THE DISINVITED GUEST

4 stars out of 5

Set a decade or so after the 2020 pandemic, the scariest part of this book to me is that another go-round is not only possible, but probable. Would I pack up my family and go live on a deserted island until it all blows over again? It's doubtful, in large part because I, unlike Lucy Harper and her husband Reed, don't have access to family property nor money enough to keep us well fed for however long it took to ride out the storm. The Harpers, though, have no such problem - inviting a handful of their best friends (including Reed's not-so-sisterly sister Liz and her significant other, Niko) to tag along.

And therein lie at least seven problems - eight, if you count the bear of a guy who apparently lives on the island and serves as a sort of jack of all trades by keeping the machinery running and food in the pantry. That's because while on the surface they're all friends and lovers, nobody seems to really like each other very much (too much personal history, I guess, although I have to admit I didn't like any of them very much either). And speaking of history, the island itself has a sordid background, once serving as a drop-off point for typhus patients and Reed's family mansion a quarantine hospital a couple of hundred years ago. More recently came deaths with far more personal ties to Reed and Liz.

For the most part, while she's riding out the viral storm, Lucy plans to write a new book as a follow-up to her successful first one. She hopes to find a journal written by one of Reed's long-ago ancestors, thinking the content will kick the stops from under her writer's block. But maybe, just maybe, that's exactly what shouldn't happen; it could be that some of the dead would far prefer to remain that way.

And slowly, the whole group begins to feel the ill effects of togetherness plus something more sinister; important things go missing, tensions and suspicions among the residents grow to the breaking point and accidents turn deadly serious. Clearly, something other than a virus is on the loose and full of malicious intent. But especially when she has no idea who to trust (both among the living and the dead), can Lucy figure out what's going on before it's too late to save anyone?

While all that makes for exciting reading, the chapters that were pages from the centuries-old journal were a bit too long and boring. It was also a little hard for me to work up much empathy with or sympathy for characters who expressed virtually no reaction at the loss of their loved ones (but then, no one ever seemed to care much about any of the others anyway, so I guess I shouldn't have been surprised). But despite that and my virtually nil belief in the supernatural, the story is a bit of a mind-bender and made for an enticing, enjoyable read that was hard to put down. Thanks to the publisher, via NetGalley, for the opportunity to read and review a pre-release copy.

The Disinvited Guest by Carol Goodman (William Morrow Paperbacks, July 2022); 333 pp.