Frank Szatowski is shocked when his daughter, Maggie, calls him for the first time in three years. He was convinced that their estrangement would become permanent. He’s even more surprised when she invites him to her upcoming wedding in New Hampshire. Frank is ecstatic, and determined to finally make things right.He arrives to find that the wedding is at a private estate—very secluded, very luxurious, very much out of his league. It seems that Maggie failed to mention that she’s marrying Aidan Gardner, the son of a famous tech billionaire. Feeling desperately out of place, Frank focuses on reconnecting with Maggie and getting to know her new family. But it’s difficult: Aidan is withdrawn and evasive; Maggie doesn’t seem to have time for him; and he finds that the locals are disturbingly hostile to the Gardners. Frank needs to know more about this family his daughter is marrying into, but if he pushes too hard, he could lose Maggie forever.
The title insinuates that the person who was the last guest at a wedding was the main character. This is not so. There was a character shown to be the last guest but she was a secondary character. The reason for the title is unclear to me. Perhaps I am missing something. The main characters were Frank and his daughter Maggie. Maggie did not seem realistic to me. All of the scenes that she was in were with her father Frank and she tried to avoid having any conversations with him, all while demanding that they spend time together. While that does not appear to be any different than other father/daughter relationships, Maggie had an aura of the supernatural. I am sure that the author was trying to create some suspense with Maggie's behavior but Maggie's behavior was off.
Frank, on the other hand, was an excitable person. Every time he spoke with Maggie he shared something negative, or someone, that she needed to avoid. Frank's instincts were spot on but his warnings to her were overkill. I can see people whom I know who have this trait and I try to avoid them just as Maggie avoided Frank, who was a realistic character in my mind.
The Gardner family characters all had something to hide. The mystery of the novel is slowly revealed as we read about their activities. Aiden Gardner, the groom, did not seem to want to marry Maggie and we don't know why until the end of the story. He was an odd ball character with much to hide. Aiden's father Errol is your typical billionaire. He also has a lot to hide and initially I thought that his business activities were the crux of the plot. This panned out somewhat but there is so much more about Errol than meets the eye. These two characters were the villains in the novel. Aiden's mother Catherine was also a mysterious character and I expected this mystery to be key to the plot. Once again, I was wrong but the author did a great job with her red herrings concerning the Gardners.
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