You Are Fatally Invited

By Ande Pliego

Book Overview

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - An exclusive thriller writer's retreat hosted on a private island turns lethal when one of the authors is found murdered.

"Twisty and fabulously fun . . . This debut is not to be missed "--Amy Tintera, New York Times bestselling author of Listen for the Lie

"Deliciously twisted . . . perfect for thriller fans hungry for a fresh spin on a locked-room murder mystery."--Erin A. Craig, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Thirteenth Child

When renowned anonymous author J. R. Alastor hires former aspiring writer Mila del Ang l to host a writing retreat at his private manor off the coast of Maine, she jumps at the chance--particularly since she has an axe to grind with one of the invitees. The guest list? Six thriller authors, all masters of deceit, misdirection, and mayhem.

Confess the crimes, survive the tropes.

Alastor and Mila have masterminded a week of games, trope-fueled riddles, and maybe a jump scare or two--the perfect cover for Mila to plot a murder of her own. But when a guest turns up dead--and it's not the murder she planned--Mila finds herself trapped in a different narrative altogether.

One by one, you'll lose your turn.

With a storm isolating the island, and the body count rising, Mila must outwit a killer who knows literally every trick in the book.

Until only one of us remains . . .

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 059387157X
• ISBN13: 9780593871577
• Release Date: February 2025
• Publisher: Bantam
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 6.4" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Writers Die

This book was difficult for me to get into. Early on in the story, I thought I was going to regret reading another book based on writers meeting for a writers’ retreat and then something horrible (generally murder) happens. I have read many books like this and generally liked them. This is the reason that I requested this book. Even though I was not hooked at the beginning, I decided to push on through. I have thought about why this book was hard for me to like. First, I got a bit lost in the characters. There are a lot of them. The main character is the narrator. Unfortunately, I never felt an affinity for her. Second, I found it hard to keep the backgrounds of the characters straight along with how they might or might not know each other. Those relationships are important to the story, and I didn’t get them until the end. This was a problem for me all the way through the book. Third, when a character's background was revealed, it wasn’t complete enough for me. It took me until the end of the book to know and understand every character. I found that frustrating. Finally, about one-third of the way through the book, the story itself began getting interesting enough for me to continue. One of the “games” the host required the writers and staff to play was to correctly assign each of the following identities to the correct character: The Child Murderer The Exploiter The Perjurer The Poisoner The Thief The Host The Accomplice The Serial Killer This sounds interesting, doesn’t it? Because I still did not have enough background for any of the characters, assigning these identities was impossible for me, but I did begin to enjoy the storyline more. For me, a murder mystery needs more than one murder. I was happy to find that this book did provide enough murder to suit me. So you see that there are aspects of this story that are interesting and encouraging. I was glad when all of the loose ends began to be tied up. I finally got to know the full backgrounds of each character and how the characters were connected to one or more of the other characters. It was a long time coming…too long for me to love this book. Of course, I had tried to identify the characters, but I failed on all but a couple. That is actually OK with me. A book that is too easy to figure out isn’t fun for me. I just felt that the author purposely misled or withheld information from the reader. That’s not fun, either. My star rating is 3 stars for the interesting storyline that kept me reading to the end.

Thrilling murder mystery!

This was a thrilling murder mystery! It did remind me of Clue with how the invited writers had never met their host before heading off to his private island for a writer's retreat as they are all very successful writes (including the mysterious host) and also have some pretty dark secrets. Those secrets end up being the death of some and it gets all nice and twisty with the reader not being able to tell (at least not me!) who might be trustworthy as the body count rises! And while there are devious games being played, I did enjoy them and their creativity. Plans within plans and so many ulterior motives, plus a few taking advantage of the chaos to get their own brands of revenge make this story very hard to put down cause you can't guess what happens next! I do like Mila, who is the main narrator though it does switch it up to keep things interesting. Be sure to pay attention to the headings for which character is telling the story! And there are a couple other characters (I won't say who though) that you can pretty safely root for (though there are thieves and even a murderer on the island though not so surprising as people end up dead!) So, I great locked room clue thriller mystery with a bunch of mystery thriller writers as the victims! I enjoyed it and would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read and review this book!