I picked up this book on a whim. It is about an exclusive club on an island accessible by a road that is cover by the tide part of the time or helicopter. It’s opening weekend and the most elite of the elite are there. All phones are collected upon arrival so people can be themselves without worry about pictures. What could go wrong?

What I loved most about the book was all the twists. They just kept coming! The story is also told between chapters by a news article that interviews the guests and explains a little of what is happening after the weekend is over. This was interesting and provided valuable background. I enjoyed the pace of the book, which is easy to follow.
Thank you the the publisher for an advanced reading copy.

I LOVE this book!!! Like their last book, Ellery Lloyd wrote very unlikable characters, which I LOVE. They’re so fascinating! And a few who are very likable but I’ll leave it up to you to decide which are which! I personally am a HUGE fan of unlikable characters. There’s something about the despicable traits that just pull me in! I also love multiple POV and this book delivers in spades!
I don’t want to spoil anything but the very last sentence of the book made the entire book absolutely phenomenal!!!

Well this was a bit of a disappointment. I actually had high hopes for this book even though I haven't read their other book, the premise and synopsis intrigued me and I was really excited to read it.

This book is about an exclusive celebrity club with locations across the world that have the most luxurious accommodations you could possibly imagine. The owner Ned is opening a new location and has planned a three-day launch party to celebrate with only the top A-list celebrities on the list. But mysterious things begin happening and everyone has something to hide, including his staff. Then the bodies begin piling up and everyone's secrets are about to be exposed.

The book was told from 5 point of views which was a little much for me, I couldn't keep the character's names straight with the story that matched up with them. I had to constantly go back to see whose chapter I was on until I got used to their voices and mannerisms. All of the characters were fine but the main thing about this book that I didn't like was how much it dragged for me. It felt really drawn out when just trying to explain the smallest thing and with so many different characters even outside of the main characters, this was a difficult read.

I knew going into this book it wasn't going to be a thriller, it was more of a mystery but you have to make it through almost 75% of the book before anything starts really happening. Little tidbits are dropped here and there but for the exciting parts of the book you have to slog through a lot.

Maybe celebrity, drama-filled mysteries just aren't for me. I contemplated DNFing this book numerous times but decided just to power through and get it done. This is a book I will quickly forget I ever read even if the writing style wasn't the worst I've ever read.

*Many thanks to Harper Collins for the gifted copy for my honest review*

A twisty thriller located at a prestigious club for only the richest and most exclusive guests. I couldn't put the book down once I started (seriously I finished it in a day). The multiple POVs kept me interested. The epilogue was wonderful. 3.5/5 stars for me.

How much do you want to be part of “the club”? Intrigue and mystery surround this thriller about an exclusive and elitist club for celebrities who are just dying to join. On an isolated island off the coast of England, there is a launch weekend of the newest exclusive Island Home resort led by Ned Grooms, a narcissistic and very controlling CEO. Everyone who is anyone wants to be included. Arriving first are the A-listers of the Home Group: Keith - a voyeuristic photographer, Kurt - son of a former member, Jackson - also known as Captain Aquatic, and Freddie - a talk show host and presented with an opportunity that they won’t be able to turn down. Ned’s loyal staff consists of Annie Sparks who really is the force behind all the day to day mechanisms; Nikki, his young and dedicated PA; Jess, the newly appointed head of housekeeping; and Adam, his brother who has always done everything his brother has told him to do. But each have secrets of their own and have their own agendas. When things begin to get out of control, suddenly everyone wants to leave. But, before the weekend is out, not everyone will leave the island alive.
This story is a page turner as it keeps you on the edge of your seat and engaged. I love how the POV changes from chapter to chapter to give the reader a keen insight to the varying characters. The author has written characters who are multi-dimensional and complex. Reminiscent of a good Agatha Christie with all the suspects looked in a room, the twists at the end are a doozy. I loved this book and if you like a good whodunit, then think you will too.

Many thanks to #netgalley, #theclub #ellerylloyd for the opportunity to read and review this book.

The Home is a group of worldwide resorts for the rich and famous. Run by Ned Groom and his brother Adam, they're the place everyone wants to be invited to. And Island Home is the ultimate Home getaway. But the weekend of the opening, things aren't all that they seem, and people start dying. One by one.

This book has a wonderful cast of nasty characters, a tense atmosphere, and a fast-moving plot. If you like isolated, closed-circle mysteries, this will be perfect for you. I highly recommend it.

When I walk into the club ... all eyes on ME.

This is very much how Ned Groom, owner of the luxurious, incredibly elite chain of Home clubs, feels when he walks into one of the locations. He likes to be the center of attention and when things don't go his way he can throw the biggest tantrum. Yet, if you're not at one of his clubs, then are you really somebody?

Told from different pov's we get pieces of a story that spans decades. This felt more like a heavy drama laced with mystery. The start is slow, and the pacing a bit off until you reach over the halfway mark and the ending was a bit predictable.

Jess, a girl trying to better her life and leave the past. Nikki, the PA to Ned, who is fiercely loyal when you are good to her. Adam, the younger brother living in Ned's shadow his whole life. Annie, who plays a role for Home that makes her the person to know. These characters tell us a story of blackmail, betrayal and murder!

I liked the idea here and would have liked to see it paced out differently and be geared more thriller with an active killer people are aware of. That said, if you are the type that likes to sit with some popcorn when drama unfolds, then give this one a go!

Thank you so much to Harper for the gifted copy!

Thank you very much to Netgalley and Harper for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.

For me, The Club had the potential to be a great thriller with a unique premise, but it lacked the execution.

My thoughts:
-there were so many characters making it difficult to follow along.
-the buildup was a bit much. I love a whodunnit but we didn’t figure out who died until almost 75% in.
-I’m a fan of straight forward, non-descriptive writing and I felt this book had too much fluff & details
-the reveals didn’t blow my mind and the ending left me wanting more

I will admit I am very picky when it comes to thrillers and while this wasn’t my cup of tea, I know many will enjoy it! If you like, descriptive writing, a slow burn, and a unique plot then give The Club a read!

Huge amount of thanks to NetGalley and Harper publishing for an advance copy of this book in exchange for my opinion.
The Club is exactly that. An exclusive club for the most elite celebrities. The cover says ‘everyone’s dying to join’ and the body count within the span of a few days is impressive.
The amount of twists, turns, and secrets within this story are amazing. Each one is intertwined with another secret. A little bit of a slow burn, but when it catches, it blazes.
Really enjoyed it, highly recommend picking it up on March 1

Celebrities and staff behaving badly at the opening event of an exclusive island club. There are multiple characters and POVs, and many well-plotted twists and turns. You'll see some of them coming, but in a book like this, you will still get to be surprised.

I would place this book in one of my favorite categories--what I like to call the "luxury thriller". These books are the same as a typical mystery/thriller, but with filthy rich characters in luxurious settings. Think "Every Vow You Break" by Peter Swanson, or the book this one reminded me the most of, "The Guest List" by Lucy Foley. A great book to read by the pool on vacation.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4

going into this u thought that the people who were killed and who killed them would be the center of the book. instead the murders were the least interesting part of the story for me. by the time we got to the murders i forgot this was supposed to be a murder mystery. in all of the chapters we got 4 povs and a snippet from articles. it was a very slow and descriptive book and tbh i wasn’t interested in the articles at all (which i think were supposed to keep me engaged). in those 4 povs we got to see what secrets they were all keeping. ultimately the ending was a bit unsatisfying

I loved the way the Vanity Fair article was used to weave the background information in this book. At the beginning this functions as exposition and later on the details of the article help fill in the gaps to help solve this mystery. The book was slow in pacing and it took a while for things to really happen. I felt like fewer details would have allowed for the same plot to happen at a quicker pace. It wasn’t until after the halfway point that I really felt like there was enough information to move the plot along. Before that it felt like we were following a lot of breadcrumb trails.

I commend the writers for the way they presented these terrible characters. While I didn’t truly like any of the characters, I really felt that they were all complex.

The novel wrapped up in ways that I found to be anticlimactic. I expected that this would be more of a thriller and it didn’t really feel that way. If you’re looking for a novel on the complexity of social relationships and selfishness, this provides a good case study.

Rating: 3.5

I liked the premise of this book, but it fell short. It was overly descriptive in things not central to the plot or character arcs. It started very slow and continued that way, then the ending gave me whiplash with the plot twists. None of the twists were interesting enough to increase my rating of the book.

The Club is about Home, which are resorts for celebs and rich elites. This is a crazy story of an exclusive club with various locations around the world, where members pay dearly for doing whatever they want. This book is full of twists and turns. It's told from multiple points of view. The owner is awful, but the staff do what they must to cater to their members. It definitely moves slow for a bit. I would say around halfway through the book it picked up. Everything really comes together by the end. I enjoyed it. Definitely recommend!

"Because at this club, if your name's on the list, you're not getting out."

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and Harper Collins for the ARC!

The book is a little slow going in the beginning. There's a lot of information setting up the background of The Home Group as well as all the details about how Island Home is set up, the interior design, the owner's temper. I had a tough time getting through that part, but I'm glad I stuck with it because things started picking up about halfway through the book. Most intriguing was a Vogue article written about that weekend, which is interspersed between each chapter. It gives you just a bit of mystery and hints at what's to come, the fact that bodies start surfacing, but you don't know who or why or how. That's what really kept me reading. I needed to know what was going on. The characters are all pretty deplorable though. There was only one or two I actually liked. Celebrities, they're definitely not just like us.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins for gifting me a digital ARC of the new novel by Ellery Lloyd - 4.5 stars!

Home is a chain of ultra-exclusive clubs set in the best locations (including Upstate NY - love that!). The launch party at the newest Home on a very remote island off the English coast is the event of the year. Ned is the CEO, whom the staff alternately awe and fear; his brother, Adam, mostly does his brother's bidding. The staff is handpicked and all sign an NDA. Then there are the hand-picked guests. Everyone has a secret - and now someone - or maybe more? - is dead.

This is reminiscent of an Agatha Christie, locked room murder mystery - which I'm a huge fan of that concept. This is a bit of a slow burn, but I loved how everything unfurls to reveal all the secrets and lies - it was all excessive, over the top fun!

Home - a swanky club who only allows elite as members. It started in London, but now has many all around the world. The newest, Island Home, is having a grand opening and only the best of the best are included.

Everyone involved with Home - from the members, to the employees, to the owner - seems to have secrets. And they all seem to know secrets. Things seem to escalate quickly over the course of the weekend. Secrets are revealed. People go missing. And then things take an even more horrible turn. And not everyone who arrived at the launch will be going home alive.

I loved the multiple points of view and seeing things from different angles. I'm not sure I actually liked or trusted ANY of the narrators. But that just made it all the more interesting. Many of their stories, secrets and lies overlap. And the morals of everyone involved are questionable.

This is my first read by this duo, but I will definitely be checking out more from them.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Harper Books for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review!

The Club is one part murder mystery - like an Agatha Christie at set at Soho House - and one part social commentary on sexism and misogyny in the #metoo era. It's a whodunnit with a large rotation of POV and hidden motives, slowly revealed chronologically, with interspersed segments of future new coverage cut into the story to drive along the narrative. It felt remiencent of Sandie Jones' The Guilt Trip, Lucy Foley's The Guest List, or Peter Swanson's Every Vow You Break, but also unique on its own.

The book opens with a scene set at the height of the action - with no identifying details, just a teaser - before resetting to two days before at the beginning. The Home Group is about open its latest and greatest location in its collection of glamorous celebrity members' clubs arrayed across the globe, where the rich and famous can party hard in its five-star suites, far from the prying eyes of fans and the media. No cameras, no phones, no questions asked. This latest addition is named Island Home - a private, ultra-luxurious resort just off the English coast - and the three-day launch party is the most coveted A-list invite among the rich and famous. A very elite number of members are invited for a pre-launch dinner party, even more exclusive than the launch weekend. These members, along with a few Home employees, make up our cast of characters. It took me awhile (a few chapters) to start keeping them all straight. Ted and Adam Groom are the owners of the brand. Annie Spark is their head of membership. Nikki is Ned's personal assistant. Jess is the head of housekeeping. All of them have hidden motives for why they are there and what their agenda is going into the weekend. Kurt, Keith, Jackson and Georgia are the invited guests with secrets aplenty. As all the backstabbing and machinations play out, the tension amongst the group escalates until all hell breaks loose.

I generally really enjoyed this book. It was a clever commentary wrapped up as a murder-mystery/thriller. I saw a lot a negative posts going into this, and I have a feeling that a lot of readers may have been underestimating the commentary aspect of the book - this is not a straightforward thriller or mystery. So much of the who, what, how and why is wrapped up in that. I did find the jumping POV and "continued from" news coverage a little confusing - simply having those as part of the chapter or table of contents tabs would have made navigation a little easier, but that's something that might already be worked out in the final draft.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper for an ARC of this book.

This is an unusual story with a bizarre assortment of characters which is what makes it so entertaining. Island Home is an exclusive resort for celebrities and A-Listers. Ultra-posh where every whim is catered to and overseen by head honcho Ned, his brother Adam, Ned’s PA, Nikki, and Annie, who handles memberships. The guests are ridiculously self-centered, pampered, egotistical, all with baggage and hidden secrets and issues. The same goes for those who run the show.

When Ned sets up a blackmail scheme, centered around several of his guests’ worst secrets, the situation implodes in ugly ways. Till all is said and done, there isn’t just one body that turns up, but several.
Told from multiple third person POVs, the book also uses clips from an article about what took place on the island. There is plenty of glitz, and the twists and turns in the plot are nicely executed. It’s a little slow to get off the ground, but worth sticking with, especially when everything starts to slot into place.
If I have one quibble the book is on the wordy side. I’m a reader who loves description, but I often felt like I was wading through passages of lengthy prose, many that seemed repetitious of what came before. That aside, I would recommend The Club to those who like locked room mysteries with an eclectic assortment of characters.

The Club- a SoHo House-like, ultra-excusive resort is made to cater to the very rich and famous. The team behind the scenes is just as power hungry as their guests. Power, murder, and resort behind the scenes made this book interesting but not very good.

Each chapter changed points of view. I usually like this in a book but this one had too many narrators and I had trouble distinguishing them and keeping them separate as I was reading. I liked the character development for some of them, but I wanted more, with less voices. I liked the setting and the drama, but this book was just overall fairly mediocre.
2.75 stars

Thank you to Netgalley for the advance copy for review.