're the authors, or rather, some ancient Technicolor cliché of persons who have written a book. (Fun fact: the concept of ARCs has not made it into Ms Pliego's world, as evidenced by one of "the authors" coming across their host's latest work: "'Ro, look. It's Alastor's book on writing. It's releasing next week. But it's here.'" Wow. Really.)

Which brings us to the author's idea of writing itself, as in, the process of putting words on paper. If you listened to Ms Pliego, you'd be forgiven to think that this is something utterly special, a quasi-religious act of creating only to be mastered by the chosen few (just a reminder, we're talking about mystery writers here. People writing tomes about killer lawyers and stuff titled "An Ecology of Scars" and producing paragraphs like the following: "Horror had slit her vocal cords. Blood splashed a constellation of darkness onto the pale marble, drowning the starlight through the window like a black hole." To which another writer offers some very insightful thoughts: "I think the quality of your writing holds a lot of promise. [...] Your command over the language speaks beyond the words themselves."). So if you write yourself, and you come across another writer, it's like two unicorns crossing paths, a moment that's insufferably beautiful as well as totally magic... well, at least in the author's worldview:
"But here I was, finally talking to a real author -- one of the first I'd ever met in person. And another writer knows that nothing about writing is, in fact, silly -- or perhaps the whole thing is. That dreaming up people and worlds is perhaps the silliest, most beautiful thing a human can do." But don't stop there: if writing is "your thing", "if it's something that feels like a part of you, like you come alive when you write -- then just because you're not writing now doesn't mean you're not a writer."
You know, this kind of reasoning might be perfectly applicable to a cheater or a serial killer, but as for creating art, be it making music or painting or writing stories, I'm tempted to ask how in the world you consider yourself an artist if you're not making art. No-one can seriously expect to be called a chef if they don't cook, nor a farmer if they don't farm. But somehow just thinking about maybe possibly creating stuff sometime in the future is equivalent to being an artist? Please.
(But of course the one would-be writer can't be blamed for not writing, because, you know, how can you possibly write anything when you're all alone?!? "I should be able to brainstorm and commiserate with other writers, dissect emotion and words and get at the heart of the story. Hell, I should have been invited to a writing retreat just like this one." Yes, totally. Nobody can expect you to write a book on your own, it's much too lonely. Good grief...)

The fetishizing of authordom extends to the writer's implements as well, especially that holy grail, the one thing no self-respecting writer can do without, The Notebook. Lots of attention is given to The Writer's Notebook. "A writer's notebook was their mind on paper, and I itched to thumb through his" (ew). "Nearly every writer had one, a cemetery for stray thoughts and scraps of dialogue which may or may not be resurrected in a story." A cemetery?? For thoughts? So they, um, rest in peace and don't come back? Another character (!) covets those notebooks as well, if only to "[p]eel apart his thoughts and everything that made him a bestseller."

Apart from the weird perspective on the writing craft, there is some kind of murder mystery going on, and riddles and stuff, and towards the end things finally let loose and turn totally bonkers, but I gave up long before that. This book needed some serious editing. It also needed several units of personality injected into its characters, and some humor would have been nice as well -- the novel takes itself and its concept MUCH too seriously. Really too bad. It could and should have been a lot more fun

Firstly I’d like to say thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Wow! What a way to end the year!!

I think this was such a good book. I loved the concept and the plot! There were a huge range of characters, all unique and with secrets and mysteries surrounding them. It was so interesting seeing how the different mysteries unravelled, showing how everything was linked together.

There were so many twists that had me gasping and my jaw was firmly dropped. It had me constantly guessing throughout and I still didn’t get it right but it was so fun trying!

I just think this was so cleverly done and very gripping and I really really enjoyed it! I honestly have no complaints!