The Last One at the Wedding

Jason Rekulak

Mystery Thriller

From the bestselling author of Hidden Pictures comes a breathtaking work of suspense about a father trying to save his daughter from a life-altering decision that will put everything he loves on the line.

Frank Szatowski is shocked when his daughter, Maggie, calls him for the first time in three years. He was convinced that their estrangement would become permanent. He’s even more surprised when she invites him to her upcoming wedding in New Hampshire. Frank is ecstatic, and determined to finally make things right.

He arrives to find that the wedding is at a private estate—very secluded, very luxurious, very much out of his league. It seems that Maggie failed to mention that she’s marrying Aidan Gardner, the son of a famous tech billionaire. Feeling desperately out of place, Frank focuses on reconnecting with Maggie and getting to know her new family. But it’s difficult: Aidan is withdrawn and evasive; Maggie doesn’t seem to have time for him; and he finds that the locals are disturbingly hostile to the Gardners. Frank needs to know more about this family his daughter is marrying into, but if he pushes too hard, he could lose Maggie forever.

An edge-of-your-seat thriller that delves deep into the heart of one family, The Last One at the Wedding is a work of brilliant suspense from a true modern master.

-Excerpt taken from Goodreads.

Check Goodreads to see the book’s ratings.

My Opinion

“I’ll tell you something I learned from hard experience: Every parent’s an unreliable narrator. We think we know our kids better than anyone. But none of us can see them objectively.”

(3.5 / 5) Frank has been estranged from his daughter for years until one day she calls and invites him to her wedding. He’s ecstatic and determined to have a good relationship with her fiance but also his family. But things aren’t fully as they seem.

Maggie is actually marrying a tech billionaire’s son. Frank being the overprotective dad starts to notice discrepencies in their stories but wants to give the benefit of the doubt. With what he learns, he is stuck deciding if he drags his daughter away kicking and screaming or trusts in her choices and gives her independence? The confusion and fear Frank felt was expressed well. You could feel the tension and worry. Maggie was the ultimate “unlikeable” character which was a bit shocking to me but when all the information is revealed it made so much sense. There were gaps in her story and her fiance and his family had too many questions surrounding them. Some of the twists were outrageous, some were unexpected and intriguing. You saw what excessive money could do (good and bad) to a family but also experienced the worst and best in people. It made for a great mystery with the need to find the answers.

General content summary: F words= 13

Deaths (previous brain aneurysm, previous drug overdose, death by suicide with a gun and details of body)

Drugs 

Corpse (body found floating in water)

Intimacy (walking in on intimate foreplay with some details)

**Any quotes that have been taken for the review is based on an uncorrected text as the advanced copy and may or may not be in the final, published copy.

Thank you to Flatiron Books for the copy!

The book releases October 8, 2024.

**As an Amazon associate I earn from qualifying purchases.