Content warnings: abusive relationships, assault, obsessive thoughts, self-harm

Amaya Bloom is invited to her ex-best friend's lavish wedding in their hometown of Colombo, Sri Lanka. The catch? Her ex-best friend is marrying her ex-boyfriend, neither of whom Amaya has had contact with in the past five years. Against her better judgement, Amaya decides to attend, even though she promised Kaavi's family she'd stay away forever, to try and stop this wedding that she knows cannot happen. That is, until Amaya is accused of murdering Kaavi. Did Amaya murder her ex-best friend to stop the wedding?

This novel was a delicious thriller of twists and turns, a whodunit steeped in Sri Lankan culture. While the story unfolded mainly from Amaya's point of view from three months before the wedding to "present day", there were interviews with a wide array of characters, each providing more secrets, motives, and commentary on the same events. I found these interviews intriguing, as it provided additional context and kept me guessing until the end.

Amaya as a character was wonderfully written. Cast in the present day as meek and timid, that was the opposite in her childhood. The journey of that change and how experiences can shape people was powerful. The exploration of mental health and minor self-harm could have had more sustenance, with less focus on the self harm and more on the whys, or at least, more context in the beginning of the story instead of near the end.

While I was able to guess a few of the plot twists early on, there were still plenty that I was not expecting. I loved how unexpected, yet right feeling, the ending was. Overall, this novel explored the power of relationships and the bonds that may be brittle but never broken.