For me, this was a roller coaster ride to read. Parts of this book I liked while other parts I found to be either very boring, or just out right annoying. I could break this down into thirds. The first third struck me as being quite boring and even somewhat sophomoric. All necessary though to set the stage for the rest of the book. It was just tedious to get to the meat of the story.

Once I got to the second third, things got interesting. It's the part that seemed to be what the entire book centered around, but that really wasn't the case. In fact, if this story stuck with what happens in that portion of the book, I would have liked it much better. Could have been filled out much more to make it more interesting. Some of the details were blown through or even just ignored. But there was an interesting story there that just needed more fleshing out.

The last third of the book totally lost me. As things evolved, I wasn't convinced that the author really knew where she was going with this and how it should have been revealed. In fact, it was somewhat confusing as to what the main theme of the book was as there seemed to be a few different ideas meshed and even forced together in a manner that left me cold.

Though the first two thirds of the book had elements that all worked together, by the time the story got to the final third, it was all over the place. Some of which ended up having me very much dislike the main character, Rachel whom I liked up until after what seemed to be the main event had taken place. Too much scattering and choices that made me want to slap her silly. Thankfully, she's not a real person.

All in all, the book reminded me of loose chains left in one's drawer to only become all knotted up with each other. A mess of a story that just left me disgusted.

Thanks to NetGalley for giving me a copy of the eBook in lieu of a review.

A debut novel with a grasp on style and enough interesting imagery to keep reading. I enjoyed some of the characterization. The main character's relationship with her family, especially her sister, was really interesting to me.

Rachel Fiske, on the cusp of adulthood, finds herself drawn into the world of her enigmatic aunt and uncle, only to discover that beneath the glamour lies a web of secrets. Her growing connection with Claudia, the family’s babysitter, offers solace and longing until a sudden tragedy shatters the illusion of control.

The writing is lush and evocative, capturing the heady mix of youthful idealism and the sobering weight of consequence. As Rachel grapples with loyalty, love, and the crushing influence of power, the novel masterfully explores the choices that define us and the gray areas between truth and self-preservation.

Heart-wrenching and beautifully written, this book lingers long after the final page.

The publisher provided ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

A much needed book - pointing out red flags, people! RED FLAGS!
Thank you, Kate - for the bravery of writing what we talk about as young women. The men to stay away from. Why we want their attention. Calling out what is socially acceptable behavior that is grooming.
Take notice!

I couldn't put this book down - the slow burn to the climax was masterfully done and (no spoilers!) I loved the ending. Impressed by this debut and can easily see this hitting TV screens someday.

Wow-I literally read this book in a day because I couldn’t put it down. Katie Broad’s debut novel was simply a masterful piece of family suspense. Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced read.

Greenwich is a profound, thought-provoking book perfect for book club discussions about wealth, race, privilege and responsibilities.. There's a quiet build-uo leasing towards a life-changing moment. I kept trying to predict what was going to go wrong.

Claudia is the most redeeming character. The Corbin's are very stereotypical. Rachel has major issues and by the end is pitiful.

An absorbing exploration of class differences, privilege, yearning, regret, and the consequences of complicity, GREENWICH takes readers back to the summer of 1999, when Rachel Fiske, a rising college freshman, arrives at her aunt and uncle's luxurious mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut. Rachel's aunt is still healing from an injury, and Rachel is eager to help—and escape her own stresses back home. With her aunt and uncle preoccupied with their own issues, however, Rachel feels just as lonely and isolated as she did before. Enter Claudia, a recent college graduate who dreams of becoming an artist and is now the live-in babysitter for Rachel's cousin. As the summer goes on, Rachel's bond with Claudia deepens, but a tragic accident changes everything, as the family turns on Claudia in the hopes of keeping their reputation intact. Caught in the middle of her family and Claudia, Rachel is faced with a difficult choice...and the consequences might reach even farther than she could have imagined.

I always enjoy a domestic drama, and GREENWICH certainly delivered on that front. The story is very character-driven, and the pacing may feel a little slow initially, but I thought it worked well in gradually drawing readers' into the characters' world. Rachel is a fascinating protagonist in that she isn't entirely unlikable, but she can also be difficult to sympathize with, which only made her character all the more layered and complex. I wished certain aspects of her story had been a little more fleshed-out (like her relationship with her sister, for example), but I felt like that was almost purposeful—readers don't know everything about Rachel because she's still uncertain about herself, she's still figuring things out, etc., she's an outsider even to herself, in some ways. I also appreciated that we got several chapters covering the aftermath of the pivotal event, seeing how Rachel's decisions still affected her throughout college and well into adulthood. The ending was very well-done, too! Sometimes I felt like there were almost too many hints/foreshadowing about something going wrong, but on the other hand, that really built up an ominous feel surrounding the summer and the seemingly-perfect world of Greenwich. Overall, I enjoyed this one, and could definitely see it being brought from page to screen in the vein of shows like Little Fires Everywhere and Big Little Lies! Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC.

This is a fast paced novel that begins in Greenwich, Conn. in 1999. The story follows Racheal, who chooses to spend the summer helping care for her young cousin. It’s hard to review this book without giving away important plot points. I thought the book moved quickly and I was invested in seeing where the story would lead. This is a character driven book, with characters who are deeply flawed. We follow Racheal from seventeen through her thirties, with a view into how her actions impact her life.
Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for this ARC.

What was most intriguing to me about this novel was where I thought the characters' arcs would go, where I found myself wanting and expecting them to go, and where they ultimately ended up. The novel tackles racism and class and corruption from the inside of a tragedy, which becomes yet another tragedy, and the narrator's complicity and understanding as well as her lack of understanding of that complicity is explored in a way that kept me interested until the last page.

Kate Broad's Greenwich was a masterclass in slow building domestic tension. The novel follows recent high-school grad Rachel, while she spends her summer break in Greenwich, CT, with her wealthy aunt and uncle, Ellen and Laurent, their young daughter Sabine, and their live-in au pair, Claudia. From the first page we know that disaster looms imminently on the horizon for the family depicted in Greenwich. Each long summer day feels as if it drags on, adding to the tension simmering just beneath the surface. As the narrative reaches its crescendo, (without spoiling anything) everything happens very quickly. The perfect bubble of domesticity that the family has been preserving has been temporarily burst, and they will stop at nothing to restore their family name.

I read Greenwich in one straight marathon session, from cover to cover over the course of a day. I was completely absorbed waiting for the shoe to drop. Though the pacing was uneven throughout the novel, I thought it lended itself to the events of the story very nicely. The characters stayed true to self until the end. I found the narrator, Rachel, to be unlikeable; she was self-sabotaging yet consistently depicted herself as a victim and I felt in the wrong in moments where I briefly sympathized with her. Overall, I thought this was a really impressive debut, and the book read like a movie so I'm crossing my fingers for a big-screen adaptation! I think fans of Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng, Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid, While We Were Burning by Sara Koffi, and the movie Saltburn will also enjoy Greenwich. Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and Kate Broad for an advanced copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

I normally like stories like this, but this didn’t do much for me. It felt slow and didn’t have any characters that I was particularly rooting for but I do think this will be a big seller and glad for the chance to have read. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC.

(3.5 rounded up) The blurb for this novel likens it to Celeste Ng’s novels, which I think is spot-on. This is an interior, coming-of-age drama with a lot to say about privilege and the insularity of wealth. A young woman, Rachel, goes to stay with her aunt and her family in Greenwich, CT and befriends another young woman, Claudia, who is working as a babysitter for her aunt’s family. A tragedy occurs and Rachel’s family turns on Claudia, who has none of the privileges and protections that wealth affords. The first half of this is quite slow, but the pacing felt right to me. The characters are the focus here and the attention to them slackens the pace, but not in a bad way. The writing is really beautiful but my one complaint about it is how often we are told about this tragedy that occurs - there is near-constant foreshadowing, and at a certain point, I was frustrated with mentions of it. Otherwise, I thought this was really well-executed and I’m glad I read it.

I read this book at the beginning of January 2025 and I still think about it often. Great story and I truly believe it'll be a great seller!

Greenwich, by Kate Broad, is a solid, well written, intriguing, keep you guessing novel. It does not feel like a debut novel. The story is well told and it was a pleasure to read the prose. The narrator, Rachel Fiske, is a complicated, fully developed character. Her voice is authentic. Her age plays into the story and Ms. Broad did an excellent job of personifying a person on the cusp of adulthood, thinking she is mature but clearly lacks the experience and knowledge to truly be so.

The family members are not difficult to keep track of and they all play important roles. I recommend this book to fans of Kristen Hannah and other such talented authors. I look forward to Kate Broad's next book.

Thank you to the author, St. Martin's Press, and NetGalley for the ARC.

Greenwich is more than just a coming of age story. It is a riveting book that explores race, class, and privilege. Author Kate Broad paints a masterful picture. Did I love the individual characters? No. Did I love this book? Absolutely.

I normally like stories about rich people behaving badly, but this didn’t do much for me. The writing was good,but not spectacular, and the characters (aside from the three-year-old) were all horrible in a way that was neither interesting nor fun to read about. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC.

Greenwich by Kate Broad seemed like it was going to be a good read for me but it just wasn't. Too many storylines kept me confused as to what the point was. I didn't find any of the characters to be redeeming which I think may have been the point but it was just a bit too much. There would definitely be a lot to discuss in a book club setting. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the gifted copy.

I received a free eARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. I can’t really remember what made me request this one in the first place! The pub date is far enough out that I probably didn’t hear about it on a book blog or in Kirkus, and it’s a debut novel, so it’s not an author I was actively following. I guess the cover is sort of striking, and I do love books about rich people behaving badly? (although that’s not really what this is about)

I was talking to my teen librarian just this week about books that make us question who the audience is meant to be. Obviously she reads a lot of YA, and she mentioned it was refreshing to read books about teens who…seem like actual teens. I kept thinking this was perhaps meant to be young adult, as the protagonist is a teenager for the majority of the narrative, but it doesn’t *read* like a YA book, if that makes sense. The narrative voice sounds more like an adult reflecting on their teen years (which is the intent). But it’s still fundamentally *about* a teenager, so…? Perhaps it’s in that weird nebulous “new adult” category that never really became a thing.

Ahem. Anyway. Our protagonist is Rachel Fiske. It’s 1999 and she’s just graduated high school AND managed to alienate her friend group, so she concocts a scheme to get out of town for the summer. Her fancy aunt in Greenwich is recovering from some sort of injury (she fell off a horse so…hips, back?) and Rachel convinces her mother to send her to Greenwich for the summer to “help aunt Ellen”. Ellen, of course, has the means to hire full time help, but given that Rachel’s younger sister is also going through cancer treatments, her parents are kinda eager to just get her out of the way and have one less kid to worry about for a bit. Once Rachel gets to Greenwich she’s immediately disappointed - her aunt is even spacier than usual, and she doesn’t seem all that interested in hanging out. But a bright spot quickly develops - Claudia, the babysitter Ellen hired to look after her young daughter Sabine. Claudia is a senior in college, so she’s *just* old enough to appear really worldly and exciting to Rachel. Claudia’s also Black, so it gives Ellen a chance to pat herself on the back for her diversity hire. The two girls seemingly bond as Rachel helps her look after Sabine, and although Claudia at first seems like she’s trying to keep a professional distance, she does eventually start socializing with Rachel on her own (probably because she’s desperate for someone to talk to). Rachel falls for her pretty hard, but it’s unclear where Claudia stands.

Since the story is being told by adult Rachel, we know this summer is heading for some kind of tragedy, and that Claudia and Rachel herself both had a role in it. Without giving too much away, Rachel drops references to “later” and “during the trial”, so there’s also this weird sense of dread as the story goes on. We do eventually “catch up” to the present day, but I found those chapters significantly weaker than the first 3/4 of the novel. I can’t decide if I’d have preferred Broad to split the narrative more evenly, or if we didn’t really even *need* some of those later chapters at all.

But this is a fascinating story about privilege and how it manifests in different ways. It’s a bit like Such a Fun Age from the other side. But I appreciate that Broad isn’t letting Rachel off the hook. She’s not exactly unlikable, but it’s pretty hard to sympathize with her and I think that’s the point. You can see *why* she makes the choices she does, but that doesn’t make them excusable. There’s a lovely quote from Linda Holmes, in her review of the season 1 finale of The White Lotus that I think perfectly sums up this book - The road to villainy begins, often, not with hectoring and not with insults, but with the quieter act of choosing your own comfort over what you know to be right enough times in a row.

Greenwich is Broad's debut novel which follows seventeen year old Rachel over the course of a life-changing summer in the late 1990s. I enjoyed the perspective, that of a teenager from Massachusetts in the 1990s since I was also a teenager in Massachusetts in the 1990s, so I can speak to many of the references being authentic. To be fair, most of the book is set in Greenwich, Connecticut, known as an extremely wealthy enclave where many financially elite people live in order to commute to New York City. Here, Rachel lives with her privileged aunt and uncle (the Corbins), her three year old cousin Sabine, and Sabine's Black nanny, Claudia. She is purportedly keeping an eye on her aunt (facing chronic pain after an accident) for her mother, while her mother cares for Rachel's younger sister, battling cancer. Rachel quickly observes her aunt, Ellen, acting strangely, and it isn't long before she discovers why. Meanwhile, Rachel develops feelings for Claudia, and life becomes complicated. A tragic accident occurs and this is where the tensions of the novel really develop - the frictions between being white and wealthy versus being the Black "help." Claudia is certainly educated and not from poverty, but still lives a life of stark contrast to the Corbins. I enjoyed that the novel asked a lot of big questions without coming across as sanctimonious or being too black-and-white. The novel is more of a slow-burn than a page-turner, but always an enjoyable and insightful read.