Explore our new BookBrowse Community Forum!

Book Summary and Reviews of The Stranger at the Wedding by A. E. Gauntlett

The Stranger at the Wedding by A. E. Gauntlett

The Stranger at the Wedding

A Novel

by A. E. Gauntlett

  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Published:
  • Aug 2024, 288 pages
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About this book

Book Summary

Before love at first sight, there were things no one saw.

Annie never much believed in love. That is, until meeting Mark. After crossing paths on morning commutes, they connect at a group counseling session for trauma survivors. Each recognizes something in the other, though both hide their own troubled pasts.

It's a whirlwind romance that propels Annie through their courtship, all the way to her wedding day―a day she couldn't have predicted for herself once upon a time yet now feels surer about than anything in her life.

But as Annie stands at the altar, casting her eyes over the rows of well-wishers, she spots a stranger in the crowd, and she soon learns that her new life isn't going to be the happily ever after that she had planned. Who is the stranger at the wedding? What really happened to Mark's first wife? And was Annie and Mark's meeting as random as it first appeared, or is something more sinister at work?

A sizzling thriller, A. E. Gauntlett's The Stranger at the Wedding will make you think twice before saying "I do."

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!
  1. The Stranger at the Wedding begins with the story of Pandora opening her box. She unleashes evil and suffering, but she also unleashes hope. What actions throughout the novel are driven by hope? Do you see hope as a force for good throughout the novel?
  2. How was Annie shaped by her childhood traumas? To what extent do those traumas explain her actions in the book?
  3. How is Mark's attraction to Annie informed by the disappearance of his first wife? How does the novel explore trauma bonding through Mark and Annie's relationship?
  4. The presence of a stranger at one's wedding raises the worry that ostensible well-wishers may in fact not have one's best interests at heart. At what points throughout the novel do characters who...
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"An un-put-downable thriller about a couple whose relationship unravels on their wedding night. ... Gauntlett moves fluidly between past and present ... without once allowing the pace to flag. By the time the explosive finale arrives, readers may find they've been up all night." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"This addictive thriller is filled with dark secrets, culminating in an unexpected, twisty ending." —Booklist

"A masterpiece of misdirection." —The Sunday Times

"A terrific slow burn of a thriller with beautifully constructed twists. I thoroughly enjoyed The Stranger at the Wedding." —Sarah Pekkanen, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Wife Between Us and The Golden Couple

"Sharp, shocking, twisting and twisted. The Stranger at the Wedding is darkly thrilling, clever and unsettling." —Chris Whitaker, New York Times bestselling author of We Begin at the End

"Beautifully insidious, The Stranger at the Wedding is a perfectly unsettling debut, bringing the sense that all is about to go to smash coupled with a story so compelling you'll lose sleep desperate to know what happens next. Gauntlett's elegant writing weaves seamlessly between past and present, intertwining joy and fear until dread takes over completely. And that dread oozes from the pages … This is the book everyone will be talking about this year. Outstanding!" —J.T. Ellison, New York Times bestselling author of It's One of Us

This information about The Stranger at the Wedding was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

A. E. Gauntlett

A. E. Gauntlett completed an MA in English Literature at King's College London in 2010, before joining the publishing industry as a literary agent. The Stranger at the Wedding is his debut thriller, written in secret while agenting the work of numerous bestselling authors of his own.

More Author Information

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more thrillers...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Graveyard Shift
    Graveyard Shift
    by M. L. Rio
    Following the success of her debut novel, If We Were Villains, M. L. Rio's latest book is the quasi-...
  • Book Jacket: The Sisters K
    The Sisters K
    by Maureen Sun
    The Kim sisters—Minah, Sarah, and Esther—have just learned their father is dying of ...
  • Book Jacket: Linguaphile
    Linguaphile
    by Julie Sedivy
    From an infant's first attempts to connect with the world around them to the final words shared with...
  • Book Jacket
    The Rest of You
    by Maame Blue
    At the start of Maame Blue's The Rest of You, Whitney Appiah, a Ghanaian Londoner, is ringing in her...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

The moment we persuade a child, any child, to cross that threshold into a library, we've changed their lives ...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

F the M

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.