The Bachelorette Party by Camilla Sten on June 10, 2025
Genres: Fiction / Horror, Fiction / Thrillers / Psychological, Fiction / Thrillers / Suspense
Pages: 304
Format: ARC
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This is the first book I have read by this author and I’m still not sure what I think about this one. This one gave me that eerie, “on edge” feeling for most of the book. I just didn’t know what was going to happen from one minute to the next. This was a 3.5 star for me.
Four friends—the infamous Nacka Four—embark on their annual trip to a remote, deserted island off the coast of Sweden, owned by one of their fathers. Matilda, Anna, Linnea, and Evelina spend their days camping, partying, and enjoying each other’s company—until one fateful year when everything goes sideways. The group had always kept their destination a secret, but after that last trip, they never returned. Presumed drowned, their bodies were never found, leaving behind only unanswered questions.
Then the story flips to about ten years later and we are back on the island with a slightly different crew of people. The island is now home to a high class yoga resort and Lena is able to book a bachelorette party there before it opens. It will be just the bride, Anneliese, and her bridesmaids, Lena, Mikaela, the maid of honor, Lena’s sister Tessa, who has recently had her life turned upside down, Natalie and Caroline. Things start off in a strange way as they are all forced to do a technology cleanse, eat clean, and wake at the crack of dawn for sunrise yoga. (so this isn’t your typical drunken bachelorette party!)
One of the guests, Tessa, is there to do some investigating. The island is currently owned by one of previous victim’s sister and Tessa is convinced that something sinister happened on that island. She is there to prove it. She tries to befriend Irene, the manager/yoga instructor and the chef, Adam to see if they could be of any help to her. But when one guest goes missing and another starts behaving suspiciously—brandishing knives—Tessa realizes that uncovering the past may cost more than she’s willing to pay.
Overall, this book delivered an eerie, unsettling atmosphere that kept me on edge, never quite sure what would happen next. While the premise was intriguing and the tension was well-executed, I found myself feeling a bit uncertain about how I truly felt about the story as a whole. The mix of past and present timelines added layers of mystery, but some aspects didn’t fully land for me. Still, if you enjoy a slow-burn thriller with a chilling setting and plenty of secrets, this one might be worth a read.
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press/Minotaur Books for providing a digital review copy of this thriller in exchange for my honest thoughts.