SO GOOD. I'm blown away by how much I loved this - it's twisty, compelling, salacious; one of those books that you simply do not want to stop reading.

Home is an elite, members-only club founded by Ned Groom - starting as a refurbish and relaunch of an old actor's club in Covent Garden, expanding to eleven highest-of-the-high-end clubs all around the world. Its most recent addition is Island Home, a small English island that Ned Groom purchased and completely changed, adding 90-odd gorgeous guest suites, classy bars, haute restaurants, and more to create the ultimate luxe experience for Home's celeb members.

At the start of the book, you find out that what was supposed to be an exciting new milestone for Home turned into a tragedy with multiple deaths. What you don't know is who, why, and how.

The book follows a few perspectives of key people working to make this weekend happen. Annie Spark, Home's head of membership and keeper of the keys as to who gets in and who doesn't, knows that Home wouldn't run without her, but Ned won't put up with that sort of ego. Nikki is Ned's PA, a highly competent assistant who knows the ins and outs of Ned's intense, capricious moods - but has a dark secret of her own. Jesse is Island Home's new head of housekeeping - she's been trying to get a job with Home for many years - but has a very particular reason and motive for being on the Island at this exact time. Finally, Adam Groom is Ned's younger brother who has constantly lived in Ned's shadow and has now turned into Ned's personal punching bag - and of course, has yet another dark secret of his own.

On Island Home's over-budget, lavish launch, the peak of Ned Groom's career, everything starts to come to a head. Ned and Annie are planning something that will help cover the exorbitant costs of Island Home - something their members will not be pleased with. Jesse wants to execute on her plan. Adam is tired of being dirt on Ned's shoe, and his wife gave him an ultimatum to quit or she would leave him. Nikki is just trying to hold everything together.

I LOVED the pacing, characters, setting, and intrigue of this book. You get a bunch of captivating perspectives, the detail of the celebrities and their sordid histories, the exhilarating feeling of not knowing what is going to come out and when, and on top of that, the details of an over-the-top weekend at an exclusive club. The best way I can think to describe it is like the Titanic - if everything went to plan and people were perfect, it would have been the event of the century. But things didn't go to plan, and people are monsters - so instead, you get the ultimate tabloid tragedy.

I truly loved this and think any fan of twisty mysteries will too. Thank you to Harper for the ARC via Netgalley!

Think I’ll Stick to Staying at the IHG

The Club is a fictional story about a highly exclusive club which has a chain of sumptuous hotels across the world. The owners of The Club are Ned and Adam who are in the midst of opening their newest location: Island Home. However, tempers are flaring with budget overruns and countless delays. How will Ned be able to keep his Club running?

Ellery Lloyd is a husband and wife writing team who is often noted for their prior work in People Like Her. The Club, however, was not funny like People Like Her. It was really dark, and it could have used some humor to lighten it up.

This book spent a lot of time discussing how exclusive The Club was and how terrific. However, I didn’t see anything that spectacular or that surprising. In fact, I have had stays at the IHG which were more exciting. Because I am Celiac, it can be difficult for me to eat items from the menu so I called up room service and asked them to make me some baked French Fries with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and paprika. Sure enough, 20 minutes later a piping hot plate of baked French Fries arrives at my room. Also, I would order up gluten-free ooey-goeey chocolate chip cookies that haven’t even had time to set at all hours of the day and night. If you are part of Kimpton’s Inner Circle, the staff already have all your food preferences, and they will have an entire spread of food and drinks waiting for you upon your arrival. The description of The Club was underwhelming.

One thing that I didn’t understand was that the cabins at Island Club were not all the same. If you are a wealthy celebrity, traveling to stay on an island, you probably aren’t going to take less than the best. For example, if I am going to stay in an oceanside resort, I’m not going to stay in an inside room. I will wait to travel until the suite with the oceanfront balcony is open so I can read my books in peace while the waves gently crash in the background.

The book rotates its POV between Jess, Adam, Nikki, and Annie. Additionally, there are a lot more characters on top of that—too many characters to the point that they were difficult to keep track of.

Overall, an average mystery with a tone that didn’t build excitement.

I had a hard time getting through this as it was more descriptions than plot. It’s a shame. The synopsis seemed interesting.

Full disclosure: I don't follow or care about celebrities. That said, I should have known that a celebrity murder mystery is just not for me. It may be for some, but for me it was quite the yawner for the first 75,% of the book until something interesting started happening. Until then, the long winded descriptions of high brow accomodations in conjunction with insignificant influential people being selfish and wasteful was a drag. It never really hooked me and with such a massive cast of characters I struggled to keep any of them straight and honestly didn't even care to. It was just okay for me.

I was intrigued by the premise but this one was too slow and lost me. I decided to DNF at 20%. Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance reading copy.

An exclusive club for A-Listers.
A few dead bodies.
Told from multiple viewpoints.
Are the rich different from you and me?
Wow!

This book is a murder/mystery told from multiple viewpoints. It has many twists and turns and you will not know what is going to happen next. The narrators are different from each other but work for the same company, Home.
The company is not what it seems and most of the guests do not know it. You will definitely want to keep reading to see what happens next and if the killer is ever caught. This book is very interesting and I would recommend reading it.
Thank you to #netgalley, @ElleryLloyd and @HarperCollins for a copy of this book.

Loved the storyline of the rich and famous seeking exclusive VIP status to an opening party of Home’s getaway on Butchers Island. Home is an exclusive multi property private getaway for only the most fabulous celebs in the business.
Cell phones and cameras aren’t allowed at Home and it’s a place where the celebs can be themselves without any chance of anyone ever seeing or hearing about it.
This book shows the ultimate twisted portrait of how wealth and power can lead to a very dark and evil side in people. Highly recommend this scandalous sensational read.
Thank you NetGalley and HarperCollins for the gifted copy in return for my honest opinion.

A lot of this book I really liked. The twists were good and the concepts were cool, but at the end I wanted a little more. There were so many characters to keep track of I was often confused. My biggest thing was the lack of dialogue and heavy descriptions that made it hard to read at times. Dialogue helps me to focus and keep paying attention, but there wasn’t a ton in this book and there were really dense descriptions of time, place, and person that I thought could’ve been cut down. Overall it was good and kept me entertained especially in the second half.

Ned and Adam have worldwide resorts/clubs that only the best of the best celebrities can stay at, and that's only if you're lucky and you get chosen.

Ned goes way out, and over budget, on making these extravagant clubs, but it's the customers prices that cover them. Only specific are chosen for the opening of this club with a price and they will discover why.

Main characters Nikki is Ned's personal assistant. Annie is the membership coordinator. Adam is Ned's brother who does what ever he's told. Along with Jess, head of housekeeping. You also have many other characters, and I admit, with a handful of POV's, it was a bit difficult to keep up with who's who until a bit of the way in. I did have to go back a couple times to check.

As you're reading you will discover "Easter Eggs" throughout the book and just about everybody is freaking out when they discover theirs!

The very beginning started out great, but it then drags a bit, but it still kept me going and as bigger surprises were popping up I couldn't put it down! If it hadn't dragged a little and hadn't had me confused a few times this would have been an easy 4 or 5 stars.
Thank you Netgalley and HarperCollins for the opportunity to read this in exchange for an honest review.

Expect the unexpected in this page-turner! Set in an exhilarating setting for lovers of travel and luxury, The Club explores celebrity life in a personal and chilling way while satisfying the desire for an unputdownable thriller. Reminiscent of Lucy Foley with a twist, this is one that’ll be on my mind for quite a while!

I didn’t enjoy this one as much as their previous book but I still found it entertaining. Worth the read.

I thought this was a slow start thriller that paid off by sticking with it to the end. The premise of a murder mystery in a celebrity club was fun to read about and ended up being a wild ride!

Review: I really enjoyed Ellery Lloyd’s debut novel, so I was pretty excited for this one, but unfortunately it didn’t quite live up to my expectations. Let me put it this way, my favorite parts were the between-chapter “excerpts” from news media about Home and its clientele, and I sort of thought the whole book would be more in that vein. But there was a looooot of focus on the very specific secrets of just the few main characters and who they wanted to kill and how they were going to do it, and then the bad people all get punished and the good people come out unscathed (sorry for the minor spoiler, but I feel like if this is the kind of ending you’re into, my mentioning it will make you want to read it, and if you don’t like this kind of ending, then you’ve been warned in advance).

This book had my head spinning with different points of view and the news article talking about what happened. Once I figured out who was who and who did and who was killed. 😳 Lots of secrets. I was intrigued and I had to finish it.

Pretend Robin Leach and Agatha Christie got drunk together and decided to write a book to amuse themselves. Pretend someone found the manuscript and published it. Well, I think that is what happened here! Stupidly rich people who do things they shouldn't be doing and are getting away with it. Then the weekend on the island when the new super high profile protective club opens up and past crimes come back to be paid for. I loved the depth of the characters and sweet little twists in the story. Honestly, a few of them could have been a bit contrived, but the writing presented them in such a way that they worked. And isn't that the sign of good (or devious) writing? I will warn you, however, that if you gave up adult beverages for Lent you might want to wait and read this after your period of abstinence is over. Frequently I felt the pull to join the characters for a nice cocktail.

⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

The Club by Ellery Lloyd (out now!)

Overall, this thriller was a pleasant surprise. I honestly wasn’t sure if I’d read it, because I had a very bad experience reading People Like Her last year. However, I found The Club to be fairly different and more enjoyable!

I enjoyed the multiple POV and locked room vibes. There are a lot of pieces to the puzzle that you’ll have to put together as you read this one. Almost every single character in this book is seriously unlikeable, and by design, you’ll probably find yourself rooting against most of them. Which is interesting.

I found the ending satisfying and am happy with how it turned out.

If you’re looking for a quick, popcorn thriller, then definitely give The Club a try!

Thank you @netgalley and @harperbooks for the #gifted copy.

This one had a good plot, but it was such a slow start. I would have liked to see this get moving at a fast pace. Once we really got into what was happening, it was a good story though!

𝘚𝘶𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘦𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘸𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘺!

This is one of those stories where you hate all the characters but love them at the same time, it was dark, full of secrets, messy, complicated but impossible to put down.

Thank you Harper Books and NetGalley for this gifted copy.

𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘪𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦: 𝘛𝘩𝘳𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘳𝘴, 𝘔𝘺𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘺, 𝘚𝘶𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘦, 𝘍𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘊𝘳𝘪𝘮𝘦.

https://www.instagram.com/booksandcoffeemx/

Brief Synopsis: Home, a network of exclusive clubs resorts around the world for the wealthiest celebrities and businessmen. The Club holds lots of secrets and lies. The largest Home resort has its grand opening weekend on an exclusive island and just the most exclusive members are invited. The secrets and lies come to a head leading to chaos and death.

My thoughts:
-This is very slow burn but the last half of the book gets crazy!
-There are a lot of characters to keep straight but once I got to know them all I really enjoyed that the story was told in multiple characters points of view
-SO much drama! secrets, lies, celebrity gossip and death

Overall I enjoyed this book! It started off slow for me but once secrets started to be revealed I just kept wanting to know more!

I really loved the author’s previous novel, People Like Her so I was really excited to receive a copy of their latest novel, The Club.

I will say The Club was written in a slightly confusing format. There were multiple points of view and the story would also jump back and read to a Vanity Fair article. It kind of reminded me of Daisy Jones and the Six. This wasn’t my favorite format, but overall this was a good read. I did love the plot and the setting at an exclusive celebrity member’s only club on a remote island. Reading about the history of the club and the members secrets was fun. I look forward to reading the author’s next book!