The guide notes the novel is a “direct homage” to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. Beyond structural similarities, how does Seven Reasons to Murder Your Dinner Guests update the classic closed-circle mystery to comment on contemporary social phenomena, such as influencer culture, online identity, and corporate ethics?

Explore the tension between the novel’s allegorical framework of the seven deadly sins and its commitment to psychological realism. Do the characters function primarily as symbols of their assigned sin, or do their detailed backstories of trauma and personal struggle challenge this one-dimensional judgment?

How does the novel complicate the idea of victim and perpetrator? Are the deaths purely tragic, morally earned, coincidental, or something more ambiguous? How does Tristan’s role as an antagonist reflect this idea?

Vivienne’s recurring fugue states operate as both a symptom of her past trauma and a key element of narrative suspense. Analyze how this motif blurs the line between victim and potential perpetrator, making Vivienne an unreliable figure in her own investigation.

Analyze how masculinity and femininity are portrayed across various characters. Does the novel reinforce or critique traditional gender expectations? Support your response with specific scenes from the text.

Read Freida McFadden’s novel The Housemaid (2022). Compare and contrast the way that the shifting point of view is used in both novels to explore the characters’ psychological states. How is the point of view used as a tool to subvert reader expectations?

Analyze the function of setting in the novel, focusing on Serendipity’s restaurant and Hungerford Bridge. How do these specific locations transcend their literal purpose to become symbolic spaces for moral reckoning and psychological collapse?

Choose three characters from the novel. Compare and contrast the way that they respond to the trauma of the Serendipity dinner and the predictions of death they receive. Identify and discuss a theme that is conveyed through these differing reactions.