The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley @lucyfoleytweets @emiliechambs @fictionpubteam #TheHuntingParty

EVERYONE’S INVITED.
EVERYONE’S A SUSPECT.

Bristling with tension, bitter rivalries, and toxic friendships, get ready for the most hotly-anticipated thriller of 2019.

In a remote hunting lodge, deep in the Scottish wilderness, old friends gather for New Year.

The beautiful one
The golden couple
The volatile one
The new parents
The quiet one
The city boy
The outsider

The victim.

Not an accident – a murder among friends.

The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley is published by Harper Collins on 24 January 2018.  I was delighted to receive a pre-publication proof copy from the publisher that HAS MY NAME ON THE COVER!!

The Hunting Party is a departure from Lucy Foley's usual genre of historical fiction. I've read her earlier books and enjoyed them so was intrigued to see how she would handle a crime thriller.

She has nailed it! I was absolutely gripped by this chilling and very cleverly written tale. This author has created a cast of characters that will scare the socks off you, and will certainly make you look at your oldest friends in a different light!

It's a traditional tale of the locked-in house. Set in the remote Scottish Highlands at New Year. This group of friends have known each other since their university days, with the exception of a couple of new partners. The New Year's break has become something of a tradition for them; their opportunity to get away from their stressful lives, let their hair down and catch up with the gossip.

However, things are not going to turn out quite as expected and the reader learns on page one that one of the party is dead. Murdered.
This very clever author keeps the identity of the victim a secret throughout the story, whilst introducing each of the characters in their own voices. Giving each of them a chapter at a time, so that the reader can learn more about them, and also learn things that the others in the group are unaware of.

At the beginning, it felt as though there were too many characters and I struggled to identify each one for a while. However, the author's skill in creating a unique voice for each one soon put paid to that and as the novel progresses, the reader can easily identify each speaker. We are not only allowed into the world of the guests at the hotel, we are also introduced to the three staff members. These are some of the most intriguing and mysterious characters in the story.

Foley's sense of place is exquisitely done. The unrelenting snow in the Highlands, the blocked roads and isolation add such a depth to the story; there's something eerie and frightening about being holed up in a strange house, with nowhere to go, and knowing that there's a killer amongst the guests.

This is an excellent, spooky and really quite thrilling story that is impeccably paced with characters who are realistic and at times, really not nice.
I loved it and would recommend it highly.

Lucy Foley studied English Literature at Durham and UCL universities and worked for several years as a fiction editor in the publishing industry, before leaving to write full-time.

The Hunting Party is her debut crime novel, inspired by a particularly remote spot in Scotland that fired her imagination.

Lucy is also the author of three historical novels, which have been translated into sixteen languages. Her journalism has appeared in ES Magazine, Sunday Times Style, Grazia and more.

She has taken part in literary festivals across the country including Greenwich, Chichester, Isle of Wight and Wilderness Festival.

Find her Author page on Facebook
Follow her on Twitter @lucyfoleytweets