Thank you Sourcebooks Landmark, #partner for the advanced e-copy of The Bridesmaid in exchange for my honest review. I borrowed the audiobook from the library.
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark / Tantor Audio
Published: November 4, 2025 / December 16, 2025
Summary:
From the acclaimed author of The Clinic comes a pulse-pounding thriller about a society wedding turned deadly, for fans of The Unwedding.
The Kensingtons invite you to the society wedding of the decade. There’s just one hitch. You might not make it out alive.
When a celebrity bridesmaid is murdered weeks before an exclusive society wedding, forensic attorney Holly Stone is drafted as an unlikely undercover replacement. As she works to unpick the lives of the notoriously private Kensington family, glamour-averse Holly discovers a new worst enemy in bridezilla Adrianna. Heir to a multimillion dollar fortune, Adrianna is set on throwing the event of the decade, and she won’t let anything get in her way.
But beneath the veneer of poise and sophistication, Adrianna and her bridesmaids have secrets worth killing for.
As the wedding day gets closer, it’s clear that one of the five hand-picked bridesmaids has committed murder – and a destination wedding is a perfect place to strike again. Soon, Holly finds herself on the playground of the rich and famous, but if she wants to find answers, she’ll have to make it out alive.
My thoughts:
This is the second book I’ve read by Cate Quinn and she is definitely an author I can trust to deliver a twisty, addicting thriller. This time we have a whodunit at a destination wedding and it really kept me guessing!
While this book has many tropes I’ve come to enjoy – dark academia, rich people behaving badly, and of course all the unlikeable characters – it was really the forensics that I loved in this one. Holly, the forensic lawyer that gets pulled in as a replacement was my favorite character, blue hair and all! Those details that she uncovered and the way she meticulously went about it kept me waiting for her parts. Of course, I loved the setting – that’s one thing I’ve come to love about Quinn’s books. She makes sure her settings are like characters themselves, full of atmosphere and personality.
This was a great popcorn thriller that is perfect to binge — those short chapters and the multiple POVs will have you flipping through this in no time, especially as the secrets and lies start unraveling.
Audio thoughts:
This was a fun one to listen to and Stephanie Cannon did a great job bringing the story to life, infusing just the right amount of tension and emotion into her voice as needed.
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