A woman finds out her former best friend is marrying her ex-boyfriend and decides to go to the wedding to resolve things. Can you imagine attending the wedding between your ex and your former best friend? That would be a hard no from me, but that partly what made this story so fascinating from the very first page!

About the Book

Amaya Bloom finds comfort and peace in living her life in a very controlled way. She is a believer in the symbolism and power of certain numbers, and uses those to make decisions and guide her life forward.

When she receives an invitation to her former best friend Kaavi’s opulent and over-the-top wedding in Sri Lanka, she is surprised. Kaavi and Amaya haven’t spoken for many years, though Amaya has kept up with Kaavi through an anonymous social media account she uses to follow her.

But the invitation is even stranger because not only are Kaavi and Amaya estranged, Kaavi is marrying Amaya’s ex-boyfriend Matthew Spencer. Amaya knows she must attend and stop the wedding from happening, no matter what it takes.

But as the week-long wedding festivities begin, rumors about Amaya swirl and she can’t help feeling like she has a target on her back. When Kaavi then goes missing, all evidence makes it seem as though Amaya is to blame.

But Amaya isn’t the only wedding guest with secrets… What happened to Kaavi and who is responsible?

My Thoughts

In You’re Invited, the questions and mysteries about what is going on all lie in the decades leading up to the main storyline. How did Amaya and Kaavi’s friendship fall apart? When did Kaavi and Spencer get together? What happened the last time Amaya was in Colombo? So many questions!

Amaya is a character that readers may have a hard time understanding at first. She is clearly suffering anxiety and finds signs, symbols, and atypical treatments to manage it. Though the number symbolism helps her at times, at others it is debilitating. She is also obsessed with her former best friend—stalking her social media using fake accounts and commenting on everything she posts, while simultaneously spiraling about how fake her online persona is.

At the same time, she quickly turned from vapid and unhinged to sympathetic and compelling in my eyes. She still seemed unwell, but it became the sort of situation where I started to see her strength in coming to this wedding, rather than as a crazy stalker who jumped at the chance to see Kaavi.

The twists were a real mind-bender! A lot goes on and everything was turned on it’s head. In the second half of the book we get Kaavi’s perspective on things, but I didn’t really understand exactly what had happened until the very final twisted chapter. An absolutely wild read!

Amanda Jayatissa has given readers a multi-layered mystery in her latest novel, You’re Invited. Set almost entirely in Colombo, Sri Lanka, culture and family play large roles in this story. Amaya Bloom is invited to Kaavi Fonseka’s wedding in Sri Lanka. Kaavi and Amaya were best friends during childhood and college, but their relationship was broken five years ago. When Amaya learns that the groom is Matthew Spencer (Spence), her own ex-boyfriend, she is determined to stop the wedding. During the wedding celebration week, rumors surface about Amaya and when Kaavi goes missing, everything points to Amaya. However, secrets abound. Who is behind Kaavi’s disappearance? Will Kaavi get her happily ever after or is she dead or kidnapped?

Many of the characters in this story were hard to like. Amaya was an unreliable narrator who felt broken, but somehow determined to stop the wedding. Kaavi felt privileged and occasionally curt to others, but when focused on her charity and her social media content she came across as caring, strong, and independent. Others perceive Spencer to be caring, helpful, and charismatic. These dynamic characters transformed during the course of the story as various events unfolded.

The tale goes back and forth in time from the day of the wedding to three months earlier and several times in-between, especially the week of the wedding. The points of view switch between Amaya and Kaavi as well as transcripts of interviews with various guests on the day of the wedding. This adversely affected the flow for me, but the suspense and the cultural lifestyles and traditions information helped overcome this.

With twists and turns, the story builds momentum with emotionally rich characters, unpredictable moments, a deeply involved plot, and a setting that was new to me. It has plenty of suspense and a little action, but the intensity is what kept me fully engaged. The internal dialogues of Amaya deepened this intensity.

This novel is somewhat unsettling and has many threads woven into the plot. Readers should be aware that besides the bride’s disappearance and presumed demise, there is a focus on family, friendship, how well you know others, control of one’s life, belief in astrology, self-harm, a fixation with lucky numbers, and much more.

Overall, this was an intense novel with suspense and uncertainty. This story felt very realistic and like it could occur. Everyone had agendas and the final reveal had a surprise that I didn’t see coming.

Berkley Publishing Group and Amanda Jayatissa provided a complimentary digital ARC of this novel via NetGalley. This is my honest review. Opinions are mine alone and are not biased in any way. Publication date is currently set for August 09, 2022. This review was originally posted at Mystery and Suspense Magazine.

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Review coming soon.

Meh, not the thriller I was hoping for

uhm what????

Riveting.

Amaya is an unreliable narrator as we get the sense that she isn't that stable. Something happened 5 years prior to make her cut off ties with her friends and family. Now, she receives a wedding invitation, who is getting married? Her ex boyfriend and her ex best friend. Amaya does what she feels is right, she goes to Sri Lanka to stop the wedding.

I really enjoyed learning about the Sri Lankan culture and the traditions they have, especially surrounding weddings. As the wedding day approaches there are many festivities and chances for things to go wrong.

This mystery is layered and we get an inner look at the relationships between friends and family and just how complex they are. While I didn't connect with Amaya, I still felt her journey was worth tagging along. The pacing was slower but rushed through the end. I had a few guesses how it would end up.

I have enjoyed Jayatissa's work and look forward to more by her.

Thank you to @berkleypub for inviting me to read and review this and having me on tour!