I enjoyed this book. It took a bit for me to get super invested in it. Once I was though it was great. A shocking twist of an ending and some nice emotion.

Oh what a difference a year makes!

It’s the night of the annual BLOCK PARTY on Alton road, with fifteen families attending (despite three no-shows), and thirty something kids. As always, Classic rock blared from the speakers, yard games were being played, meat sizzled on the grill and red SOLO cups were everywhere.

But, for the first time in 40 years, there will be a MURDER in Meadowbrook-and the Community page will light up with speculation about why the sirens are racing toward the start of Summer party.

WHO didn’t survive?

And, WHO is to blame?

The book opens on Memorial Day, Present Day, from the third person POV of the party’s organizer, Alex Fox and then shifts to Memorial Day, One Year Prior.

Over the next four seasons, we will get to know the residents of Alton Road-and their SECRETS-many from the alternating, first person POV, of Alex’s 17 year old daughter, Lettie.

Often I struggle with a YA POV, but this time, these were my favorite chapters! Lettie is the kind of girl you would be proud to call your own-wise beyond her years, caring and sharing my “tongue in cheek” humor. Her father, Nick and their dog, Zoe, round out their family.

The other residents on the block are :

Alex’s sister, Emily Adair, her husband, Ken, and their son Dylan.
Willow Thompson, her soon to be ex husband, Evan and their daughter, Riley.
New neighbors Samir and Mandy Kumar, and their son, Jay.
And, the beautiful Widow, Brooke Bailey, who may or may not have pushed her husband overboard while on a cruise.

Oh, and I would be remiss if I didn’t include Gus Fisher, known as the “bug man”-and it’s not a term of endearment!

Despite the large cast, THIS TIME, character development is strong, and it’s easy to keep track of “Who’s Who” on Alton Road. These feel like characters who might be your friends and a part of your life.

We are kept GUESSING about who WILL NOT be at next year’s BLOCK PARTY until the last 20%, and in those final pages, all secrets are revealed and all questions are answered with a SURPRISING and SATISFYING conclusion.

The story comes full circle, returning to MEMORIAL DAY, PRESENT DAY, with an epilogue of sorts which is MEMORIAL DAY, one year later.

I love “neighborhood stories”, and the only reason that this DEBUT gets 4 stars instead of 5, is that at 384 pages it started to feel just a tad long for domestic suspense. But, if you enjoy these stories as well-I have no qualms about recommending this one!

AVAILABLE just in time for a hot Summer Day read-July 18, 2023.

Thank You to St. Martin’s Press for the gifted copy provided through NetGalley. It was my pleasure to offer a candid review!

Thanks for an early copy of The Block party.

This is your typical neighborhood drama but boy is there a lot going on. Everyone on Alton street looks forward to the annual Memorial Day Block Party but this time there’s murder.

So the story starts out with the incident and good backwards to lead us to what’s going on now.

Povs of Alex and her daughter Lettie. I’m not sure Lettie’s pov was necessary for me, but I liked her character the best. All these people are not good people and of course I loved to hate them all.

Most of this was fairly easy to figure out for me but that didn’t take away the fun for me either.

I enjoyed this one and if you like domestic suspense reads, you will most likely enjoy it too. It’s a fast read and groundbreaking in any way, but I didn’t enjoy it overall and would def read this author again! 3.5 ⭐️

Block parties are supposed to be fun.
This was is filled with alcohol, food, games, and revenge for desert.
The characters and storyline had me hooked from the first page.
Great twist and a great read.

Wow! That was some intense neighborhood drama! The story opens at the annual Alton Road Block Party, told from Alex's wine-soaked POV. Things start to go badly, but before we can see what happened it jumps back in time to the previous year's party so we can follow all the Alton Road drama leading up to the tragic present day events. Alex's daughter Lettie has her own chapters to show us the teenage side of the story. Both main characters are somewhat annoying and they make some pretty terrible choices. Lettie lectures everyone about her various causes in a condescending way and Alex sticks her nose in everyone's business and gossips about them. I was definitely entertained by this mystery though, and surprised by the ending. There were a lot of characters to keep track of and I think adding a map of Alton Road with their names on their houses to the finished copy would be great.

The Block Party exceeded my expectations. I love a good mystery but lately the ones I’ve read can feel formulaic. This did not: I was invested in the storyline as well as the characters. I will admit in the beginning I had a bit of hard time keeping all the characters straight but as the story developed I was all in!

✨ 3.5 rounded to 4 ✨

We’re all just one secret away from feeling like an outsider.

🍾🪁☀️🩴🕶️ 💀

Alton Road holds an annual summer block party which is usually quite fun and light, however the upcoming year is sure to be one for the books with all the neighborhood drama what with stalkers, new mysterious neighbors, and secrets and lies. Someone will be dead by the end of the night - who will it be? 🫣

This novel had great character and plot development, with a multitude of secrets woven through the neighborhood which kept me guessing what the outcome was going to be. I felt that with all of the evolution and expansion of the story line there would be a large investment in the actual block party itself but that only encapsulated a small portion of the end of the book. The end was quite unexpected regarding the actual events that took place at the party and how plot lines came together.

Thank you to NetGalley for my advanced review copy!

I really enjoyed reading this book. It had a mixture of things going on which lead to an interesting and intriguing read. Enough mystery to keep you guessing and a surprise at the end. It was an easy to read book. I will read more from this author.

3.5 stars from me, but rounding up to 4

"My mom is fond of saying that if everyone threw their problems up in the air, people would race to catch their own."

There's been a murder on Alton Road. Who's the victim? Who's the killer? It could've been anyone. They all have a motive to kill one of their neighbors. Plus, they've all said they wanted to at one point or another. Told from the view points of Alex Fox and her daughter Lettie, follow a year in the life of the Altonites, and see if you can put all the pieces together yourself.

I'd say this book is most similar to Big Little Lies, style wise. Loved the Meadowbrook Community Page spread throughout the book adding speculation. Jamie Day did a wonderful job of keeping me guessing throughout this book! It's dramatic, it's enticing, It's scandalous.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the Advance Reader's Copy of this book.

The Block Party was a riveting domestic thriller. It was so interesting to see the secrets blooming between this family and their neighbors and the way that affects their interactions.

Enticing read! It goes a bit against the classic elements in a murder thriller by playing it out more a classic “who done it” and also who was the victim. I loved the setting on a quiet street where everyone has a secret. I also found the character Letty, hilarious. She’s a teenager and the author does a great job a poking fun at the lack of self-awareness and sense of false importance at the age. A lighthearted murder tale if such a thing exists!

Alex is planning the annual block party, but there’s more drama this year than normal, including a rumor about a murder.

The story is told from the perspectives of Alex and her daughter, Lettie. It starts in the present and then jumps a year back, until the timelines meet and we are given the context of the present day situation.

I liked this story, but it kind of dragged a bit. It caught my attention more at 60-70% but the middle part kind of lost me. I’m glad I pushed through because I wasn’t totally expecting the ending though.

A neighborhood annual gathering with lots of alcohol, miscommunication, etc. If anything can go wrong, it will. Too much like so many others.

The Block Party by Jamie Day
The Block Party
by Jamie Day
16207675
Leslie Beebe's review Feb 27, 2023 · edit
really liked it

The Block Party by Jamie Fay was a tangled web &it was fun to see what happened next to the neighbors on Alton Road . It kept my attention from page 1 until the very end. Great characters with many wecrets. It was fun to watch it unfold

‘Block Party’, by Jamie Day was quite a nice surprise. The book had many twists and turns and depicted the messy lives of five families living on a cul de sac in a upperclass Massachusetts neighborhood. Definitely worth adding to your reading list.

Talk about a page turner! This domestic thriller is one hundred percent stay up late/one more chapter messed up, chaotic fun.

The book starts out at the annual Memorial Day party on a wealthy neighborhood street. Just giving us a taste of that present-day party, it then jumps back a year to show us the events leading up to that day while interspersing comments from a present-day online community discussing and gossiping about what might have happened at that party.

There are so many great characters in this book. So many twists and turns. Part drama, part thriller. I can see this being an excellent summer read for many.

I don’t know if Jamie Day has any other books, but I will be reading them if so. And definitely sign me up for all future books. Get yourself a copy. You won’t regret it.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the advanced copy.

Thank you St. Martins Press for the chance to read and review this book prior to release!

WOW- talk about a neighborhood I wouldn't want to live in! There is more than what meets the eye to everyone on Alton Rd and the Facebook community page is blowing up! My favorite parts were the comment section on their Facebook page- it actually made me laugh out loud a couple times.

The book starts present day and then the majority is spent reliving the past year. It is told from a main narrator's perspective and then one of the teenage girls' perspective. I'm not sure there was a benefit to seeing things from only Lettie's perspective, and am curious why the author chose that route. I think it would have been a little better with just a narrator or a full cast of perspectives.

I was hooked pretty quicky but then lost some steam about 30% in and struggled to really care about the characters. It did pick up towards the end and there were tons of twists and turns. I predicted quite a few of them because of some heavy hint dropping early on, but the reveals were still fun.

The whole time I was reading, I was imagining it playing out as a TV show and I'd definitely watch it if it becomes one!

Overall, I'd suggest if you're into a slow burn neighborhood drama! This book will be available on July 18th!

3.5 Stars

This one is an interesting storyline it has Real Housewives of drama mixed with teens like gossip girl vibes mixed with a bit of a mystery. Several families mentioned so it’s one to pay attention to took me a few chapters to get super into it but once I kept track of the characters it was a smooth engaging read. Multiple POV but storyline was interesting enough to keep me engaged a bunch of gossip, lies, cheating, drinking & murder! I like drama shoes and books so I was entertaining 🫣
So glad my neighborhood parties aren’t like this one

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Read if you like:
🎈 neighbourhood murder mystery
🎈 dual POV
🎈 dual timelines

I really enjoyed the format of this story, which was part narrated storytelling and part messages between neighbours. It gives us a little tiny insight into the other POVs, and it’s also makes it more fun for me to read 💕
I love a dual point of view! It allows me to see 2 sides of the same story, and begin to put the pieces together slow. Even better this book is also a dual timeline! Again, I love a dual timeline because I have to figure out how all these pieces fit together before the reveal in the end.
I hated all of the characters in this book 🤪 but it was perfect because I never know which never could have committed the crime. They were all terrible and any one could have done it.
This book was really cool because the mom’s perspective was a thriller, and the teenaged daughter’s perspective was like a YA mystery. It was like 2 separate books in one, and I love both those genres!
I did not see the end coming! Which is the one thing I absolutely need in a mystery/thriller. An overall very enjoyable read!

The Block Party follows a neighborhood and the changes that happen in just one year. Murder, intrigue, lies – no one is who or what they seem. Follow the story told by two points of view daughter and mother and things start to unravel, and clues add up. Great characters that bring you right into the story. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of this book.