Every Lucy Foley Book, Ranked—From 'The Guest List' to 'Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel'
The mystery author has written several bestsellers—and even tapped to revive a beloved Agatha Christie series.
If you haven’t heard of Lucy Foley before now, you’re about to. The best-selling, renowned mystery-thriller author has four books being adapted for the screen, and her latest novel, Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel, marks the first time an author has revisited Agatha Christie’s beloved character Miss Marple in 50 years.
Foley’s meteoric rise wasn’t immediate: The historical fiction books she started out writing “were not best sellers, by any means,” as she told The Hollywood Reporter in April 2025. “I did an event in London, I think it was for my second historical fiction, and seven people came…and five of them were known to me. Once you’ve experienced that, you don’t take anything for granted.”
By 2022, however, the British author had broken into a whole new genre with murder mysteries, selling more than 3.5 million copies between 2018’s The Hunting Party, 2020’s The Guest List, and 2022’s The Paris Apartment and spending more than 200 weeks on the international best-seller list.
Foley’s latest effort, released on September 22, 2026, was commissioned by HarperCollins with Agatha Christie Limited to revive one of the legendary writer's most famed characters. If you're curious why Foley was tapped for the job, we've got you covered, since we're taking a look back at Foley's entire catalog for answers.
Below, see the best books by Lucy Foley, ranked from her ambitious debut to her most recent thriller.
The Best Lucy Foley Books, Ranked
The Invitation may not be a thriller, but mystery elements still fill this historical-fiction romance novel as journalist Hal attempts to get to know the glamorous Stella. After the pair spends an unforgettable night together, she all but disappears. So when Hal receives an invitation to Cannes and finds himself aboard the same yacht as her, he can’t help but dig for answers, albeit with bittersweet results. The ratings for Foley’s second novel were also bittersweet, landing it at the bottom of the heap.
Described as "beautiful yet tragic," Foley's final historical novel is a tear-jerker, but still worth reading. In the aftermath of World War I, Nur and her family have been displaced by British Allied soldiers, who have taken up residence in their former home in Constantinople. But Nur needs their help to treat the sick orphan boy who has come into her care. The boy has a secret that could ruin them both—and so does Nur, who is dangerously close to falling in love with the enemy.
The plot of The Midnight Feast may sound familiar to fans of The White Lotus: It opens with the launch of a luxurious resort and descends into chaos as a fire breaks out, a body is discovered, and guests become suspects. Make no mistake, however: Foley’s premise was her own. “I did have the idea for this book before The White Lotus came out,” she told The Hollywood Reporter, noting that it was inspired by the local uproar when a new hotel opened up near her countryside neighborhood.
Darker than Foley’s normal fare, some will find it less palatable than her previous works, but that’s by design. “I knew I wanted to go a bit darker, to go into folk horror,” she said. “I knew that would leave some readers cold…but if you try to please everyone you’ll end up with something really vanilla.”
As Foley’s first foray into mystery, there was a lot at stake with 2018’s The Hunting Party. The risk paid off, marking the author’s first appearance on the New York Times Best Sellers list and earning her a whole new audience. Set at a remote estate in the Scottish Highlands, it chronicles a holiday that goes off the rails when a group of longtime college friends gets snowed in, and the cracks in their relationships begin to show. Spoiler alert? One of them won’t make it through to the New Year alive.
Rated even higher than her thrillers on Goodreads, The Book of Lost and Found is Foley’s first-ever novel. This ambitious debut follows Kate, who learns about her family’s hidden history for the first time following her mom’s death. Set across continents, generations, and time, the novel explores the roaring ‘20s, World War II, and plenty in between, but at its heart is a story about love, enduring and true.
Foley had some big (like, Agatha Christie-sized) shoes to fill with Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel—but she didn't disappoint. Some readers have compared it to a literary time machine—but with a modern twist. As a blizzard strands guests at the glamorous Grand Alpine with a potential murderer on the prowl, everything, from the pacing to the observant Miss Marple, is orchestrated in a way that would not make Christie proud, but will garner Foley new fans.
This thriller about a woman who arrives at her brother’s apartment in Paris only to find him missing kept us up all night long. Between the eerie cast of characters who are his neighbors, the high-profile investigation Ben has found himself wrapped up in, and the unpredictable plot twists, the suspense couldn’t be higher as Jess works out her sibling’s whereabouts. In true Foley fashion, the city itself becomes a main character, and the ending? Let’s just say “epic.”
A Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick, The Guest List was a hit straight from the get-go. Set on a remote island in Ireland, it centers around a perfectly planned wedding between a budding TV actor and a magazine publisher. Everything should be idyllic, but instead it’s all about to go awry, with someone turning up dead. Said Foley: “I felt a wedding was ripe for the murder mystery treatment—they’re wonderful occasions but also potentially times of heightened emotion and stress and people can behave very badly.” We’ll say!
How to read Lucy Foley’s books in order
If you want to get into Lucy Foley's books, it's up to you how you want to dive in. All of her novels are standalone, so they can be read in any order. We suggest you pick up her fan favorite, The Guest List, to get a sense of the mystery style she's known for.
However, you could read them in their publication order, therefore starting with her historical fiction works: The Book of Lost and Found (2015), The Invitation (2016), and Last Letter from Istanbul (2018).
From there, you can delve into her thrillers, beginning with 2018’s The Hunting Party, then The Guest List (2020), The Paris Apartment (2022), The Midnight Feast (2024), and her most recent, Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel.
Lucy Foley was a fiction editor in the publishing industry before becoming a novelist herself.
Which Lucy Foley books are being adapted?
Three of Foley’s books are currently being adapted for TV, with one more headed to the big screen.
Her most popular book, The Guest List, will soon be a limited series. The wedding-gone-awry story was originally optioned by See-Saw Films and set to be on the big screen, but stalled. “It was that thing where the projects were someone’s baby, and then they left and someone else inherited it. And we couldn’t quite get it together after that,” Foley explained to The Hollywood Reporter in 2025.
Now, however, Liz Tigelaar's Best Day Ever production company is helming the series version. (She previously was the showrunner on Hulu hits like Little Fires Everywhere and Tiny Beautiful Things.) “They’re brilliant, and she totally gets it. That’s all I’m allowed to say,” Foley, who will serve as an executive producer, shared.
Also being queued up for the small screen are The Paris Apartment and The Midnight Feast. Sony's 3000 Pictures planned to adapt The Paris Apartment into a film, but Foley told THR that it's since been shifted to TV, which she admitted "makes a lot of sense." The Midnight Feast, meanwhile, is being helmed by Universal International Studios, with Foley among the executive producers, alongside Sue Naegle (formerly of Annapurna Pictures) and Ali Krug (Deadringers, The Staircase).
Finally, The Hunting Party is on the way as a movie. Like The Guest List, it had also been optioned by See-Saw Films, but now has a new team behind it. Producer Mark Roybal and Wiip (Mare of Easttown) will turn it into a major motion picture, but they're still looking for a screenwriter.
While Foley is attached as an executive producer to both The Guest List and Midnight Feast, she has no plans to write her own adaptations. “At the moment, I’m not sure if that’s something I would do. I feel the books need to have a different life onscreen, and I think somebody else is better suited to do that,” she told THR.
It hasn’t stopped her from fancasting, however: “I’ve been dreamcasting the character of Eddie, the 19-year-old kitchen hand in The Midnight Feast as Leo Woodall,” she confessed. “I had Harris Dickinson for a while as well, but I think he might have aged out of the character since I started thinking about it.”
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