On the surface, New Bethlehem, Connecticut is a perfect New York suburb. A village atmosphere, tree lined streets, an excellent school system and very little crime. That’s on the surface. Under the surface, there’s…well…a lot. Deception. Adultery. Lust. Bribery. Violence and so much more. Next to Heaven is delicious, gloriously trashy and simply marvelous!

Almost all the characters are over the top rich. The men work too hard and the women have too much time to play. When the men are at their jobs, cheating others to make more money, the women are at home, cheating on their husbands and planning a party. Although everyone in town has heard the salacious gossip, it’s a very exclusive party. It’s an old time swingers' party although with sushi, Macallen scotch and Pratesi sheets. At this party, people fall madly in love, and others leave shattered. Lives are changed, and the path to tragedy and violence quietly begins.

Next to Heaven should have a warning. Anything that might cause triggers is in this novel. I loved it! It’s a well written character study. It emphasizes societal differences. It’s a mystery and a romance. It’s suspenseful and lascivious. And it’s so readable that you will not be able to put it down. Enjoy! 5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley, Authors Equity and James Frey for this ARC.

This novel proved to be a disappointing read that failed to deliver on its promising premise. Marketed as a gripping thriller centered around a shocking murder, the book instead dedicates the majority of its pages to explicit sexual encounters between its shallow, unlikable characters. While I don't object to sexual content in literature when it serves the story, here it felt gratuitous and repetitive, often described with cringe-inducing phrases like "coconut cream explosion" that pulled me out of the narrative rather than drawing me in.

The actual murder mystery - what should have been the driving force of the plot - receives shockingly little attention. The crime occurs almost as an afterthought midway through the book, and its resolution at the end feels rushed and unsatisfying. This left me feeling misled by the book's description and frustrated by the wasted potential of what could have been an intriguing premise.

The characters, a group of wealthy socialites constantly engaged in various affairs, never evolved beyond their superficial traits. Their endless sexual escapades became tedious rather than titillating, and the detached third-person narration style prevented me from forming any emotional connection to their fates. While Frey's prose is technically competent, the writing couldn't overcome the fundamental issues with plot and characterization.

By the final chapters, I was reading more out of obligation than interest, relieved when I finally reached the last page. The book isn't completely without merit - there are moments of decent writing and some might enjoy the soap-opera style drama - but I can't recommend it to readers looking for the psychological thriller promised by its marketing.

2/5 stars - A missed opportunity that prioritizes shock value over substance

Thank you to NetGalley and Authors Equity for providing an advance copy for review purposes.

This book is SO good. I loved it. Great Gatsby meets White Lotus meets Elin Hilderbrand. I would read a million more books set in this world. THE juiciest read of the summer.

Thank you to the publisher, author and Netgally for the arc of this book!
Unfortunately (at least for now), this book is not for me. The premise is what drew me in, and I'm still really curious to know what exactly happens (and exactly how badly the rich people behave) but for now, I will be putting it on hold.

I was unable to get into the writing style. Conversations between characters that are recalled and told to the reader lack cohesion, and the way the dialogue is separated (by lines) makes it difficult to tell who said what. The author is also a fan of repetition, and short sentences to emphasize descriptions of things such as the passing of time or changes undergone by the characters, which got stale.
As I stopped very early on, I acknowledge that these are set up chapters and once the plot kicks in things will be different.
I would recommend this book to fans of domestic thrillers, or those who like to see drama, gossip and the ills of high society. The writing does seem very self aware, so maybe it is simply a matter of getting past the start of the novel.

This has something like a Bret Easten Ellis vibe, but more like Glamarama than, say, anything you would want to read. More fartsy than artsy, if you see what I mean.

This was a redemption book for me for this author. What a fantastic page turner. A great juicy read about an uber wealthy Connecticut suburb and the scandals within it. Multiple POVs, multiple couples involved so it took a few chapters to understand who was who and who was involved with each other. I loved the juicy gossip, the twist at the end. A fun read. Every character was equally either likeable or unlikable. A great vacation read.

I heard about James Frey's new book on the New York Times Book Review podcast covering "12 Summer Books We're Looking Forward To" and was pleased to be able to read a digital ARC. I found it to be very light reading, with a whodunit plot that was just compelling enough to keep me turning the pages.

Rich, beautiful, and athletically gifted characters abound in this story set in the fictional town of New Bethlehem, CT, and I had a little trouble keeping the eight characters/four couples straight—blame it on the swingers' party mixing everything up at the beginning of the novel. Some characters' purpose in the plot remains unclear to me. I found the book very repetitive at times, and thought that it reads more like a screenplay than a novel. The story actually bears a lot in common with "Your Friends and Neighbors"—the Jon Hamm crime drama on Apple TV+. Fans of that series would probably enjoy this entertaining summer book, which I was happy to have the chance to read and review. Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for letting me take an early look!

I love drama! I love watching it on TV (looking at you SLOMW) and I love reading it!

What could go wrong when a bunch of super rich couples come to a swingers party? Basically…everything. I loved the plot and the characters so much that I read this book in one day. So entertaining!!

My only negative would be the writing had a lot of repetition that didn’t make much sense and made me stop and reread several times because I felt like I had just read the sentence or phrase.

Tantalizing, fun, creative, and page-turning. I loved this book. A perfect community of rich people with their imperfect lives mix and tumble and screw each other literally and figuratively, culminating in a murder mystery. I loved the story and wanted to keep reading every time I picked up the book. The story is a masterpiece, and the writing is creative and different and a pleasure to read.

This book was a lot of incredibly messy fun. I love a story with a large cast of interwoven characters with secrets that are unveiled throughout, but the execution here didn't fully work for me. The characters were all very one note, and mostly extremes of stereotypes - incredibly rich, incredibly horny, everyone cheating on everyone, evil characters with no redeeming qualities. It sucked me in to where I wanted to know what happened, but I never felt anything for a single character. It felt kind of like it was written by the stereotype of a frat bro. Come for the plot, but not for the nuance.

This book is wild, and while I was expecting that, it was a little too chaotic for my liking.

Next to Heaven is a book about the richest of the rich behaving badly. When one person in town decides to have a swingers party, the fallout from the party reverberates throughout the rest of all of their lives, eventually leading to murder.

I loved the short chapters and the quick storyline, however the large number of characters made it pretty impossible to keep track of them all.

Did I love this book- definitely not, but it did keep my interest enough for me to finish it in a few hours.

It’s a solid fun book if you are looking to get out of a reading slump or enjoy chaotic reality t.v.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

A delightful, nasty little gem of a book about sex, money, and murder among the top 1% in Connecticut. Frey nails the tone of the more superficial set. I was hoping this book would be reminiscent of Bret Easton Ellis' Glamorama, and it is, to some extent, but in Frey's particular writing style. Yes. It is lengthy and yes there is repetition but that's his style and I loved it, particularly as voiced by the dazzling Gina Gershon in audiobook form. Gershon's winking, slightly sarcastic, omniscient tone really added to my enjoyment of the snarkiness.

Other readers are correct that it takes awhile to set up the murder plot, but the gossip was so good and the characters so intriguing (even the horrible ones -- and there are many) that I didn't mind. I was fascinated by the descriptions of the wealthy Connecticut dwellers and their very superficial, mostly pretty sad, but also comfortable, lives.

I haven't read a lot of James Frey but I really enjoyed his writing style, his descriptive embellishments, his ridiculous characters and his interesting voice. I would like to read more books by him and I'll definitely look for more audiobooks voiced by Gershon, who was a real treat. A perfect summer beach read with bite and intelligence.

One of my first ARCs in 2025, as I get back into the swing of my reading habit! Thank you, Netgalley, for providing this in exchange for an honest review.

I began reading this book while also binge-watching A Perfect Couple on Netflix, riding high on the interest in a whodunit surrounding the obnoxiously rich. I get that ARCs are uncorrected, but the sheer number of grammatical errors and formatting issues makes me very unsure of how all of this is going to be fixed. But even if this polish is achieved, the story itself falls flat, there are way too many descriptions to the point that it becomes repetitive, and ultimately feels completely irrelevant to the character's development and the plot. Unfortunately, not an enjoyable read.

I received a copy to review. All opinions are my own. When some high roller posh individual’s lives intersect in a salacious way it causes some major fallout with plenty of drama and even a tragedy. This book had great character development and the way in which it was narrated made it easy to read and follow. I liked the twisty drama of this book and the cover alone was pretty attractive.

If I could sum up Next To Heaven in one word it would be repetitious.

There is so much repetition that it if were removed the book would be at least 20 pages shorter, and I’m being generous. That’s bad enough but when you factor in clunky run-on sentences with odd punctuation choices, or punctuation that is missing entirely, it becomes a struggle to read.

“His fund grew to three billion four billion six eight ten fourteen. Their fortune grew five hundred million one point five billion three.”

See what I mean?

As ARC readers we are supposed to gloss over things that will hopefully be fixed prior to release, but there’s just so much here that needs reworking and tightening up that it’s incredibly hard to disregard. This manner of writing makes reading the book a chore.

“The town protects the land and limits what can be done with it and on it, and bobcats, bears, packs of coyotes and coywolves, herds of deer, wild turkeys, hawks eagles ducks geese and owls are regularly seen going about their business.”

Honestly, sometimes reading this book makes me feel like I’m having a stroke.

Then we have the massive info dumps among the myriad of run on sentences. Now, I understand why Frey is writing in this manner; he wants to give out as much information as possible without burying the reader in paragraph upon paragraph of details. Unfortunately, it can become incredibly irksome to read. Like this example:

“She gained three times the weight, she was depressed, rashes came and went, she had abdominal pains, migraines, there were days she couldn’t get out of bed, it all compounded, each issue made the other worse, she was scared, so scared, she was so so very scared.”

There are long rambling chapters of characters’ backgrounds and their relationships interspersed with chunks of information on new characters which doesn’t lend to a smoothly flowing story. The reader is subjected to lengthy background information drops about a character or two, and then more characters are introduced without the story moving forward.

There’s also A LOT of nonessential information about the town of New Bethlehem that completely drags down the story. The long winded sections about the origin of the town as well as the chapters on zoning laws or the history of the 2 grocery stores are completely unnecessary, and they only stop what little momentum that Frey manages to create.

At 47% and nothing has really happened. Frey finally gets around to the plot of the book and immediately after he takes a detour at the next chapter to talk about New Bethlehem’s extensive parks and lands rather than simply having the characters meet there like usual.
Later on we have 3 pages of terrible poetry about how beautiful Connecticut is… Was there an editor?

I personally don’t think this book is trashy or sexy like some reviews have stated, and there’s really not much smut (it’s spice adjacent I would say). Trashy seems to be the buzzword attached to it but there’s too much needless padding of boring details for it to elicit that response, imo. There is a section where a man refers to his genitalia as a “yogurt cannon”, but that’s just cringeworthy and gross. Comparing this to White Lotus is extremely generous… White Lotus is interesting, twisty, and entertaining, whereas this is simply rambling and tedious.

The murder finally occurs at 73%, and you don’t find out who did it until 97%, although it’s so obvious who it was and why. So much of Next To Heaven could have and should have been edited out. To say that I disliked this book is an understatement.

If you like reading about wealthy people thinking they are above others as well as the law, reading run on sentences about grocery stores and what animals live in a fictional town, and reading lots of superfluous details that have nothing to do with the plot, then maybe you will enjoy this book. As stated earlier there’s mild spice, most of it is closed door and just mentioned in passing, but it’s there.

I know I read an uncorrected proof, however the punctuation (or lack thereof) and odd grammar choices seems intentional. It’s been decades since I read anything by Frey (I read his infamous debut book when it was first published and vividly recall the media hullabaloo that ensued), so I don’t know if this is just how he writes or if it’s a stylistic choice specifically for this book. Either way, it’s awful.

I received an ARC of this book via NetGalley and Authors Equity, however this review is completely my own unbiased personal opinion, left of my own volition.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC! Unfortunately, it was not for me. I was very excited about to try out what seemingly was a sexy and unique tale of riches, murder, and deceit, but, I really couldn’t buy in to this one. The writing style was unique and distracting (short and to the point and then long runs of descriptors).

I am sure there will be individuals out there who eat this up! I just unfortunately wasn’t one of them.

This one was a DNF for me. Too many characters, the plot too convoluted, needed something to happen sooner. The writing style was fun and engaging, but not enough to keep me going given plot/characters.

Next to Heaven

The book is about a bunch of rich people that live in an exclusive area, they get bored of their lives and a swingers party is thrown… someone dies.

The synopsis had me intrigued but I don’t think this book is for me. It was very hard to follow the character development and honestly i hated every single character. The formatting of the book also threw me off and made it hard to follow the characters as they were lead to the attendance of the party. I kept forgetting who was who and who was married to who and who was matched at the party. It was just not an enjoyable book for me.

A riveting return from James Frey that kept me turning the pages well after midnight. The characters are reprehensible, but somehow, you can't help but love them a little bit. I'm so glad this book exists in the world.

Next to Heaven’s opening chapters unfurl like a Dramatis Personae: by establishing the principal players of a story reminiscent of Bad Little Lies, meets the whodunnit of a Poirot case.
This was my first experience reading James Frey, and the premise alone made me root for this book. I ended up enjoying only 30–40% of it, though.
Most of my criticisms of this book are based on personal preference. I prefer my books with more grammatical structure. Although I appreciated Frey’s freer, less constrained style of prose, I believe this book could have benefited from greater grammatical rigidity, but more importantly, a keener eye during the editing phase.
The story appears to move in a linear fashion until we near the main inciting incident: the swingers’ party at the McCallisters’. It is around then that, in an effort to maintain suspense, the plot-line wires start to cross and become too intertwined and convoluted. The convolution and confusion got to a point where Devon’s children were confused for Grace’s, and characters’ names were misspelled, which naturally broke the spell of immersion for me.
One of my bigger critiques, following the editing thread, is that Frey loves repetition. It adds a great sense of rhythm to his story. I can appreciate the swaying boat sensation when we know to expect an oncoming storm. But, and this may be a Frey-novice’s outside perspective, at what point does the repetitiveness of repletion go from being clever to tiring word count filler?
I reiterate my sentiments from earlier: I really wanted to enjoy this book, and perhaps it was the wrong James Frey novel to read as a first, but this review is a reflection of my experience and taste. Nothing more. Would I recommend it to fellow readers? Only if I was confident their tastes and ‘book rec needs’ matched what Next to Heaven had to offer.