This is a new author to me. I really enjoyed this book and not sure how to describe the genre as there are so many different themes going on throughout - there is a murder mystery. We also go back and forth into the main characters history and there are plenty of shock revelations along the way which build up to the actual 'death at the party.' I look forward to reading other books by this author. Thanks to Net Galley for the free read.

Hmmm I can’t make up my mind on this one. In parts I loved it, in parts I loathed it. The plot is a good one, but sometimes there’s words for words sake.

Nadine is the daughter of famous Author Marilyn Millay, it’s Marilyn’s 60th birthday and Nadine is hosting the most extravagant party.
The story starts with a body, in the basement a- you don’t know how, who or why… you find that out as the book unfolds.

The story follows Nadine, a formidable wife and mother, protector of her mother. As we flip between her 10yr old self and present day; the lead up to the party. As a 10yr old and staying with her grandparents on their farm, Nadine goes into the barn and finds her young teenage aunt dead. Which coincided with Marilyn’s 30th birthday. A trauma which stays with her.

Nadine having secrets of her own, starts to uncover the secrets of others - providing explanation to what happened back when she was child and what is happening now on her street.

I went thru spells of liking and disliking the main character of this book, it took me a while to read it. When it gripped me, it held my attention. When it didn’t, I failed to pick it up.

For the majority of it, I enjoyed it… but there were parts I found slightly irksome.

Thank you Netgalley for me free ARC copy in return for a free review!

We meet Nadine as she is hosting a birthday party for her famous mother, author Marilyn. The story starts with Nadine standing over a body in the basement, and we then go back to the start of the day, to see the final stages of the party planning unfold.

Nadine is understandably nervous at hosting this party, especially since her mother’s last birthday party, 30 years earlier, ended in tragedy as the body of Nadine’s aunt was discovered. How this, and the friends, family and neighbours she has around her, results in a body in her basement is revealed in a slow-burning plot that is filled with twists and turns.

The characters are interesting, although there are an awful lot of creepy men in that neighbourhood! I wasn’t always sure of their motivations, but it was entertaining to see their interactions amidst the backdrop of a party.

My thanks to the author, NetGalley, and the publisher for the arc to review.

Thank you to Netgalley and the author/publisher for this ARC.
I enjoyed this book - would be a good holiday read I think! I didn’t warm to the main character - although this didn’t make any difference to my enjoyment of the book. The story links a party in the ‘now’ with an incident that happened 30 years ago - whilst I did guess the ending I was looking forward to seeing if I was correct!

An enjoyable mystery to read - the premise of the party and everything taking place over a very short space of time in the lead up to that worked well, and I was intrigued by the relationship with Nadine and her mother.
I did ‘work things out’ a bit ahead of the reveal, but that sometimes adds to the interest and wanting to see if you’re correct so this was well worth a read.

This book had a great beginning then went downhill. It is a very slow burn, set over one day flitting from the past to the present. Far too slow for me.

Not the best book I've read and definitely not a page turner for me. The story centres around and is written from the viewpoint of Nadine as she prepares for a party she is giving for her mother's birthday, which coincides with the anniversary of her sister's death. Very slow going although we'll written.

Nadine Walsh has a lot going on. After a fall & a head injury she is starting to get back to normal & is determined to make sure the 60th birthday party for her famous author mother goes well, especially as the last birthday party ended with the death of Nadine's beloved aunt who was found dead in the barn. Her family are not a great deal of help and then in the middle of the celebrations there is a body in the cellar!

The story is told by Nadine. I didn't really warm to her & the rest of the cast were not particularly appealing, However the story was gripping enough to want to find out what was going on. Thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for letting me read & review this book.

Thanks to Penguin Random House and NetGalley for ARC

Nadine's life is outwardly perfect, and she works hard to keep up that appearance. She's determined to throw a marvellous party for a celebrity's 60th birthday. That celebrity (her mother) is oddly reluctant. We go through the chronology of the day from Nadine's point of view, also learning a lot about the extended family and the small, seemingly perfect American town they live in. All of the day's events conspire to link to a tragic incident 30 years ago, and inevitably secrets threaten to come tumbling out.

I admired this, the tension created and the unfolding of plot. I didn't like the characters or the setting, and it was just all a bit unsatisfying for me, but it's been rightly praised as a thriller, starting as a slow burn and picking up pace and heat as the day goes on. So four stars for the technical accomplishment, even though it wasn't my glass of fizz.

I started reading this and thought I'd read this before somewhere. Same story, different book. I didn't enjoy this one much. Very predictable and the characters were not likeable. My thanks to netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book in return for an honest review.

This book is told from the main characters (Nadine) point of view in three parts - morning, afternoon & evening as she prepares to host a party for her famous mother. Everything takes place in one day, the day of the party.
Although I enjoyed this book, I found it a bit predictable and long winded.
Thanks to netgalley and the publishers for this read.

As I mention on my reviews I do believe that books should have warnings on them the same as TV shows and films so I would give this a trigger warning of child pornography and abuse, whilst this is only referred to and quite tame I always believe a reader should be aware when it's a sensitive subject....
I was a bit disappointed with this one unfortunately. Although we aren't exactly told who the murderer is right at the start it is quite obvious. We then go back 24hrs and see hour the next 24hr evolve into this ending scenario.
I'm not a big fan of this format but it can work well when we don't have a clue on who has been murdered but again I felt this was quite predictable.
It was an easy read but with unlikeable characters so a fairly average score for an average thriller.
Thank you #NetGalley for the copy of #ADeathAtTheParty

I found myself intrigued throughout this book. The writing and pace were easy to just sit and fly through the book.
I found myself trying to figure who was murdered and why. There's multiple suspects and even multiple motives. Just when I thought I had it figured a twist happened throwing me off.
Sadly the ending was a let down compared. While sometimes a somewhat open ending can work here I found it just felt unfinished. Too many loose ends. Even a question of was it the right person at all.

I don't think there was a single character I liked in this book. Maybe the daughter or the niece, but they didn't get a lot of screen time and I'm sure if they had, I would have hated them too.

I didn't warm to Nadine at all. She seemed to hate and judge all of her neighbours, even the one she was having the affair with and that just set off on a bad foot to me. Then the story was massively predictable. It didn't really matter to me which neighbour she killed because all the ones it seemed likely to be were very interchangeable.

Honestly I was just bored through most of this book. There was no tension there, not much desire to know more. I'm giving it three stars because it wasn't badly written, but I didn't enjoy it very much.

Thank you for allowing me to review this book. I enjoyed it very much after the slow start. Nadine, the main character is telling the story throughout the day of a party for her mother's 60th birthday. The mother is a well known, popular author who as a single mother bought up her daughter from poverty to a comfortable place. The story is told through flashbacks to the past and concerns Nadine has for her 2 teenage children and their friend.
This is a slow burner, but you can feel the tension building towards an unexpected conclusion.
Definitely, worth reading. The descriptions are well written and the concerns are genuine, even though the storyline was unexpected.

A Death At The Party is a slow burning thriller that will have you hooked.
The book is set over one day, it is split into morning, afternoon and evening. This works really well in this book as you get a deeper understanding of the characters and a chance to really understand the history of the characters and what it impedes on their daily lives without really knowing it. Nadine Walsh is married to Paul and have two teenagers, she is hosting a birthday party for her mother, Marilyn Millay, a famous author. Around a hundred people have been invited. The day is also the thirtieth anniversary of Colleen’s death. Colleen was only fifteen years old and was Nadine’s Auntie, Colleen tragically died at a party on her parents farm and no one really speaks of it since. Throughout the course of the day revelations are made and Nadine has a suspect in her sight.
This was a very good read, the book flowed well and the characters were well developed with a well plotted storyline. It was a book I had to keep picking up as I had no way in knowing how this was ending.
I would like to thank Netgalley and Michael Joseph, Penguin Random House for this ARC I received in exchange for an honest review.

I was hooked on this book from the very beginning, when we join our narrator Nadine as she stands over the body of an unidentified man in the basement of her home as a party swings on upstairs.

The novel then takes us back in time to much earlier in the day and we see Nadine stressing over the preparations for the party, which is a 60th birthday celebration for her mother Marilyn.

However, all is never as it seems with this story. Unreliable Nadine slowly reveals that she has been keeping secrets from her husband, that her daughter Isobel’s best friend is lying in a coma after an apparent drug overdose, and that she has been blackmailed by a journalist desperate to get his hands on dirt about Marilyn, who is a famous rags-to-riches author.

As such, we don’t know who the owner of the body could be — and what his connection is to Nadine’s past and the sudden death of her aunt thirty years earlier.

This is one of those books that you want to consume in as short a time as possible, and I was really able to get stuck into it (as I watched my daughter make endless loops around a soft play centre during the school summer break), which I think added to the immersive atmosphere.

I thought it got especially delicious as we went farther back in time to discover what happened to Nadine’s aunt, and I actually would have liked to see more of this part on top of the present-day viewpoint.

If I had one criticism of the book, it would be that it finished a little too abruptly, as it gave the impression of an anti-climax compared to the rest of the pacing. However, I would still highly recommend it to fans of domestic and psychological drama and would certainly pick up another novel by this author in the future.

And as an aside, did anyone else see Susan Sarandon in their mind’s eye every time Marilyn appeared on the page? I know I did, and she would be excellent for the part should it ever make it to the screen!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A masterful concoction of tension and mystery, this thriller immerses you in a world of intrigue where nothing is as it seems.

We first meet Nadine in the basement of her house, standing over a man's body. This foreshadowing is a gripping introduction to the story as the reader slowly tries to work out who it is that Nadine appears to have killed and why.
Through the pages that follow, the tension builds up to what is about to happen. There are plenty of people the body could belong to, as family secret after secret is uncovered on the day that Nadine hosts a celebratory party for the 60th birthday of her mother, a famous author.
I was hooked from the start and could not put the book down as I wanted to find out the answer to the mystery.
Nadine's potential for being an unreliable narrator (she'd had a fall some time previously) keeps the reader wondering throughout. It was a great device, potentially throwing the reader off the scent.
I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, I would have given it four stars, had it not been for the clunky explanation as to why her grandparents and aunt are buried in the town where Nadine now lives instead of the rural community they came from. I was also not convinced that a family putting on a party or 100+ guests would leave it to the eleventh hour to get themselves ready.
Thank you NetGalley for an advance copy of this book.

With so many top-drawer authors supporting this title, it can but soar.

The thing I found most interesting was the way the author created an inversion from our normal Poirotian expectations. Instead of working out who among the myriad killers dunnit, instead we are reading to discover to whom it was dun.

It's a discursive list and Amy Stuart keeps the readers' interest as the victims are wheeled on and off stage until the finale.

This will almost certainly be a Netflix blockbuster series.

With thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for letting me have an advance read.