Beginning with a body is a great way to start and this one is in the cellar of Nadine's house- where she is hosting her mothers 60th birthday party.
With Nadine as the storyteller the book revisits her day hour by hour as she prepares for the party but the reveal of who the victim is comes late to the story.
There are a plethora of unpleasant people in her entourage of friends and hangers-on you can imagine to be the body though so lots of guessing all the way through for armchair detectives!
That said I actually found Nadine the most unpleasant of them all...manipulative and self-important at every turn you would think the day was all about her!

Death at the Party is a clever family /neighbourhood drama set over a single day .It starts right away with a dead body in the cellar.Nadine is throwing a big 60th Birthday Party for her famous Mother but along the way,secrets are exposed with many twists and turns and when at the end it is finally revealed who was murdered I was very surprised .Told in three sections Morning ,Afternoon and Evening with Nadine narrating ,this book is very engaging and well written and had me gripped until the end .Thank you to NetGalley for my ARC.

I tried to guess all through the book who the victim was but I didn't guess it,it was a mystery until the end this was a good book that I really enjoyed especially how all the people were connected to a tragedy years earlier 4 stars 🌟

I love a good build up thriller. Especially when the opening scene is a death one. You know you're in for a good ride when you know from the get go that there's going to be a body at the end of it.

The story is told from the POV of the main character, Nadine Walsh, who is hosting a birthday party for her mother's 60th. As it happens however, someone dies in that party and we are privy to Nadine's entire day, from the moment she rises, to the moment the death is committed. We get to see her thoughts, her ruminations on what happened exactly 30 years ago, on her mother's 30th birthday and how these two days are connected.

Overall, I am not entirely sure I enjoyed the way Nadine, always seems to be so self-righteous about things, and how she gets to micro manage her entire entourage, and I can one hundred percent say, she's what we call a morally grey character. Her actions, despite explanation, felt a little too short by the end, and I guess I wanted to see more of a blood thirst repentance from the collective cast of characters in the plot.

I did however enjoy reading this, it was very entertaining and a very quick read, so it's a perfect summer thriller.

Deliciously dark, full of twists and tension. A gripping read if you love a good thriller!!!! Sexy and dark...the perfect party turns in to an absolute nightmare!!!

Nadine is hosting a milestone birthday party for her mother, a famous author. It has been months in the planning, Nadine wants the day to be perfect. Nadine however, has other problems to contend with, her son and her daughter have issues which they are reluctant to confide in her about, and her husband has concerns of his own. Neighbours are getting on Nadines nerves, and she is trying to deal with her own secrets and lies, present day and in the past. By the end of the party, there will be a dead body.
The first chapter really drew me in to this book, but sadly, after that it did not hold my interest. I found the story a bit long and rambling in places, and I didn't find the characters particularly interesting or likeable. I did finish the book, but it isn't one of my favourites.

I really enjoyed this book, I loved how the story unfolded and needed to see exactly what had happened. I liked the fact that we were finding out about the present day storyline s well as the one from 30 years ago. I found it quick to read and well written.

The first chapter of the book where a body is found at a party really draws you in, however I felt that it went downhill from there. Mainly because I had no empathy with the characters. An OK read but not one I would return to.
Thank you to NetGalley and Michael Joseph, Penguin Random House for the advance copy of this book.

I enjoyed this book. A bit different from the usual crime novels with their multitude of twists. Although there are secrets and revelations, they are ones that make sense rather than stretch credibility. My only gripe is the main character who I didn't really like. This didn't detract from, what was, a good plot. I would read more by this author.

I really enjoyed the book. It was easy to read. I liked the twists though I could see one of them coming. I liked the pace of the book, it didn’t drag the story out.

This book starts off with a great opening chapter and leads nicely into the rest of the story as it works backwards to find out how it ended up there. Told in the first person by Nadine who has secrets she is trying to cover. I had sort of worked out one part of the story and then it didn’t take much working out to put the rest together. However it is well written and has a good storyline with plenty of interesting characters not all of who are likeable. This is my first book by Amy Stuart and I liked her writing style but the book just lacked the suspense for me but it was an enjoyable 3.5 ⭐️ read

When I started reading this book I thought it was going to be good. However hopes soon faded as I felt it was a bit too long and rambled. I didn't feel that the accident was fully explained or why it played such an important part. The final explanations of parentage and 'the death' finally were revealed it took to long to get there.

This is the first novel I've read by Amy Stuart and she's an author I'll definitely be reading more of.
We know from the beginning that Nadine Walsh has killed someone during the summer garden party she is hosting to celebrate the birthday of her mother, famous thriller writer Marilyn Millay. The novel is set primarily during the hours leading up to the party as we learn more about Nadine, her relationship with her mother, her children, her friends and her cousin Colleen who was found dead at a family party 30 years before.

I loved A Death At The Party and was drawn into it and the character of Nadine from the beginning. Nadine is such an interesting and complex character and the author portrays her in such an authentic way that I really believed in her. For me, the strength of this novel lay more in the portrayal of Nadine and the supporting characters rather than the mystery element. It's a well written and well paced novel that I would recommend.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this digital ARC.

A pretty sensational book! I felt a high degree of empathy with the main character. I certainly could do with being more organised like her. An external facade of coping with life stresses is something most of us can relate to.

The plot seems straightforward but is anything but! The relationship with her mother is incredibly strong despite everything that happens. I liked that.

The ending was so creative - and pleasing. I like when there is a few clever twists to finish a book.

My congratulations to the author for such an entertaining read. I loved it.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for a copy of this book. All opinions are 100% my own.

This book was a really interesting premise. I loved knowing what happened during the party and then seeing the buildup to it throughout the day. The chapters were a perfect length but unfortunately the copy I received had formatting issues in which the bold text at the start of each chapter and any texts sent between characters appeared as squares with crosses through them. As a result of this I feel like I missed important text message interactions between characters.

This book had too many male characters that could have potentially been the ‘death at the party’. Fewer characters would’ve allowed for Nadine’s reasons to want them dead to be explored further.

More flashbacks to nadines childhood with Colleen would have also helped the twist about Colleen at the end feel more meaningful. The twist fell flat due to a lack of foreshadowing regarding it.

A Death At The Party did exactly what I needed it to in that it was an easy reading, murder mystery which acted as palette cleanser after a couple longer, heavier reads. Although it felt that there were a few too many characters and the plot became a little predictable at times, this book scratched an itch and I found the ending relatively satisfying!

I'm still a little unsure as to how I feel about this title. I felt it was quite slow to get going properly however as I progressed with the story it made sense. Something compelled me to keep reading and I'm glad I did. It was an okay read.

The story opens with Nadine in her basement bathroom watching someone die, without calling for help. But who? Overhead, a hundred guests are mingling at the party Nadine insisted on throwing for her mother's 60th birthday.

The story proper starts on the morning of the party and everything happens in the course of one day.
Nadine seems to have an anxious, obsessive personality. She needs daily lists to function and of course on the day of the party she starts early with her routine and list. She doesn't get much help from her teenage son and daughter, who have their own worries about different things, or her husband.

Some of the reasons for the anxieties are revealed during the course of her day (with the help of some flashbacks) but you also see her unravelling before your eyes as the hours pass.

There are twists and turns and revelations. I had my suspicions about a few of the characters and wondered what secrets they kept.

To be honest I didn't have much sympathy for any of the characters which I suppose makes it difficult for me to give it 5 stars. I would probably give it somewhere between 3 and 4. However I read this title at a time when I felt a bit exhausted, possibly a bit jaded and wasn't feeling particularly engaged with any of the books I was reading although this was good enough for me to finish!

Less of a whodunit more of who is the victim as we know from the start who the killer is.

A cast of not very likeable characters, Nadine in particular is hard to have empathy with.

The Story unfolds in one day, but links to the past which leads to the death at the party.

Thanks to netgalley for the opportunity to review this book. This is my honest opinion

Although I enjoyed this well written book I didn’t always feel comfortable reading it. Maybe became I didn’t feel empathy with the characters, maybe because it was too American’ for my English taste. The twists were good and I really wanted to find out what happened and why.

Thanks netgalley for the early copy.
I been having a read slump so thought I give this author a try. From the moment I picked it up I was hooked. I finished the book b4 I knew it.

The two main characters Marilyn and Nadine are well written and seem fit together well.