"A dinner party in a beautiful Notting Hill townhouse turns into a sinister game, as six old friends are forced to spill their darkest secrets…or else.
Six friends reunite in London to celebrate the life of their recently deceased ex-employer, a professor that brought them together in 1999 to help build a dating website based on psychological testing.
But what is meant to be a night of bittersweet nostalgia soon becomes a twisted and deadly game when the old friends find themselves held at gunpoint. They are given an ultimatum: reveal their darkest secrets to the group or pick each other off one-by-one.
It soon becomes clear that their current predicament is related to their shared past. The love questionnaire they helped develop in 1999 for the dating site was also turned into a tool for weeding out The Wasp Trap. This and the other tragic events of that summer long ago may help reveal the truth behind a killer hiding in plain sight."
What Worked for Me
If the premise above catches your eye at all, please pick this read up. The entire main plot takes place during the dinner party so there isn't a whole lot of fluff to take away from the premise. I love when reads with these really high level plots just jump right into it without a lot of set up or exposition. Like, we all know why we picked up the book, let's just dive right in.
In hindsight, I really enjoyed the dual POV, but I didn't love it until the last 3rd of the book. I think the dual POV mechanic worked very well as a way to give the reader backstory to these characters and that fateful summer without having the characters in the current day plot unnaturally explain things they all already know. It also served as a way to give the reader a break from the tension in the main plot - although I did feel, while reading, that it was too much of a break at times.
The tension in the main plot was perfection. When the main conflict kicks off, it ramps up very quickly and at first, I thought it would stagnate. Instead, Edwards manages to find new ways and new angles to add tension and complications. There were a good number of reveals and twists before we actually got to the resolution of the main mystery, none of which I saw coming. This was a relatively shorter read at 330 pages, so to fit all of the dual POV, plus twists and reveals, meant the pacing and tension had to be on point. This really feels like it was meant to be a one-sitting read.
What Didn't Work for Me
The extra ending reveal/twist felt a bit heavy handed and I didn't think it was necessary. I really enjoyed the main reveal of the core mystery/situation but Edward tacked on a little extra reveal right at the end that I could have done without. It is one of my least favorite tropes in mystery/suspense books (but naming the actual trope would be a spoiler).
I do wish the past POV would have gotten around to the main plot a little more quickly. There were a number of times when we switched to the past POV and I thought to myself "why do we keep coming back here? Is it just for a break in tension? Some easy character development?" And when we do, eventually, get around to the main plot, I was extremely intrigued - I just wanted to get there a little sooner so I didn't feel quite so much like my time was being wasted.
Overall, this was a great read that really paid off on the premise. Fantastic tension and reveals with an interesting dual POV element.
Thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for the ARC. Publication date was September 16, 2025
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