The Book:
The Plus One by S.C. Lalli
Published August 13, 2024 by William Morrow Paperbacks
Date read: October 2, 2024
Find more August 2024 releases here.
The Plus One spoilers can be found below, but they’re hidden under a spoiler tag so you’re safe to keep scrolling if you’d just like to read my review.
The Characters:
Shay
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The Plot (from Goodreads):
The wedding of Radhika Singh and Raj Joshi, a weeklong affair at a luxury resort in Cabos, isn’t just going to be the event of the season—it will also mark the union of two highly influential and wealthy Indian-American families. No expense will be spared for what Radhika and Raj have coined “R&R,” a week of rest, relaxation, and celebrating their love.
Shaylee “Shay” Kapoor is just an outsider, but she just so happens to be dating Raj’s best friend, Caleb Prescott III, and is sucked into this world of wealth and excess. But on the morning the wedding festivities are supposed to begin, the resort’s wedding coordinator Daniela makes a frightening Raj and Radhika are dead, gunshots to the head.
Chaos descends on the hotel as the guests are turned away or sent home. Shay stays by Caleb’s side as the investigation starts to unfold, family and close friends grieve, and accusations run wild. The police believe the murders are a drug cartel hit.
But even if it was a cartel hit, even if the murderer somehow got past the resort’s security, the hotel room doors have state-of-the-art locks. There was no way for the murderer to slip into the room without a key. And only the sister of the bride, Zara; the best men, Caleb and Sean; and the wedding coordinator, Daniela, have keys.
Shay may be an outsider—and she definitely has secrets of her own—but she may be the only person with enough perspective to untangle everyone’s lies, and discover why anyone would want the bride and groom dead.
The Plus One Spoilers
The Reveal:
Shay was an undercover reporter trying to expose the Joshi family for their shady (and murderous) business habits. She staged her initial run-in with Caleb as a way to get close to the family. She believed that Mr. Joshi (Raj’s father) had ordered the fire in a hotel that killed 18 workers in order to commit insurance fraud.
Shay eventually learned that Radhika was about to inherit a 15% share of her sister Zara’s company. While the family owned controlling shares of the company, investors were pushing for them to go public. There was a concern that Radhika would side with the investors, giving them the votes they needed.
Zara was the murderer. She said she intended to only kill Raj, believing he was trying to get her sister to turn her back on their family. She didn’t know Radhika would be in Raj’s room that night, and claimed the first bullet hit them both. That’s why she had Radhi’s phone. Shay was able to goad Zara into telling her the truth, and it was enough to get her arrested.
The Ending:
Daniella (the resort employee who was helping Shay investigate) was caught while breaking into the files at the Blush headquarters and arrested for trespassing. Eric found her, and she was let go.
Shay and Caleb stayed friends, but not a couple.
Shay was able to get her revenge against Mr. Joshi: she discovered that he was responsible for Sean’s parents’ deaths. He had tampered with their car. He and Sean’s father were business partners and Mr. Joshi wanted to control everything. He had been like a father to Sean, so Sean was more than willing to testify against him in regards to the fire.
Shay was keeping evidence in her back pocket against Sean as well, but didn’t do anything with it by the end of the book.
I hope these The Plus One spoilers were helpful.
The Review:
I am always down to try a wedding thriller! The setting was perfect, especially with Shay cast as the outsider, and I enjoyed the excerpts from the wedding schedule that explained the various aspects of a lavish Indian wedding.
Right from the start, the bride and groom are found dead, killed execution-style, before the wedding festivities can begin. I liked the way we discovered who Shay was as the story progressed, but I didn’t understand why the flashbacks were third-person POV while the present-day scenes were first-person. I thought there was going to be more of a twist about Shay’s identity.
This is a reasonably interesting thriller about rich people behaving badly, but I wasn’t shocked by the ending. I liked how it turned out and enjoyed reading it, but it didn’t do anything new or unique.
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