Emma Rosenblum is great at creating characters you love to hate and hate to love. “Very Bad Company” is full of selfish, messed up, secret keeping narcissists who work for Aurora, a successful tech company.

January Lavoy is an excellent narrator who does a great job with differentiating between the characters, but there were so many who are integral to the story it was hard to keep track.

The executives gather for a corporate retreat in Florida just as Aurora is about to announce its acquisition by another tech company. Everyone is about to become very rich. There’s a lot of money at stake and they all have an interest in making sure their secrets stay hidden. It all gets very complicated when one of them turns up dead.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for an advance copy of this audiobook in exchange for my unbiased review.

Very Bad Company by Emma Rosenblum is an entertaining audiobook with amazing narration by January LaVoy. The book cover and the narrator were my favorite things about the audiobook. This story follows Caitlin Levy, Aurora’s newest hire. Her new co-workers are wondering what makes her so deserving of a seven-figure salary. She’s joining the company just in time for an exclusive retreat in Miami where someone goes missing the first night and ends up dead. This story has characters you’ll love to hate, you’ll think each character is the murderer. I couldn’t figure out the real murderer until the end when all the cards are laid out but that didn’t stop me from continually guessing. Rated 3.5 stars rounded up. ALC was provided by Macmillan Audio via NetGalley. I received an advance review copy for free and I am leaving this review voluntarily. #MacAudio2024

This was a great book. I was drawn in from the start. I really enjoyed the plot and the characters. The narrator was great. U enjoyed her voice and love how she changed up her voice for each character. It made it easy to tell the characters a part and keep me engaged.

A Big Thank You to Macmillan Audio and Netgalley for sending me the “Very Bad Company” audiobook to review!

Since I hadn’t read Emma Rosenblum’s previous book, Bad Summer People (even though its on my current TBR), I went into this book with no expectations, which I think was the best way to approach this one!

I was looking forward to this book for a number of reasons such as it is an audiobook (which is my new way to read books) and it is narrated by January LaVoy (who is one of my favourite audiobook narrators).

In this book, we are introduced to a tech company, Aurora who is embarking on their annual company retreat in Miami. Each chapter introduces us to each of the executives: the CEO, the COO, the Head of HR, the Communications Director, the Executive Assistant to the CEO, and finally the new employee…the Head of Events. As we meet these eccentric and flawed characters, we learn about their deepest secrets and how they really feel about one another! However, everything comes to a head when someone goes missing after a crazy night of partying and everyone is left scrambling trying to find the person…and who is behind this person’s disappearance.

With LaVoy’s narration, I was definitely entertained by this book! It is a fun read for an airplane/train or even beach trip! I wasn’t surprised about the final twist, but there were other reveals that definitely kept me interested!

My rating: 4/5

Very Bad Company goes on-sale tomorrow (5/14/24)!

This book was better than Rosenblum's previous book, Bad Summer People, but I was disappointed with the resolution. It was messy. It could have been much better, but the ending felt rushed and failed to satisfy. This book also has a lot of sexually explicit commentary that I wasn't anticipating.

This was a FAST read. Like, finished the audiobook within 24 hours fast, and it had me interested from page one. We follow a tech company to their executive retreat in Miami, and it all goes awry from there. The story is told from multiple perspectives of the executives with no single person is the main character. There's a death and a mystery on our hands. True to it's title, this is indeed a Very Bad Company.

Imagine going on a work retreat and while you are there one of your co-workers ends up dead. After this, lies, betrayals, and suspicious behaviors start happening amongst your other co-workers. All of a sudden, people are looking for answers to explain what happened and aren’t afraid to point fingers at each other. All of this, and more, happens in Very Bad Company.

I really enjoyed this audiobook. I thought the narration was good, and it kept my attention throughout. The book was filled with mystery, twists and turns, and some humor (and some pg-13 material lol).

I really liked the characters. There was a wide variety of personalities and I liked how you really got to know each of the characters. This was an easy read and I found myself wanting to keep listening to find out what was going to happen next.

📚 #BOOKREVIEW 📚
Very Bad Company by Emma Rosenblum
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / Pages: 253 / Genre: Mystery
Audiobook Narrator: January LaVoy
Duration: 8 hours 49 minutes
Release Date: May 14, 2024

The executives at Aurora are on a company retreat in Miami. The CEO is crazy weird. Two of the execs are hooking up. One exec doesn’t make it home alive. And everyone has a secret to hide.

The characters are all very interesting and have great banter. It has a vacation feel with co-worker snark and a little mystery thrown in. I really enjoyed this one! Another great beach read for the summer.

The audiobook is narrated by January LaVoy, who delivered another great performance.

Thank you, @netgalley, @macmillanaudio, and @emma.rosenblum for my gifted copy. I loved it!

Emma Rosenblum just gets me. I freaking love her books. Terrible people, lots of money, beautiful settings, and lots of lots of drama. This is the perfect book to listen to to kick off summer!!

I've been on a couple work retreats and it's safe to say, my company must be doing them all wrong because I've certainly never stayed in a five-star resort, gone jet skiing, clubbing, or eaten a Michelin-starred dinner on a yacht. Aurora definitely knew how to party and John Schiller definitely knew how to throw a bash. So what someone died? Just a little more drama and another story to tell, amiright?!

Honestly, even as the reader it was easy to forget that someone had died. I really can't imagine a real life scenario where a work trip wouldn't be cut short if one of your own died on the trip, but you can't say it didn't make for some great reading!

I had such a hard time knowing who or what to believe. The way everyone was so nonchalant about the death made me wonder if it truly was an accidental overdose. But as the secrets started spilling, everyone seemed (and was!) guilty of at least something and I started to believe anything was possible.

I loved how everything shook out, how despicable everyone was, and the (maybe not so realistic) insight into a startup hitting major success and going through a sale.

This book was perfect for audio and I loved the narrator. It's told by different character perspectives and I usually prefer multiple narrators for those formats, but January LaVoy is so good I didn't need it here.

This is one I definitely recommend and I can't wait to see what other shenanigans Rosenblum gives us next!!

Thank you to MacMillan Audio and NetGalley for the copy.

A group of executives from a high-flying tech startup called Aurora are on a fancy corporate retreat in Miami. The stakes for this elite group are high: exorbitant salaries, huge bonuses, tons of stock options. But when one of their own meets with foul play at the lush resort, the stakes turn deadly.

This is a bingeable read filled with corporate intrigue and catty backstabbing. A big cast of complex, compelling characters and multiple POVs keep things interesting. Between this book and Bad Summer People, Emma Rosenblum has clearly found her calling at crafting characters that are unlikeable but fun to hate!

Narrator extraordinaire January LaVoy did a fantastic job, flawlessly differentiating the various characters and infusing the narrative with wry humor and sarcasm, making for a very entertaining listening experience.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for providing me an advance copy of this book. #MacAudio2024

I work a corporate job and found this book to be really fun. I loved all the different dynamics of everyone that worked at the company. The narration was phenomenal. January LaVoy is one of the greats and always makes things more interesting. Definitely a nice, easy listen.

This was entertaining but I don't anticipate it being a standout for me this year. Recommended for those who enjoy a good deep dive into the complexities and toxic nature of corporate culture. Good on audio too. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early audio copy in exchange for my honest review!

Very Bad Company was a very entertaining book. I listened to this via the audiobook narrated by January LaVoy and the narration of it was great! I love this kind of books where there is a murder with so many suspects and we get to go through the journey of finding out who did it from everyone’s POV. There was so much going on that I was continually trying to guess who did it and hadn’t figured it out until the end when it was revealed. Some, alright most of the characters were pretty unlikable so it was very easy to think each one of them was a murder. I believe this was my first Emma Rosenblum book and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I will definitely be added more of her books to my TBR.

January LaVoy is one of my favorite narrators so the audiobook portion was amazing! The characters were all very flawed and most of them were annoying but it helped make the book more interesting. I wasn’t in love with this one, I was expecting more investigating of the mystery and less gossip. I would still recommend this one though, it just wasn’t a favorite for me.

I can easily sum up my opinion of Emma Rosenblum's work: I absolutely hate her characters and LOVE her books!

This is the second book I've read by Emma Rosenblum and I really enjoyed both. Her books are dramatic and over the top. They're more b*tchy than suspenseful, but I love that about her books and think if that is your expectation, you'll enjoy it too. She writes wild casts of characters and manages to make everyone hatable (and potentially guilty!) for different reasons.

If you're looking for a dramatic thriller (heavy on the drama!) this is the perfect book to stash in your beach bag this summer.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Flatiron Books and Macmillan Audio for gifting me an audio ARC of this book by Emma Rosenblum and perfectly narrated by a favorite, January LaVoy. All opinions expressed in this review are my own - 4 stars!

The trendy tech startup, Aurora, has gathered the company's top employees for an exclusive retreat in Miami. Aurora is led by John, obsessed with all things Churchill, has just hired Caitlin as Head of Events. Caitlin is pulled in by her huge salary, stock shares and bonus so if Aurora doesn't really do events and she doesn't know what her job entails, who cares? Then another top executive goes missing - with Aurora's future on the line, everything is at stake.

While this was obviously over the top, anyone who's worked for a company is probably familiar with all this drama and forced team-building on a much smaller scale. This was like watching a train wreck - you just couldn't look away! When money and power are involved, people do bad and crazy things. There were a lot of characters here, and January LaVoy once again was outstanding.

On a tech company retreat, executives live it up-until one of them turns up dead. This story is filled with bad, unlikeable, wealthy people. It's not a mystery but a juicy, gossipy story. It was enjoyable.

Very Bad Company is indeed…very bad…at least, as a business!

I believe this is the first I’ve read by this author, but wow! Where does she come up with this stuff? And, these characters?!

Very entertaining, but also got my haunches up! There were multiple times that I wanted to reach through the book and RING OUT the boss’ neck!!

So, this very high profile, cutting edge tech company is on a retreat in Miami. We start to meet all the players… and, oh, what a group it is!!

Caitlyn, who has JUST been hired, (and will be making multiple millions for a job that doesn’t even exist on the books!!) is invited too.

But, once they all get there, things start to get weird…
One of the top/ high tier executives goes missing.

Yes, this is how the book opens…

I’ll leave it here, but just know that this one has MULTIPLE PLAYERS who ALL seem very greedy!

But the craziest one is the head honcho, John! And he seems to be going off the deep end, repeatedly…

3 1/2 ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 for me, rounded up to 4.
It is due out in a few days on 5/14/24.

⭐️. Absolutely CRAZY male main character! (MMC)
⭐️. Terrific female main character (FMC)
⭐️. Crazy supporting characters/staff too!!
💫 Promises made for large sums of $$…Can they be kept? And…it takes place in Miami!!

#VeryBadCompany by#EmmaRosenblum and read expertly by #JanuaryLaVoy! I mean, she actually COULD read a phone book, and get you interested in listening to it!!

Thanks so much to #NetGalley and #MacmillanAudio for an ARC of the audiobook, in exchange for an honest review.

Emma Rosenblum knows how to write about bad people! I loved Bad Summer People and couldn’t wait to listen to Very Bad Company. In typical Rosenblum fashion, these characters are behaving very badly and something about that has me all in! If you liked Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson, you may enjoy this one!

Aurora is a tech company on an exclusive executive retreat in Miami. John, their egotistical boss makes a big announcement, but the retreat takes a twisty turn when one of the employees goes missing.

This book has a cast of characters that have some very questionable morality and it makes for page turning excitement. January Lavoy does a great job narrating this cast of characters.

Pick this up for an entertaining listen about bad people.

This book unfortunately wasn't for me. I nearly decided to put it aside and not finish it, but decided to continue through because I was somewhat interested in finding out how everything would end up. I generally have trouble with books/TV shows that are full of people who are kind of rotten and this one is one of those, so it's nothing against the writing, it's just not my style of story.