A Death at the Party by Amy Stuart

Nadine Walsh’s summer garden party is in full swing. The neighbors all have cocktails, the catered food is exquisite—everything’s going according to plan.

 

But Nadine—devoted wife, loving mother, and doting daughter—finds herself standing over a dead body in her basement while her guests clink glasses upstairs. What happened? How did it come to this?

 

Rewind to that morning, when Nadine is in her kitchen, making last-minute preparations before she welcomes more than a hundred guests to her home to celebrate her mother’s birthday. But her husband is of little help to her, her two grown children are consumed with their own concerns, and her mother—only her mother knows that today isn’t just a birthday party. It marks another anniversary as well.

 

Still, Nadine will focus just on tonight. Everyone deserves a celebration after the year they’ve had. A chance for fun. A chance to forget. But it’s hard to forget when Nadine’s head is swirling with secrets, haunting memories, and concerns about what might happen when her guests unite.

  Publisher: Simon and Schuster |  Genre: Domestic Suspense/Thriller | Source: Purchased  | Rating: 3.5 (rated down to 3)

I’m not typically a fan of Amy Stuart’s writing style (I DNF’d her Still series) but I ended up picking this one up as part of a buy one get one half off sale as it was the only other book on the table that I hadn’t read. Knowing this was a title I probably wouldn’t pick up willingly, I popped the title in my TBR jar and it ended up being my pick for April. I have to say, I’m glad I gave this one a go.

The book starts with Nadine standing over a dead body in her basement while her mother’s 60^th birthday garden party is going on. We don’t know if she’s the killer, if the person was murdered, or who the person is. The book then rewinds Nadine’s day and shows the events leading up to the ordeal in the basement. As we’re shown the events of the day, we’re also treated to flashbacks of her aunt, who died tragically when she was teenager and Nadine was a child. Along the way, secrets are both concealed and revealed.

There’s a lot going on in the book and there’s a lot of characters—and secrets—to keep track of, which I didn’t mind as I feel it gave the book a bit of depth.

The story is told stream of conscience style through Nadine’s POV and that woman has a lot on her plate. Not only is she keeping her own secrets, she’s keeping the secrets of others as well as planning a grand birthday party for her mother. She also has all eyes on her, as her mother is a famous author. While I’m not a fan of Nadine (she had an affair with a neighbor who happens to be one of her husband’s best friends and while she claims it’s over she’s upset by the fact he’s now married with a child) I do feel sorry for her as she has a lot of emotional weight she has to carry.

Obviously there’s a mystery—the dead person in basement—but there’s also a few other mysteries intertwined. Nadine’s trying to remember/discover what happened to her aunt on the same night 30 years ago. There’s also a bit of a mystery surrounding the hospitalization of River (Nadine’s daughters friend). Even though the book takes place in one day, I felt that great attention was paid to each and every detail as the puzzle pieces came together.  

I’m generally a fan of these types of books where the death is in the beginning then the previous events unfold as the book progresses but this one was a bit different as it takes place in one day and told through one person’s POV. Think Mrs. Dalloway but with murder. While this one was a bit slow in places (did we really need to know every little detail of her day right down to which cheeses she ordered for the party?), I found it to be a quick read (two sittings, would have been one if I hadn’t had to leave for an event).

I rated this one a 3.5 but I would have to round down to a 3 for the simple fact I wanted more from the ending. There’s a few strings of the plot that seemed out of place and while they didn’t pull me out of the story, they did bog the plot down in places.

Overall, if you’re looking for a domestic suspense/thriller I do recommend this one. It’s not one of the best that I’ve read but it was still a decent read.