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Spoilers Beyond This Point

“Her death turned out to be a horrible beginning to a winding and tragic tale rather than an ending. Not an accident. Not a result of alcohol. A murder. The saddest part? None of this would have happened if she’d gotten into Amherst as she’d dreamed.”

The Engagement Party, Darby Kane

From the very first pages, Emily’s death is woven into every part of her friends’ lives. Mitch, Will, Alex, and Cassie have all been living with secrets for twenty years, trying to keep everything under wraps. Mitch seems to keep his distance, seeing the rest of the group sporadically and doing everything he can to put it behind him by diving headfirst into his work. Will has put his focus into relationships, with Ruthie being his fourth engagement since college. Alex and Cassie are married with a kid, so their focuses are split between their relationship, careers, and their daughter. Cassie is quickly identified as the leader of the group, working to keep everything smooth on the surface.

As the group arrives at the island, it’s clear that even without external pressure, this adventure would cause some cracks in the group’s foundation. Mitch has brought along his close friend and coworker Sierra, and Will has his new fiancee, Ruthie. As outsiders, the women are not warmly received by Cassie, and they in turn, do not trust Cassie. This mutual distrust only gets worse as more and more suspicious activity starts happening.

The first sign that someone is orchestrating these moments is the dead body in the truck that wasn’t there an hour ago. Which, in my opinion, is a pretty clear sign. The body is easily identified by Mitch by a visible tattoo. Mitch reveals that the man, Tyler, had been his best friend in high school, but then started sleeping with Mitch’s mom. And before Mitch started college, his mom and Tyler murdered Mitch’s dad. And now Tyler is dead, on a deserted island, with Mitch. Will, Alex, and Cassie were quick to jump to Mitch’s defense, but Sierra and Ruthie have their (totally justifiable and deserved) doubts.

“A gun. They came to talk about wedding plans and this woman brought a gun. Ruthie had been playing a deadly game this whole time, and Sierra still didn’t know what it was.”

The Engagement Party, Darby Kane

Ruthie and Sierra are the only two that were not around the weekend of Emily’s death. It’s clear that Ruthie knows more than she’s letting on, but Sierra is truly clueless to everything that has started happening. The two women form an almost instant connection, trusting each other over the four classmates. Sierra goes through several layers of doubt and denial as she desperately tries to figure out if Mitch, a man she’s been close with for seven years, had anything to do with Emily’s or Tyler’s death. Ruthie already had her suspicions about her fiance, Will, and quickly realizes that she will need an ally to survive the night.

As the two women form an alliance, the four friends begin to go through their own doubts. Cassie accuses Ruthie of coordinating a whole weekend of sabotage, which is foreshadowing for Cassie being an expert on casting blame on others. The men are all confused, but also all lying to some degree, so it’s a complicated web to sort through. Mitch is obviously on edge, and seems to be the one the group is the most confident in, which was surprising. Will is more in trouble for getting engaged a fourth (or fifth) time than anything else, and Alex seems to be along for the ride Cassie’s dragged him on.

“Only one thought ran through her mind—Not a police officer. Not law enforcement of any type. Now she knew what this game was . . . and more people were going to die.”

The Engagement Party, Darby Kane

At this point, the island is in full Scooby-Doo spooky level. The electricity is off, there’s a huge storm, and the group swears they’ve seen someone else running around outside. The men go to investigate and Alex is hit over the head. He immediately passes out, and is dragged back to the house. As Cassie attends to him, a police officer who had stopped by earlier in the evening (when things were less insane) knocks on the door. He introduces himself as Dylan Richter, which immediately shocks the four classmates. Dylan was the alibi for the main suspect in Emily’s death, a kid named Brendan. He was cleared of suspicion because of his alibi, but his body was found under a bridge two weeks later, seemingly a suicide.. 

Dylan reveals that he manipulated the engagement party into the horror it had become. He also reveals that, whoops, Ruthie was in on it the whole time. She was Emily’s high school best friend, and the two had connected on the internet forums dedicated to solving Emily’s murder, and Brendan’s subsequent death. Dylan believes that Brendan had nothing to do with Emily’s death and that Brendan himself was murdered, and Dylan is going to force an answer out of the group no matter what. Ruthie insists that she had not been in contact with Dylan for months, and that she had not helped him plan anything that happened that day. But the group is struggling to believe her.

“Mitch shifted until he stood between Ruthie and Sierra. He would kill her if it meant saving Sierra. Ruthie knew and tried not to push him to that point.”

The Engagement Party, Darby Kane

After the big twist, things become a crazy melee of panic and chaos. Dylan tries to keep the group contained, but with 6 desperate captives, they start getting loose. This leads to Dylan shooting Will, who quickly dies. With the ante raised, versions of Emily’s death are being shared left and right. Dylan won’t accept a lie, and only he knows what he considers the truth. The most believable confessions come from Alex and Cassie. Alex confesses that he and Will accidentally killed Brendan. He said they believed Brendan had killed Emily, and wanted him to admit it. They held him upside down over the bridge, and lost their grip. Then Cassie confesses that she convinced the boys of Brendan’s guilt to save them. She insists that Will killed Emily, and after pushing her body into the river to eliminate the evidence, Cassie coached the two drunk boys until they believed her version.

At this point, the group has fully fallen apart. Cassie, while trying to shoot Dylan, has shot Alex. The rest of the group was able to subdue Dylan, and Cassie immediately dragged Alex onto Dylan’s boat, leaving Mitch, Sierra, and Ruthie on the island with their captive. Dylan quickly escapes and he and Mitch get into a physical fight that hurdles them into the water. Ruthie and Sierra try to find a way to intervene, but there’s not much they can do. Finally, Mitch is able to hold Dylan underwater until he drowns. Now the only thing left to do is for the trio to hunt down Cassie and Alex.

“You thought you didn’t have a choice. At that point it wasn’t about saving Will or Alex. You were saving yourself. Emily would have destroyed you for dumping her in the water instead of getting help for her.”

The Engagement Party, Darby Kane

After some failed attempts, Sierra, Mitch, and Ruthie are able to find Cassie and Alex. Cassie, even with her husband laying next to her with a bullet in him, is trying to control the narrative. She tries to convince Mitch that he was the one who killed Emily, which he immediately disproves. She then begins to turn on the waterworks, trying to convince the group that she and Alex can’t be held responsible for anything that happens because of their daughter. The group ignores her, and calls an ambulance to get Alex to the hospital.

Once everyone is settled at the hospital, Ruthie confronts Cassie with the information she’s been chewing on for hours. In Emily’s autopsy report, they noted that there was water in her lungs. Cassie’s original story left out the bit where Emily regained consciousness and Cassie forced her back under the water while she fought back.

Even with this revelation, Cassie still tries to deny it, but the writing is on the wall.  Alex ends up dying from his injuries, and Cassie is facing several legal charges.

“We fished a man out of the water. That wasn’t Dylan Richter. Dylan Richter is a woman.”

The Engagement Party, Darby Kane

The final twist is a good one. Ruthie isn’t Ruthie, and Dylan wasn’t Dylan. The woman posing as Ruthie is really Brendan’s female cousin named Dylan. She’s spent years trying to clear his name and find Emily’s real killer. She enlisted the help of a person whose family member had gone through a similar situation. However, he hijacked her plan without telling her, showing up at the island and starting to kill people.

Overall, this book is a wild ride. It’s ridiculous, but it’s so fast-paced and intense that none of that seems to matter. I flew through it, and felt like I’d run a marathon. But with that much plot packed into 400 pages, the characters are pretty much just plot devices. There’s a little background for each of them (Sierra loves Mitch, Will is a douche, etc.), but nothing substantial or personalized. There’s very little motivation for any of them. Cassie murdered her friend twenty years ago, Mitch’s dad was killed by his high school best friend, and Ruthie is searching for a killer, but it feels like those are all just checkboxes in their description. Also, once the plot goes Scooby-Doo, it doesn’t really make its way back. Every scene felt like a waiting game for a bomb to go off, with no breaks in between. However, both of these issues are common issues with locked room mysteries, so it wasn’t a total turn-off for me.

If you’re looking for something to grab your attention and keep you entertained, this is the perfect book for you!