The Hunting Party

There's a lot of stuff here that normally makes it hard for me to get through a book. Check the content warnings. Many of the characters are unlikable and make terrible decisions. Despite all that, I actually enjoyed reading this. I found myself mostly focused on figuring out who had been killed and who had killed them, so I was reading the chapters hunting for clues, not necessarily for immersion in the story, and that helped keep me from being too affected by the heavier stuff mentioned in the content warnings. The alternating perspectives helped keep me from getting too frustrated with the more unpleasant characters. I figured out the victim and killer a bit sooner than they were revealed, so that was satisfying as well. Good atmosphere and tension building, thematically appropriate for cold weather. I was worried I'd regret picking this up when it was on sale at my local bookstore, but no regrets at all actually.

Absolutely incredible mystery/thriller. The way the story is broken up into different POVs and flashes to different periods on the timeline had me on the edge of my seat - let alone that it was absolutely brilliant that we know someone is murdered from the very start, but we don't know who it is (or who did it) until the very end.

Just okay. I thought it was pretty predictable and there were a lot of characters to keep track of. The setting was cool though.

Tense closed room mystery/suspense set in the Scottish Highlands at New Year’s Eve. A group of Oxford alums meet every year for the holiday. This remote spot is decidedly atmospheric and as the chapters were told from various characters’ perspectives, I found my opinions changing about them all. One of the women is killed and we don’t even find out who the victim is right away. This was suspenseful and truly a page turner. Humans are so complicated!

If you’re wanting to read a thriller by Lucy Foley, I would strongly urge you to go for The Guest List.

The Hunting Game wasn’t bad, but it was missing a spark, IMO. I really loved the group dynamic, but I definitely felt like the book would have benefitted from Mark’s, Julian’s, Samira’s, or Bo’s perspective. I didn’t feel that I was too connected to this book and I think part of that is because I didn’t like any of the characters I was reading. I think if I hadn’t just finished The Guest List, I would have really enjoyed the Hunting Party. Imo, the two books are too similar to really enjoy reading them both.