This is a decent, easy to read family drama with many twists and turns. Nadine is the daughter of a now famous author and is planning a big party for her mum. The characters are all well rounded and interesting and I found myself second guessing who could have done what to whom?

The book begins with a murder, but, we don't know who, or why?

There's a lot of preparation for this party and much of the book is taken up with Nadine running various tasks and having moments when she's not quite with it. Partly, this is due to her having fallen and broken her hip previously and is not that long out of hospital, where there were complications. However, we find that there is more mystery to her behaviour and the book slowly reveals many secrets.

Overall, I enjoyed a lot about it and it's nicely wound up at the end. I just found the plotting a little drawn out and there were times I lost concentration as it appeared repetitive. However, an enjoyable read, perfect for the beach!

Thanks to NetGalley and Michael Joseph, Penguin Random House for the opportunity to preview.

A bit of a slow burning mystery that starts off with a dead body in the basement . The story is centred around Nadine's final preparations for her mother’s birthday party, the actual party and events that took place 30 years ago, ultimately uncovering who the victim is.
This one is definitely a story that keeps you guessing!
Thanks to NetGalley and Michael Joseph, Penguin Random House for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of A Death at the Party.

I received an E-ARC with a request for my honest review.

This captivating domestic thriller follows Nadine Walsh as she throws a 60th birthday party for her successful author mother. During the party she finds herself with a dead body in her bathroom.

Back to the morning of the celebration, Nadine is finding it hard to forget an incident 30 years ago at another party thrown for her mother.

With secrets being threatened to be released by the press about her mother, Nadine must find out the truth to protect her family.

What will Nadine discover? What leads to the dead body at her feet?

I found this domestic thriller enthralling as I was trying to work out the mystery behind the secrets not only with Nadine, but trying to work out who the dead body could be.

I found it interesting and more mysterious that the book starts with the death, and that you know one person involved as I wanted to keep reading to discover what lead up to the deadly moment.

There are plenty of secrets revealed throughout, and many suspicious people in Nadine’s life for her to suspect of wrongdoing.

Overall, a captivating domestic thriller where a birthday party turns deadly.

It starts with Nadine standing over a dead body at her mother's 60th birthday party. The story then flips back to the morning of the party with Nadine organising last minute preparations. Nadine is the narrator who rambles on in great detail of various aspects of her life and her children's. Although the reader knows that most will become relevant, it's all very slow and plodding especially as Nadine seemed mentally unstable. The party only happens in the last 15% and it all comes together very rapidly but still leaving one aspect unfinished.
Whilst reading the book I was unsure whether to continue but was pleased I stuck with it. While I was reading I would only give 3* but once finished 4*.

I enjoyed this book very much. It was a little slow but it kept me gripped right till the end. I liked the character Nadine and most of the characters in the book. A good satisfying end. Would read other books by this author.

"THE PLANNING TOOK MONTHS. THE MURDER JUST MOMENTS . . ."
...

Oh! How some parts of this storyline were so relatable to me personally, it was quite scary to actually see my traits written down in words this way. Like our main protagonist, Nadine Walsh, my life also revolves around lists. I too strike a line through the chores I have completed and at the end of the day, with any items remaining unfinished getting added to the top of my list for the following day. How often do I get to the end of a list - rarely! However the fact that the list is a tangible item of reference, is definitely my comfort blanket. Whilst this does undoubtedly mean that I have OCD tendencies and I can often get tetchy and very anxious if I don't think I have made enough progress through my list, unlike Nadine, I have yet to resort to murder to achieve my goals! And, whilst every family has skeletons in the cupboard, if I discovered secrets in my family, of the magnitude that Nadine is about to uncover in her own, then I might have to think long and hard about that...

...

Nadine Walsh lives with husband Paul, who is partner with Seymour in their own successful law firm, and children Isobel and Damien, both teenagers. Nadine and Paul come from totally different beginnings, although Nadine is not ashamed of the fact that her mother Marilyn raised her single-handedly, in deprived circumstances, working at any job she could just to keep them together. Things however, were turned on their head, when Marilyn's debut novel took off like a whirlwind, catapulting her to almost overnight fame, placing the two of them into the secure financial position they might have once only dreamt about. Through her mother's generosity, Nadine is a wealthy woman in her own right and whilst Paul knows that she has her own account, he has no idea of its truth worth, until Nadine has to break the news that it is all gone - and why! It seems to the outside world that Nadine and Marilyn are inseparable and very close.

On their marriage, Paul and Nadine were able to purchase a pair of semi-detached Victorian villas, in an affluent area of town. One they developed for themselves, the other, its newly renovated mirror image, they rent to ex-pat Brit, Teddy. The houses were originally owned by two sisters, who each lived independently of the other, behind their own front doors. The hidden secret the houses hold, is definitely quirky, if not to everyone's taste!

On this day, Paul and Nadine are hosting a 60th birthday party, with over one hundred guests, for Marilyn, complete with outdoor dance floor, live music and outside catering. The ever stressed, list making, Nadine, thinks she is uber-organised, especially since she has the added help of Paul's niece Margot, who has been living with them and has been Nadine's constant support and companion, since the life-changing accident Nadine had almost a year ago, which had kept her hospitalised for many months. Marilyn has only very reluctantly agreed to the party, as some thirty years ago, another similar party was thrown for her by relatives at the family farmstead and that was a night no one will ever forget, as it ended with disastrous consequences which changed both Marilyn and Nadine's lives forever.

The entire story revolves around this twenty-four hour party day, with occasional flashbacks to the same period thirty years ago, as the past threatens to overwhelm the future, in a collision course of epic proportions. For Nadine, the party is the catalyst which brings so many locked away emotions and information she had no idea she knew, out into the open, threatening to derail her immaculate party plan organisation. Just about everyone she meets or has interactions with on this day, has the potential to be her hidden nemesis from thirty years ago, as all the suspects seem to have gathered around herself and Paul to live in the same few streets, infiltrating her family life and involving those she will do anything to protect. Nadine just needs to drop that last piece of the jigsaw in place to work out the answer, if only she could clear her mind of all the background noise, which has plagued her since that devastating night, allowing her to see clearly what had been there in open view all the time!

Before the night is over, confessions and secrets, including Nadine's own little indiscretion, will be revealed; the dynamics of not only a family, but an entire neighbourhood, will be changed forever; and for Nadine, retribution will be swift, unequivocal and strangely satisfying.
...

Narrated solely by Nadine herself, this well-constructed, domestic thriller, is a dual timeline story, which moves back and forth between this single day in the present time and the lead-up to events which took place at her grandparents farm exactly thirty years ago to the day, when she was just a child of ten. Although I did wonder if the book was going to be a tad too lengthy for what would appear to be a relatively slow-burning, emotionally draining and multi-layered plotline, it actually moved along at quite a good pace, with some excellent descriptive narrative and dialogue, which offered a great sense of time and place, was rich in atmosphere and tension, and immersed me completely in the life of the Walsh family, their friends, colleagues and neighbours.

Well, I already knew right from the off, that our body was a 'he', so far so good. We also know the identity of the murderer, easy-peasy then! I therefore assumed that this back-to-front murder would be an easy nut to crack, just make a note of all the male characters and surely one of them will be instantly stand-out as a victim who doesn't deserve to live - wrong! The twists and turns just kept coming and author Amy Stuart had in her cast, more male characters than I could keep track of, without making one of those 'Nadine style' all important lists of course! And she had cleverly scripted it so that almost any one of them could and possibly should, have been the deserving victim of Nadine's fatal ministrations.

Nadine's relationship with her mother is very complex, as she knows Marilyn's darkest secret and is upset that Marilyn has never trusted her enough to share it. Nadine's emotions therefore pivot between love and hate in equal measure, especially when Marilyn appears hardened and completely inured to events which, even to this day, can reduce Nadine to a quivering mess. Marilyn is aware that Nadine suffers greatly with her mental health anxieties and compulsive disorders, especially when it is on the day of such an important gathering for her, so she seems to have picked the most inopportune of moments to go public, not quite knowing how it will affect either of them, when their dirty laundry is aired in front of the good and great of the neighbourhood and beyond. Is Nadine made of the strong stuff Marilyn suspects and hopes she is, when push comes to shove?

There was quite a lengthy cast of characters in this story, all of whom were, if and when necessary, well drawn, defined and fully equipped enough in their own right, to command a situation and manipulate it to their own advantage. I think that Nadine's husband Paul might have been the weakest, most gullible and 'beige' person amongst them, although knowing only a fraction of the baggage Nadine was carrying, he was quite happy to let her run with a situation, then step in to pick up the pieces, as and when necessary. If there was ever such a gathering of creepy, sleaze-ball men all in one place, I most certainly wouldn't have wanted to meet them. Not the kind of neighbourhood I would want to live in, that's for sure, or a group of people I would be happy to call 'friends'. Whilst I accept that their lives were all quite complex, none of them were truly authentic, easy to connect with, or worth investing in.

As not only an avid reader, but also a confirmed 'armchair traveller', I admit to feeling just a little miffed that I read this entire book without ever having any indication as to where it was set, apart from somewhere in Canada. I accept that many authors use a mix of fictional and real place names and areas, however there are generally at least a couple of casual hints indicating whereabouts on the map I might need to search, to try and add that all important identifiable place and realism to my reading. However, this was a story all about plot and people, which could easily have been set in any neighbourhood, in any country, so I'm not going to get too hung up about it.

What always makes reading such a wonderful experience for me, is that with each and every new book I read, I am taken on an individual journey, by authors who fire my imagination, stir my emotions and stimulate my senses. Does the end always justify the means, I wonder? This rather unique and intense storyline definitely had the power to evoke so many feelings, that I’m sure I won’t have felt the same way about it as the last reader, nor the next.

Canadian author Amy Stuart already has a three book series (“Still Mine”, “Still Water”, “Still Here”) but here has produced what is obviously a stand-alone. We begin with a quote from Virginia Woolf’s “Mrs Dalloway” which feels appropriate as this also takes place during one day and involves preparations for a party.
We begin at the end with the titular death which involves main character, narrator and party host Nadine. We don’t know who has died and the book tracks back to reveal this and becomes a whydunit. The party is for Nadine’s mother’s 60th birthday. She is a best-selling novelist. Nadine is not especially likeable as a character. She keeps meticulous lists, sees herself as a born organiser but she is a better delegator and has issues with control. Her family, a great support network for her, put it down to her recovery from an accident but is more to do with long-held secrets coming to the surface.
The domestic thriller genre feels rather well-mined at the moment and still dominates best-seller lists and I don’t read many of them, tales of family lies and untrustworthy neighbours unsettle me but here things are handled very well. The one day setting is effective, we are not hauled back to multiple narratives from the past. We see these events from present day perspectives. This gives a palpable intensity not always present when multiple time-lines create a stop/start structure. It is carefully plotted, which belies its simple structure. It didn’t matter that I often found Nadine irritating, the characterisation feels authentic and coincidences pointed out so as we cannot question their plausibility. All in all, this feels like it achieves all the author sets out to do. I think it would make a great holiday read yet is likely to linger long after the holiday is over.

A Death At The Party is published by Penguin on 3rd August 2023. Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.

I am afraid that I found the pace of this book to be really slow, and as I am quite an impatient reader I struggled with this. I felt it didn't really grip me, hope other more patient readers enjoy it more.

Nadine is having a party.
She seems to be organising it on her own with no help from her family.
It goes well but there is a problem at the end of the evening - a body in the basement !

Thank you to Netgalley for allowing me to read this book in return for an honest review. I really enjoyed this book although it did take me a while to get into it. Once I had established who all the characters were and what their roles were in the story it all blended together really well. I loved the dynamic between Nadine and her mother and it really helped to explain the background of the story. The ending was fabulous! Highly recommend. 4 stars from me.

Nadine grew up with nothing, just her and her Mum, Marilyn in a tiny little flat.

Move forward and Marilyn is an extremely famous writer and Nadine decides to throw a party for her Mum’s 60th birthday.

Nadine is married to Paul, they have two teenage children. Nadine had a bad fall down the stairs, which left her with a shattered hip and her brain doesn’t feel like it’s quite right and glitches at times.

The story takes us through the day of the party, where many secrets come to light.

This is an enjoyable read and I loved the prologue, I had to carry on once I read that!

There are quite a few characters but it’s not so bad that you can’t remember them, they all had their part to play.

This is a story of lies, secrets and revenge with some great twists along the way.

My thanks to NetGalley and Michael Joseph, Penguin Random House for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin for this eBook to review

A Death at the Party was quite slow, describing the run up to Nadine's mother's 60th birthday in minute detail. A long the way some issues are revealed that Nadine is determined to investigate, who killed her cousin 30 years ago, who is responsible for River hurting herself, what does Lionel want so desperately with her, how can she stop the Journalist revealing all their secrets? Unfortunately, I did not take to Nadine which made it hard to enjoy the story as it is told solely from her point of view

Nadine is throwing a party for her famous mother's 60th birthday. She never got over the death of her cousin on the same day 30 years before. The two events become inextricably linked and she cannot focus on the present. Her family notice that she is having a hard time staying focussed. Secrets start to come out and Nadine has a rather effective way of dealing with them!! Quite an enjoyable book, full of little twists and you are never sure, as the reader, of what will happen next.

A bit of a slow start to this book, it started with a death and then replayed the day leading up to it with lots of secrets being revealed along the way.

My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book.

Absolutely brilliant. Enough twists and turns and blind alleys to keep you guessing and finally, murder is done - a beautifully clever, immensely satisfying murder. Having read so, so many books where it's women who die, this one felt as if it's been a long time coming.
The writing maintains a slightly distracted, breathless feel, just as you know is being felt by our proponent, adding a tension to the novel that keeps you hooked. Insights into the past, a sense of the pressures of the present, an understanding of additional, self-inflicted stresses and emotional turbulence - all these add up to a very human, gripping story beautifully written.

I didn’t finish it for some reason I couldn’t get into it. This just happens with me sometimes and after trying to start it again several times I gave up :(

An interesting premise and a great first chapter but then far too slow to follow up on the story and I didnt feel I ever really got to know the characters and main character unlikeable. Some twists and turns to keep me reading. Overall just ok. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the chance to review it.

A very slow burner.
Loved the beginning then it seemed to go downhill, it`s set in the past and the present is over one day which was very slow going.
Nadine was having a party for her mothers 60th birthday and she seemed to go out doing stupid things instead of concentrating on her party.
Just didn`t care for any of the characters.

Thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the ARC

I thank NetGalley and Michael Joseph, Penguin Random House for providing me with an ARC copy of this novel, which I freely chose to review.
This is the first time I read one of Stuart’s novels, although she has published three in the Still series, and I understand they have been very well received. In the author’s acknowledgements, at the end of the book, she mentions that she is grateful because everybody gave her support with this novel although it was quite different from everything she had written before, so not having read anything by her before might not be a great disadvantage, and readers need not worry, as this is not part of a series (or at least doesn’t seem to be planned as one), and it does not require any previous knowledge.
The description is quite apt, and, in fact, it is not too difficult to summarise the book. The whole novel takes place in a day, and it is centred around Nadine Walsh’s final preparations for her mother’s birthday party, and what takes place at the actual party. Marilyn Millay, Nadine’s mother, is a famous writer, and hers is a tale of rags to riches, from writing in a basement and having to struggle to make ends meet, to becoming incredibly successful and not having to worry about anything. Of course, that doesn’t mean life is easy, and there are always things hidden deep in the closet and people who must be protected. Nadine is still recovering from a bad accident, and although she is physically much better, it seems to have affected her psychologically, and her levels of anxiety have increased. She takes it upon herself to keep everything going and everybody ticking, and her to-do lists are legendary. But it is not always easy to be in control of everything, especially of one’s own mind.
It might seem that the description uncovers a big spoiler, but that is not the case. Although the story is told mostly in chronological order, it starts with a scene that happens towards the end of the party and one that will keep readers guessing and trying to put together the pieces of the puzzle for the rest of the narrative. So, after the introduction into what is at stake, the story circles back to the morning, and the events are narrated in the first person by Nadine, mostly in the present tense, except for the moments when her mind goes wandering back to the past, usually back to a traumatic episode that happened when she was a child, and whose anniversary also falls on the same date. The story takes place in 24 hours (well, a few less), and readers follow Nadine through her tasks, making sure everything is ready for the evening’s party, going here and there, meeting her mother, talking to a variety of people, looking into her family, also worrying about a variety of things, and having to deal with matters that need fuller attention than she can dedicate to them with everything that is going on. The novel made me think of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, although the writing style, the setting, and the events are quite different. Woolf’s inspiration is acknowledged in a brief quote at the beginning of the novel.
Because Nadine tells us the story, it is through her eyes that we see everything that takes place, and her perception of others is what guides readers. Is she a reliable narrator? Well... She gets into panics and at times she doesn’t seem to be fully in control, smoking to calm her nerves (although, at least “officially”, she doesn’t smoke), carrying tranquillisers in her pocket (“just in case”), and having to hide in her office, in the basement, to clear her head. In her internal dialogue, she also acknowledges that she is keeping secrets: from her husband, from her mother, from her daughter, from her son, from her neighbours... even from herself. Is she a likeable character? I didn’t find her one of those people everybody warms up to straight away. She plays her part well, and her whole life seems to be taken up by keeping her family (and that includes her mother, most of all) safe and intact, even to the point of fighting their battles for them. Other than her love for her family (alive as well as dead), although she studied and does some teaching, she doesn’t seem truly attached to anybody or anything else. Her friends are mostly her husband’s friends, and they all live in the same neighbourhood. In fact, in a bizarre (but not gratuitous) coincidence, they all knew each other (and her family) when they were young. It is possible that her accident has affected her and we aren’t seeing her as she was before, but only those who know her pretty closely seem to be able to notice the difference. She is an interesting character, though, and the way the story is told and developed helps us see her weaknesses and vulnerabilities along with her strengths. The inner psychology of the character is well rendered, and the way her opinion of others changes in a single (but very eventful) day makes for a fascinating narrative. The rest of the characters around her have their moments as well, especially the women and one of the strong points of the novel is the way it portrays the complicity and the relationship between women, not only blood relatives but also friends (the friendship between Isobel, —Nadine’s daughter— and her friend River is also quite moving).
This is not a standard thriller that will have people turning the pages at speed to find out what happened. We know what is going to happen from the very beginning, but we are trying to find out who the victim is, and why it happened. Of course, there are some secrets (some nastier than others, some more relevant than others, some more recent, and some further back in the past), plenty of drama, some revelations and surprises, and most of the action takes place in a domestic setting, so perhaps domestic noir would not be a bad label to apply to it. The emphasis on family relationships, Nadine’s reasons, and her behaviour are not exactly what we’ve come to expect from that genre, but that is not necessarily a bad thing.
The ending worked for me. Some of the reveals and twists surprised me more than others, but I thought it came together quite well considering everything that had happened. This is not one of those books that I felt was too short, or I was sorry when it finished, but it kept me guessing, and I was intrigued by the psychology of the main character. And that was good enough for me.
Readers who are looking for a fast and gripping thriller, with edge-of-your-seat and all-singing-and-dancing non-stop action, should not attempt this book. Those who like a slow-burning mystery, especially of the domestic noir variety, who appreciate getting into a slightly dubious character’s head, and who don’t mind first-person present tense narratives, should give it a go. It is likely to keep them reading and thinking.

Nadine Walsh is determined to make her summer garden party the event of the year.
Everyone deserves a celebration after the year they've had. A chance to forget.
As she prepares to welcome her guests, however, Nadine can't help but be distracted. Her husband is of little help to her. Her two grown children are consumed with their own concerns.

But it's Nadine's own secrets that threaten to destroy her perfect party.
By the end of the night, Nadine will be standing over a dead body in the basement.
How did it come to this? And how far will Nadine go to keep her secrets buried?

This is well written but, for me, it lost its way after a good start. There seems to be quite a bit of irrelevant stuff going on with leads going nowhere. It was quite slow in places too. It does, however, have an excellent ending. Great twist.