Review: You Are Fatally Invited by Ande Pliego — A classic murder mystery for the modern age
You can trust nobody in this classic-inspired whodunnit…
You Are Fatally Invited by Ande Pliego: The key details
- Publish date: 11th February 2025
- Genre: Thriller
- Publisher: Bantam
- Series/standalone: Standalone
- No. of pages: 384
Blurb: When renowned anonymous author J. R. Alastor hires former aspiring writer Mila del Angél 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.
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.
With a storm isolating the island, and the body count rising, Mila must outwit a killer who knows literally every trick in the book.
You are Fatally Invited book review
Famed author J. R. Alastor has invited a group of successful crime and thriller writers to his personal island for a so-called writer’s retreat. The trouble is, in his 30-year career, Alastor has kept out of the public eye. Nobody on the retreat really knows who he is — or why they’ve been invited. But as things get underway, it’s clear this is no ordinary retreat: the writers all have secrets, and it seems Alastor wants to expose them in the worst way possible.
I enjoyed You Are Fatally Invited immensely. This is a very rich narrative which, unfortunately, sometimes comes at a detriment: it’s occasionally hard to follow, and with multiple characters to keep track of, I found myself sometimes forgetting who’s who. But it’s nothing a little flipping back could solve (even better if you’re reading on Kindle: the ‘search’ function for a character’s name is an absolute godsend sometimes).
Even if you do find yourself a little overwhelmed at keeping up with the characters, however, You Are Fatally Invited is well worth sticking with: this is one heck of a thrill ride. There are mysteries and secrets galore, all of which are purposefully obfuscated from the reader: you know almost as little as the guests of the retreat, and that makes for some seriously tense situations and some great a-ha! moments in the final few chapters.
The plot is further enriched by the fact that not only do we know Alastor is up to something, but his apparent assistant, Mila, also has a dark plan of her own. You won’t know exactly what either of them want until near to the end, and with so many twists and turns, it’s very likely something will come as a surprise to you, even if you figure out some of what’s on offer. I didn’t guess anything, so lapped up each and every mystery as it unfolded.
For a debut novel, Pliego has cemented herself as an incredibly talented writer. I feel like I’ve just read a classic piece of murder mystery literature, not a new author. You Are Fatally Invited a very visceral, visual read — sometimes I struggled to fully feel a situation from a character’s point of view, which I don’t normally have a problem with, but everything that Pliego has described is so filled with detail and so rich that there’s a lot to take in.
One thing is for sure: this is going to make an excellent movie/TV adaptation one day and I am fully there for it.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
This review is based on a digital ARC of You Are Fatally Invited provided by Netgalley.
