This book gripped me from the start, was pretty fast paced and the twist near the end!

The story follows Will, who in 1999, joins 5 other graduates to work for a psychology professor to create a new online dating website. Fast forward 25 years and the 6 former friends/colleagues are reunited for a dinner party. There’s an unexpected guest, strange noises and Will can sense something is off….also..,one of them is hiding a secret, but who and what is it?

This was such an interesting story! I loved the dual timelines, going back to 1999 added to the mystery that was unfolding. Really cleverly written and I will definitely be looking out for more from this author!

Thank you to Michael J Books and Netgalley for the advance copy to read. Opinions expressed here are my own.

I really enjoyed the Wasp Trap by Mark Edwards. I don’t think I’ve ver been let down by a book by this author! Spooky, creepy, slightly unhinged… it’s a thriller with a good bite in it. I enjoyed the flashbacks to 1999 which felt quite nostalgic, and seeing the difference in the personalities of the characters between then and the present. A fair few twists and turns in this one.

Mark Edwards’ The Wasp Trap is psychological thriller that is dark and had me turning the pages from start to finish.

In the summer of 1999, Will and five other idealistic graduates work under an eccentric psychology professor, aiming to revolutionise online dating. What should have been a ground breaking summer ends in unexplained tragedy. Twenty five years later Will receives an invite to a mysterious dinner party, a supposed reunion of the old group.

But from the moment he arrives, nothing feels right. The atmosphere is tense, the hosts are visibly hiding something, and an unfamiliar guest raises questions. Strange noises, uncomfortable glances, and an undercurrent of fear point to one thing, that summer never truly ended and someone is desperate enough to kill for the truth.

This novel is atmospheric and the tension is high with each character having their own secrets, guilt and motives. Suspicion is all around as the novel switches between the two timelines of the summer of 1999 and the present dinner party twenty five years later. As you would expect there are many twists and turns along the way to trip you up and the sting of a final twist.

A very enjoyable psychological thriller with a sting in the tail.

I would like to thank both Netgalley and Penguin UK for supplying a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Six friends reunite to celebrate the life of an ex-employer in 1999, it's set in the past and present.
As they meet they are held at gunpoint and are told to reveal a secret from the past and people are murdered when no secret is revealed.
It started out good but was unbelievable to me.
Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC and I give my honest review.

I liked the sound of this book, but I didn't realty take to the characters, and I found it to be too slow for me .So I didn't enjoy it, I am sorry to say.

A real page turner, action packed, twists and turns, good story, liked the flawed nature of all the characters and great final twist.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book.

This is an odd one and I was surprised at how long it took me to read. It has a dual timeline and starts off quite slowly. In the present day we are told there are secrets from 1999 but I feel the mentions are just too vague, I would say a reader needs something more to go on, something they can think about and try to work out instead of just vague mentions in passing.

It hots up quite a bit after halfway but then it just gets too unlikely, too many dramatic and far fetched happenings. There are a couple of fairly decent surprises I didn't see coming but all in all it just seems a bit overdone.

I was slightly troubled by drippy Will's attitude towards women and his comments about them in 1999 although I suppose it is in some respects representative of a certain type of man at that time and indeed at any time.

Probably better if it had been shorter and less frantic in the locked house events.

What a fantastic plot that Mark executes perfectly with the vast array of characters, tense moments and gripping scenes. Such a fun read and kept me guessing throughout!

A tense thriller read which kept me on the edge of my seat throughout with interesting characters but not all likeable.

It was well written and I was involved in the storyline from the very beginning.

Thank you to Netgalley and Michael Joseph (Penguin) for this ARC which I have no hesitation in recommending.

The setup was compelling and kept me turning the pages.
Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for the opportunity to read this ARC.

Perfect plot, perfect execution and full of taut edge of your seat tension. 5 stars for a superb author.

Absolutely love Mark Edwards novels and this one does not disappoint. A group.of people are hand selected to work at a millionaires mansion to develop a new online dating site. It gets shut down after a death happens in mysterious circumstances. They all meet up 25 years later for a dinner party but end up being held hostage to try and find out a secret that happened while they were at the mansion, which only one of them know about. Who is it who knows? And what happens if they don't know.
So many twists and turns in this novel as I've come to expect from Mark Edwards. Don't want to give too much away, would rather people made their own minds up, but highly recommend if you love thrillers.
Many thanks to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this.

A group of talented people brought together to work on a new dating website site. A killing that puts an end to this and all off the staff leave only to reunite at a dinner party several years later with tragic consequences

Another perfectly-plotted, psychologically astute thriller. Edwards' excels at the plausibility of the set-up, writing about the early days of the app-and-algorithm world we all live in today, but he imbues it with a romance that we've lost. All this and a beautiful but sinister English country house. A thriller that yearns for the not-so-innocence of youth.

Set between duralit times line of present day and 90’s. A group of uni friends reunite after 25 years. I enjoyed this thriller. Characters that were likeable and a plot that kept you reading. Thank you netgalley and the publisher for an advance review copy

I felt that this book would be rated a 5 by me in the first chapter. This proved to be the case!

A familiar theme but a distinctive, unique plot. I wonder if this will become a film? Certainly a good candidate.

The characters were all carefully constructed with a lot of depth. I must re-emphasise that.... "a lot of depth".

I found it hard to place myself as a character in the story. I can often do that - but not this time. Almost certainly to my credit.

I did not even come close to guessing what would happen in the end. That was a surprise too.

What an author! Note to self - read more of Mark Edwards' books.

The Wasp Trap Mark Edwards
4 stars

Full of twists and turns

I have heard of this author but have never read one of his books. The plot sounded very interesting and so it turned out.

Back in 1999, psychology professor, Sebastian Marlowe, had recruited 6 talented post-graduate students, to create the ultimate dating site. This will not only decide compatibility between 2 people but may also be able to evaluate whether someone is a psychopath!

Just as the website is due to go live Professor Marlowe decides to stop the launch and sends everyone away for no apparent reason.

25 years later the Professor has died and the 6 original students are invited back to Theo and Georgina's mansion house for a dinner , the chance to commemorate the Professor and to catch up on all the years that have passed. Theo and Georgina had met and fallen in love whilst working on the dating site and are a very successful and rich couple with 2 daughters. The other 4 have had varying degrees of success and misfortune but it very soon becomes apparent that they have all been brought together for much more than a dinner.

They are locked into the house with no Wi-Fi or means of contacting the outside world and the apparent chefs hired for the meal turn into threatening characters with guns who are insistent that one of the original students has a secret. Unless this secret is revealed people will die but the problem is no-one knows what this secret is or even what it is about.. The story is complicated by the fact that one of the daughters has disappeared and the other is hiding in the house.

There are so many twists and turns in this story as we learn about the lives oft he protagonists but I must admit I had no idea who had the secret or indeed what it was. When all is finally revealed I was gobsmacked and to add to the suspense there was a big shock right at the end.

My only criticism of this book is that I did not really feel a great deal of empathy for the main characters, they all seemed somewhat weak but having said that this was a very good read.


Karen Deborah

I liked the premise of this book and found it relatively enjoyable and easy to read but ultimately too far fetched, it kept me entertained but I can’t say I loved it like other reviewers obviously did. I didn’t think any of the characters were particularly likeable and thus wasn’t particularly invested in what was happening to them. The parts of the book that went back in time were the best for me. Overall I’d say worth a read.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to review and to the author for his imagination and work on this, am just sorry I didn’t like it more.

The idea of a reunion amongst old friends and a resulting death is not a new idea but The Wasp Trap provides a very clever narrative who worked together on an online dating site. That, however is not the interesting part, it’s the psychometric tests that the graduates undertook. Paranoia, intrigue and fear dominates the dinner party guests as the events from 25 years previously are probed. Tension builds and as always, Mark Edwards has delivered a compulsive page turner. Not to be missed.

Mark Edwards nailed it again with another awesome thriller.

This book had me hooked with all the twists and turns, I didnt want to put it down!