Elizabeth Day hones in on a solitary man, going back to his childhood in a country town in England. Martin Gilmour did not enjoy a happy childhood, losing his father when he was very young and suffering under his domineering mother. Martin had few, if any, friends in his early school days and was happy to be sent to a boarding school. <B>The Party</b> serves as the focus of the narrative and Martin and his wife, Lucy, tell their stories going back and forward in time around the life altering event. Martin finds a friend at his new school. Ben Fitzmaurice is from an aristocratic family, he takes Martin on as part of his clique, and they continue throughout their Oxford days as fast friends. Ben invites Martin home early on for holidays. Martin is enamored of all the wealth of the Fitzmaurice homes, but his ultimate adoration goes to Ben. Martin adores everything about Ben and relies on him for the oxygen of his life.<br><br> The boys have grown up to become an art critic, in Martin's case, and a financier, for Ben. Martin meets Lucy at work and is successful in publishing a book about art. The couple decides to attend a party celebrating Ben's fortieth birthday and the completed renovation of a mansion that Ben and his wife, Serena, purchased for their family of four children. Lucy and Martin are not invited to stay at the mansion and feel slighted about having to check in to a dreary local hotel. Lucy doesn't like Ben or Serena but goes along because she knows how much the friendship means to Martin. Things have cooled between the two men, and they haven't even seen each other in a couple of years.<br><br> The novel's secretive chapters kept me reading non-stop. What could have happened that put Martin in a police interrogation room in town? Why is Lucy being interviewed by a psychiatrist? This novel illustrates the uselessness of pursuing people and things in life that are inaccessible. Why do some people become obsessed with what they cannot have? Is happiness possible in any other form than what we deem the one and only person, place, or thing we want? Elizabeth Day does an excellent job in answering those questions and posing some additional ones for extra measure. This novel would make an excellent film, and I hope someone buys the rights to it.

Thank you to NetGalley, Elizabeth Day, and Little, Brown, and Company for the opportunity to read and review this novel.

Martin Gilmour’s father died just before he was born. His mother is a cold woman but cared for him perfunctorily. When she gets the chance to send him to Burtonbury boarding school, she packs his things and off he goes.

Martin is a shy boy and does not possess the moneyed background that his fellow students have which leaves him open for bullying. However, Ben Fitzmaurice befriends him and soon Martin is enchanted by him and tries so hard to impress him. The Fitzmaurice family welcomes Martin to stay with them at holiday times which makes Martin so happy. As much as he wants to belong, he knows he doesn’t have their wealth and will always be an outsider.

After university, Martin becomes a newspaper art critic who wrote a book a best seller from which he made very good money. Martin has never had any girlfriends and is very straight-laced. He meets Lucy at work and they eventually marry.

Martin and Ben remain friends. Ben and his wife Serena are extremely wealthy and have four children. They have recently purchased a large country home named Tipworth Priory. As it’s Ben’s 40th birthday, Martin and Lucy are invited, along with a very large group of wealthy and influential people, to help Ben celebrate his birthday and to also show off their new home.

At the party, people drink a lot and some secrets that have lain dormant for years finally come to the surface resulting in violence.

What secrets have people been keeping and how will it affect the long friendship of Martin and Ben?

This is a terrific story of obsession, envy, jealousy, and revenge. Readers won’t want to miss this one.

Copy provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

The Party by Elizabeth Day employs many familiar literary devices of suspense - the unstable outsider surrounded by privilege, the unnamed secrets that bind characters together, a plot revealed through multiple epistolary viewpoints, an unreliable narrator - but Day deftly utilizes these in refreshing and unexpected ways. The comparisons to other recent works of literary suspense, particularly Gone Girl and The Talented Mr. Ripley, are unavoidable, but I hope these do not deter potential readers who might expect more of the same. I promise: this one is different.

I found the primary vehicle of suspense to be reminiscent of Big Little Lies - mainly, something has happened and now the reader will be taken between time periods and perspectives to get the answers. I have been disappointed more than once with recent popular suspense setups, but not here. Day’s writing is crisp and her pacing is even. Her character development is so good that both Martin, a creepy sociopath, and his damaged, subservient wife, Lucy, are sympathetic without the use of reader manipulation. The innermost thoughts of Martin are particularly chilling, and Day’s employment of The Art of War as a guide in Martin’s pursuit of Ben’s friendship is a masterful choice. Readers will certainly become impatient for the resolution (this reader certainly did) but this sense of urgency only underscores the author’s writing talents. The Party is a page-turner of the highest, creepiest order.  

I was provided an advance reader copy by the publisher through NetGalley for review purposes.

Martin and Ben have been best buds since school. Their friendship was sealed by an event that has taken place during that time and Martin is considered part of the family. But, in the present, the relationship is being strained. The story flits back and forth between police interviews of Martin after a party at Ben's house, entries in Lucy's therapy diary, and vignettes of how Martin and Ben's relationship began. These three threads slowly weave a story of obsession and arrogance. I will admit that I chuckled a bit when all the puzzle pieces fit together.

Martin Gilmour, a character in this tale is a writer, a critic of sorts, had some small success and reputation with a work ‘Art: Who Gives a F***?’
Almost to the unknowing eye he seemed normal but within he has an obsession he has spent his youth trying to reinvent himself and he finds one soul who’s popular but one that he can never be.
The tale, psychologically eery and unsettling at times, takes you through in first person narrative in his minds eye. If there was one scene that would turn you off and create a distance from you and this character, that may define his behaviour for the future, it would be with a small bird at school.
The unraveling to the party years before down to the day before proved to be compelling page turning reading.
There is unreliable narrating in these first person narratives from Martin and Lucy, the one he marries. Two hearts that have some unspeakables merge to something far more treacherous, the Party.
Obsessions, being someone he can’t be, at the heart of the behaviour, the art of war is taken upon within the character in this tale.
Talented Mr Ripley crossed paths with Jay Gatsby and Norman bates.
The story comes to light, the real truth unraveling with similar techniques like that in HBO’s True Detective and Showtime’s The affair on tv.
The author has done a great job in hooking the read in a lucid narrative psychologically unraveling the labyrinth that lead to The Party incident.

Oh my - this is a fabulous book! It is intriguing and witty and I couldn't wait to get to the end - but was inevitably sad when I did. I was surprised at how affected I was by the emotions of the characters. Superbly written and highly recommended.
Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for an advance e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Party by Elizabeth day is an intriguing novel with flawed characters who feel a deep need to fit in with their counterparts. Told in alternating POV's, readers are able to get deep into the minds of each character to see where their loyalties lie and how deep they go to get what they want.

Overall, this is a thoroughly enjoyable novel filled with secrets, lies, and hidden emotions. It take a while to understand what is happening (the author is subtle to a point that makes it extremely interesting and hard to put down) but once things come to light, the tension explodes.

This is the first novel I have read by Elizabeth day and it certainly won't be my last. I look forward to more of her work based on this one.

This book gives a fascinating insight into the lives of very wealthy people, who feel they deserve a certain way of life because of who they are. The story changes between characters and timelines but this is never confusing. The tension builds from the start: we know something has happened at the party, but this is not revealed until the end of the book. The descriptions are excellent- of people, clothes, food, the houses, I didn't really like Martin, the main character, I thought he was weak and even cruel to his wife, Lucy. I could not understand why Lucy stayed with him, even though reasons are given later in the book, This is why I have not given 5 stars. The story itself is excellent, and I will look for other books by Elizabeth Day.

If you have read The Dinner, by Herman Koch, chances are you already know the overall makeup of this novel. Don’t get me wrong, Elizabeth Day’s writing was impeccable, beautiful, and eloquent. However, I couldn’t get past the deja vu and the feeling that I had already read this story, just with different age groups and circumstances.

There are several themes and issues in this novel including the power of family money, entitlement, struggling with sexual identity, mental illness, and so on. Very early in the novel, it is clear that there is something a little off about Martin. Although intelligent and creative, there’s this inner obsession that devours him, keeping him from leading a normal, healthy life.

The time periods flip-flop throughout the novel between Martin and Ben growing into adulthood, the party, and after the party. During these shifts between time, it becomes evident that all of the involved parties are completely insane. Martin, his wife Lucy, Ben, his wife Serena, Ben’s family, and so on. There is a complete disconnect between these characters and any possible resemblance of moral compass.

The plot and character development were satisfyingly complex, however, I struggled to connect, like, or even tolerate any of the characters in this novel. Each and every character was either self-absorbed, trying too hard to be different, or putting on a show of who they should be, rather than, who they really were. This was truly the most pretentious gathering of characters that I have ever seen, and I’m not sure it added to the novel in any way.

This is another novel that is difficult to adequately review without spoilers, but I will leave you with these thoughts. The writing, once again, is impeccable. However, given that I was unable to connect with any of the characters and there were times the story seemed to drag, I can’t, in good faith, recommend this novel. Although, if by chance you are a fan of Herman Koch’s The Dinner, this novel will completely float your boat.

**Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This book is supposed to be a tense thriller, with Lucy & Martin telling their story, piece by piece, leading us up to the "big event". I found this book dull, boring, dragging along with no real sense of purpose. It was difficult to finish.

With The Party, Elizabeth Day seems to tell the usual tale of the troubled hanger-on and the privileged and entitled (and titled) wealthy class, but she complicates it in the end in ways that I found quite thrilling.

Martin Gilmour is that hanger-on whose character was damaged by the emotional as well as economic poverty of his childhood. It’s possible his mother loved him, she certainly sacrificed to send him to the best schools she could afford and sought out opportunities for him, but he did not feel her love and she fed his self-loathing. A scholarship student with poor social skills, he found his sustenance in the friendship of Ben Fitzmaurice, one of those privileged scions of wealth and pedigree for whom everything comes easily and whose family welcomed him.

Lucy is his long-suffering wife who sees him more clearly than he thinks and loves him anyway. She is the most misunderstood of the characters in The Party . Everyone thinks she is weak and frumpy when really, she is wearing protective cover and choosing Martin because he does not ask too much of her. She is not weak, she is recovering from trauma.

Of course, there are also Ben and Serena, two boring plastic people whose narrative we are blessedly spared. Some might think Martin is sociopathic because he deliberately sought out Ben’s friendship and thanks to a cruel act as a child, killing a wounded bird the school was rescuing. Martin himself seems to think he’s quite a nasty piece of work and never pretends to be a good guy, he carefully inculpates himself in a sustained strategic campaign for Ben’s friendship.

The story opens at the local police station where Martin is being questioned. The narrative skips from there to Martin telling his backstory with Ben and Lucy sharing her experiences at an in-patient mental treatment facility. We surmise something happened at the party…and in time we learn what it was, but first we also learn how much Martin has sacrificed for Ben, how he has been rewarded and how thoroughly despicable Ben and Serena can be in their narcissistic obliviousness to others.



It’s risky writing a story with unsympathetic characters, but Elizabeth Day succeeds. In fact, by the end, I was thoroughly in sympathy with Martin and Lucy. The truth is revealed slowly and the party incident resolves itself, becoming much less than it seems at first, but it’s a great pretext for unwinding this friendship that has so despoiled Martin’s life even though he thought it was his great good fortune.

The ending with the cat also made me wonder how much of Martin’s bad character was a result of expectations and once freed from his mother’s opinion, Ben’s opinion, and his own obsessive love for Ben, he was able to find his more humane self. It makes me wonder about his recitation of killing Sammy the bird, while he ascribes his act to jealousy, there are hints that it could have been disgust with prolonging the suffering of a wounded bird – which at first light seems like rank self-justification, but later, when all is said and done and Martin stops living down to everyone’s low expectations, maybe it could be true.

And yes, Martin does a terrible thing, but it was unconsidered, an act of loving generosity to a friend who could never understand that kind of sacrifice and who misunderstood it from the beginning as opportunistic and grasping.

That’s why The Party works so well. There’s the question of how much Martin’s narrative is colored by his own self-loathing which for most of his life he has masked with intellectual arrogance. The story leaves us wondering…long after the last sentence is read and that makes it a good book.

The Party will be released August 15th. I received an e-galley from the publishers through NetGalley.

I loved Day's Paradise City, so when I saw this one available on Netgalley I didn't even read about it too much, immediately requesting it. And, awesomely enough, Day doesn't disappoint. The Party is a very different book (where Paradise City was optimistic, this book is extremely dark), but it does employ some of the similar narrative techniques, mainly the shifting perspectives, of which Day is a master. No event is isolated, it is observed and changes accordingly. So when a violent bust up occurs at a posh party, we the readers are given a panopticon view of the occurrence and all that lead up to it, the slow simmer that eventually came to a boil, the inevitability of it, like a car crash in slow motion, terrible, impossible to look away. Actually maybe not the panopticon view per se, but there are at least two very differing perspectives, two spouses, two sides of a love triangle of sorts, as the narrative alternates between present and past done just right to sustain the maximum suspense. It has the pacing of a mystery thriller with the quality of a terrific psychological dramatic fiction. What might have been a mere tale of an unrequited love turns into an exploration of class differences, the impossible disparity between the social strata, the desperation it produces and the abyss at the end of that road. Martin is a fascinating protagonist (or is he an antagonist?), a sort of a sociopath and yet his flaws are all too recognizable, his desires all too relatable. Driven by the singular obsessive pursuit of social acceptance and an impossible love he's an embodiment of desperation, bound for a lifelong disappointment of never knowing a security and comfort that comes from being happy or at least content with yourself and your lot in life. There's some terrific meditation here on the deleterious power of money and moneyed as they coast the waves others get buried under. Day does a great job of exposing the charm and callousness and thoughtless cruelty of the upper classes, but also at times the secrets so well protected, the basic nature that lurks underneath the glamor. It's a very clever book and works on so many levels, particularly as far as social psychology goes. Sort of a modern spin on the timeless motif or several timeless motifs and a completely engaging read, read in one day. I've recently been told by my dearly beloved that I seem to be really into books with likeable characters, well, here's the proof of my range. This book doesn't have a particularly likeable cast by any means and I loved it. Enthusiastically recommended. Thanks Netgalley.

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to preview the party by Elizabeth Day.
This book is different and that's what I like. The book centers on Martin and his best friend Ben - they have been friends since high school. Martin loves Ben so much he wants to be Ben - Ben leads a charmed life - beautiful wife, home, and success. Martin's life is not so glamourous.
Martin and his wife Lucy are invited to a party at Ben's home where the rich and famous will gather. Martin knows theres a motive somewhere in this invite and he is about to find out.
The book goes back and forth in time to Martin and Ben's school days to the present day - at the party. The reader becomes part of Martin's mind.
Not sure what I was expecting, but I kept reading. I did keep waiting for something big to happen...
This is a good read, but I was disappointed with the ending.. This book is different and that I did like.

A disturbing tale indeed! Perfect for anyone who likes psychological damage, and strange characters.

Excellent book! Dark and suspenseful and captivating, but also very humorous in parts. I loved the mix of those traits and the author's storytelling ability and writing style as a whole. Five stars!

It begins with a door that wouldn’t open at the Tipworth Premier Inn.

No one wants to be anyone’s shadow, but Martin’s life has been deeply entwined with best friend Ben’s since childhood. Money along with inborn charisma has made Ben’s life a blessing where for Martin, everything is hard won. A shared past, and Martin’s fierce loyalty beyond brotherhood has kept the friendship thriving. The readers are witness to a seduction into a sort of surrogate family, to Martin shedding his humble origins. The question is, who is truly being seduced? Martin and Ben’s friendship has so much mileage, so why is it that for Ben’s 40th birthday bash among the upper class Martin and his wife Lucy are left feeling shunned? Lucy is the ever devoted, loving wife- protective, if not a little resentful of his love for Ben. Where Ben’s wife Serena has a natural glamour and grace, Lucy is more messy, common and if she feels like an outsider beside the wealthy couple, she will suffer it for the sake of her husband Martin, even if his love for best friend Ben seems unequal. Even if Serena’s snobbery is exhaustively ridiculous.

Something disturbing takes place the night of the party, and all we know is that Martin is being questioned by police and Lucy is facing a an uncomfortable dissection of her relationship with Martin. Serena and Ben’s future too is hanging in the air. The past smells of rot, from cold mothers, to untouchable wealth and the strangeness of some children. There are the used and discarded, those who benefit and the leverage we hold over others. This is love at it’s most destructive, excessive, desperate, and pathological. Why do some of us feed off scraps, and remain loyal pets- kicked into submission and always wagging our tail for more?

Lucy is the most misunderstood character of the novel among the group. Seen as tepid, helpless, a bit silly- she in fact is far more perceptive than any suffering wife wants to be. Witness to Martin emulating his best friend- down to his shoes, she isn’t so much the foolish bore Martin believes. The happenstance of birth builds or destroys, even those who try to climb above their place can’t do so without carnage. Just what happens when you have sacrificed all of your being for another, what do you do when you are stripped of the comfort you have clung to? Maybe in the end, you bide your time…

A disturbing tale indeed! Perfect for anyone who likes psychological damage, and strange characters.

Publication Date: August 15, 2017

Little, Brown and Company

When we start "The Party"we are in a police station with Martin and his wife Lucy being questioned. We know something has happened, but not what. As we continue reading we meet Ben and Serena who's house the party had taken place. As we continue reading we learn about secrets, friendship and ambition. This book is very well written, interesting and good. The characters are very well written. You actually will develop certain feelings for the characters. Lucy was my favorite. If you are looking for a good read, try this book. You will not be disappointed. Thanks to NetGalley,the author and the publisher for the advanced copy of this book in return for my honest review.

I adore a good flawed character and was drawn in from the first page of this novel! Told alternately from Martin and his wife, Lucy's perspectives, we see a couple doomed from the beginning because of Martin's personality flaws and his obsession with his wealthy friend, Ben. As we bounce back and forth from Ben's 40th birthday party to Martin and Ben's school days, we soon realize there is nothing right about any of these relationships. Secrets, lies, family dynamics, and control issues dominate everything involved in this devious plot. Even the final page left me breathless. This is my kind of thriller!

Great title! Really enjoyed the two perspectives and the shifting of time throughout the novel. The character of Martin is very well developed, and honestly quite unnerving. Reminds me of 'The Dinner' and "We have to talk about Kevin' in terms of Martin's character. Wish the character of Ben could have been explored more but the fact that we only see him through Martin's (and Lucy's) eyes, only serves to highlight Martin's disconnect from reality or Ben himself. Would be great for book clubs to unpack, lot's to discuss.

At a dinner party, two couples discover there’s a lot they don’t know about each other. Ben and Martin have been friends since they were children, or maybe Martin was just in total awe of his wealthy, perfect friend and Ben liked the adoration. Whatever the reason, Ben’s wife, Serena, jokingly sneers at her husband’s friend for the man’s adoration of her husband. Lucy loves her husband, content to take a back seat to Ben, who seems to always be first in her husband’s affections. If you’re thinking this sounds like the perfct set-up for a disaster, you’re right. The day after the dinner party celebrating Ben’s birthday, Martin is in police custody, and Lucy will be forced to admit she never really knew her husband or his friends, at all. Taking place primarily over the course of one night, this is a story that builds slowly and inexorably to a fever pitch of tension