Be careful what you wish for…

Alternating between the summer of 2000 and the winter of 2019, this fantastic atmospheric psychological thriller explores a devastating secret that threatens to rip the glamorous Whitlam family apart.

It all begins when 16-year-old Lucy Ross is invited to a party at the Whitlam remote clifftop mansion. What should have been a memorable evening turns into one that will haunt her for years - she sees something she shouldn’t have seen. Two decades later, Lucy finds herself in Queen’s Point again when a body washes ashore. As if this wasn’t devastating enough, it puts Lucy in a predicament: reveal what she saw 20 years ago or protect loved ones?

You’ll have to read to find out what really happened at Queen’s Point!

Are you prepared for an emotional roller-coaster ride? Heath has a fantastic journey planned for you. Not only does the journey allow you to experience a wide range of emotions, it also flips back in time. One would think with all this back and forth the whiplash would curb interest. It doesn’t. You are along for the ride as Lucy struggles with detaching herself from Whitlam’s allure and making an effort to search for the truth. With hindsight, Lucy realizes how enigmatic this family is and that she can no longer turn a blind eye to the secrets they want to keep hidden.

The writing is sublime. The twists were unpredictable. The characters were wonderful. I didn’t want this story to end.

I was gifted this copy by Aria & Aries, Head of Zeus and NetGalley and was under no obligation to provide a review.

Set in the fictional town of Queens Point on the Yorke Peninsula of South Australia, this is the story of Lucy Ross who returns to the town to clear out her grandmother’s house after her death. Lucy’s grandmother worked for the internationally famous and wealthy Whitlam family whose property adjoins Lucy’s grandmother’s. This brings back many memories for Lucy who as a teenager spent much time in the company of the three Whitlam children. At the same time, the town is enveloped in the mystery of human remains that have been uncovered by a recent storm.

I enjoyed this very much especially the mystery of the human remains and the class differences between Lucy and the Whitlams. But as a South Australian familiar with the Yorke Peninsula, I did find it a stretch to imagine the fictional town of Queens Point. But this is well plotted and an intriguing read, perfect for summer.

An author I haven’t read before with an interesting plotted mystery set in South Australia. I was expecting warm beachy, but no, it was a cold coastal area. There was alternating POV's between characters, present day and the year 2000, before and after the pivotal end of summer party.
Lucy has to return and clean out her grandmother’s small cottage after her passing. Lucy is sorting, cleaning and donating her grandmother’s items in the cottage. Her grandmother worked for the wealthy Whitlam’s as household staff. She’s going back to where one teenage summer altered everything. Her path in life reflects how she perceived the well to do Whitlam family living in the mansion up the hill. The perfect large estate, staff, pool, clothes, snacks and freedom. Lucy worked hard to achieve the status she saw as the Whitlam’s “perfect” life.
Mrs. Whitlam left the night of the party, traveling extensively, not really seen since. Without revealing any spoilers there is a well constructed plot full of intrigue and family drama along with a house full of secrets, liars and cover-ups. The perfect Whitlam family has some cracks. The now adult children vary from a drinking/drug using artist, a married mother of three and the tyrant mother’s replacement who’s running the estate just like her mother.
Lucy is hard working and likable until you discover her obsession to attain the status and wealth she saw at that home. A lesson on choosing who to idolize and imitate. She reconnects with many of the people from that summer. One is Jake who’s the local Police Sergeant and she continues making bad decisions when it comes to her love life. Strange incidents occur at the cottage and it gives you some creepy terrifying “someone’s watching me” moments.
The pace was slow for me at first but, as the pieces begin to fit it became impossible to put down. There were characters I will remember as well as an author I would read again.
Thank you to NetGalley for the digital advance reader copy of “The Summer Party” by Rebecca Heath, and to Aria and Aries. These are all my own honest personal thoughts and opinions given voluntarily without compensation.

Quick, fast paced read. However I couldn’t find any of the characters that likeable. By the time I got to the end of the story I just didn’t feel as invested as the beginning.

This was a great read and a great book by a debut author. I enjoyed the fast pace and I have always enjoyed an atmospheric thriller. The dual timeline has been done a lot recently, but it didn’t take anything away from this book. The past has a lot of secrets and they are about to be discovered. Definitely will recommend this book to friends!

A seemingly perfect family is hiding a huge secret. When Lucy returns to Queen’s Point to sort out her late grandmother’s belongings, she gets sucked back into the intrigue of the Whitlam family. She spent a summer there 20 years ago and secrets from that summer are coming to the surface, as a woman’s body is discovered near the Whitlam property. Is it just coincidence that Lucy is back in town for this discovery, or is there something sinister going on?

The concept of this book was really good, however I felt the execution was a little off. There were way too many “suspects” to keep up with. I couldn’t keep everyone’s stories straight! Maybe it was just me, but I just didn’t feel the anticipation in this one. Also, I thought Lucy’s dead husband was totally irrelevant. That situation just felt really distracting and unnecessary. My favorite part about the book was the reveal at the very end, so I’m glad I finished it. Overall, not my favorite thriller, but a decent read.

I was so excited to start this one.

The Summer Party by Rebecca Heath is a enthralling debut.

The characters are well protrayed. The Whitlam family and Lucy are exactly the type of characters I love reading about!
I enjoyed the dual timelines. Summer 2000 and Winter 2019.
The Australian setting and multiple perspectives really set the stage here.
Page by page I was drawn farther in to the twists and turns of this story.
Well written with vivid characterisation and plenty of plot twists to keep the reader hooked to the very last, shocking page.
A story about family, secrets and lies always make for a great read!
And this was a wonderful read.

'A perfect family. A devastating secret.'

"I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own."

Aria & Aries,
Thank You for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this eARC!

This book kept going back and forth to much to be able to keep up with all the details. It was a good story but I think keeping it in the present time and then just throwing in memories would have been way better instead of going back and forth every few chapters.

an intriguing and captivating read that that I really enjoyed. it was really well paced and was a story told well by the author

I got this ARC from #NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.There are 2 different timelines in this book,the summer of 2000 and present day 20 years later.This was a great story with lots of twists and surprises.I read it in one sitting.

This was a fast easy read. It is a mystery but it didn't draw me in. It felt more like a romance and more on the naive side of things. I think others have and will like it more than i did

The Summer Party - Rebecca Heath

3.5⭐️

This was a fun summer thriller, based in Australia, which was a big point for me.

19 years after attending a summer party Lucy finds herself back in the same town where things seem to be unravelling quickly.

I enjoyed the main characters, the insight into their relationships and the overall suspense!

Some parts felt a bit too unbelievable for me and I got stuck on that which is what led to a bit lower of a rating. I just felt like I needed it to make more logical sense in a few places and couldn’t reconcile that even though I wanted to binge the last quarter of it.


Pub date: January 5, 2023

Thank you for the eARC @netgalley.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this ebook in exchange for my honest review.

This was a solid debut from author Rebecca Heath. A well developed mystery, with decent pacing - it wasn’t a super fast paced thriller with twists and turns that keeps you okay the edge of your seat but builds up slowly, and steadily picks up. I’ve said it in other reviews and I’ll say it again - I am a fan of multiple POVs and time periods, I think it allows the reader to piece things together with better pacing than just having everything exposed at the end. It also lets us keep guessing along the way and keeps the story fresh by building suspense in multiple timelines/POVs and the author did a really good job of that in this book.

The Summer Party is a convoluted story about a woman, Lucy, and her return trip to Queen's Point where she spent an infamous summer. She returned to pack up her grandmother's cottage after her death. It centers around a summer party where at the Whitlams house where the mother, Brooke Whitlam was murdered. The Whitlams we're a wealthy family who the town looked up to. This is also about Lucy's relationship with the Whitlams children, Mae, Harry and Annabelle. Lucy had an on again off again relationship with Harry, who was an artist. Her closest relationship was with Annabelle.

Brooke's body was found on the beach. At one point Lucy was a suspect but that was cleared up rather quickly. Over time, the police were zeroing in on who the actual killer was, but at one point they arrested Harry only to release him due to a solid alibi.

Jake was a local cop who had a fleeting flirtation with Lucy. He was one of the good guys who went a little off base.

Lucy's grandmother, Judy, was also a suspect in Lucy's mind. I would love to say more but I don't want to spoil it. There were a lot of twists and turns and potential suspects. This wasn't the best book I've read but it was very good. Good enough for five stars.

I was so torn on this book when I was writing this review. Part of me really enjoyed it and the other part of me didn’t, so apologies if that conflict shows up in this review.

The Summer Party is a mystery/suspense/thriller about Lucy and the Whitmans that starts one summer and stretches over the span of 19 years. Lucy meets the Whitmans, a wealthy family, when she’s spending a summer with her grandmother. She’s immediately enamored with the three siblings, but she’s especially impressed by the Whitman matriarch. Lucy loses contact with them after that summer, but she wishes she hadn’t and keeps tabs on them all via social media. The twists really start when Lucy goes back to the town she met the Whitmans in to clear out her grandmother’s cottage after her death—she finds a mysterious ring and local authorities have found human remains that the Whitmans seem to be tied to.

I liked the premise of The Summer Party. It was a solid suspense/thriller that had good twists and breadcrumbs for the reader. The flashbacks were a nice addition to the story, as it gave a lot of context and background.

I didn’t really like Lucy—she came off as very naive, even when she was older. Her lack of memory about certain events felt too contrived to be believable for the story.

Overall, I give The Summer Party 3.5/5. Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for the opportunity to read and review this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This is def a quick fast paced read you will not want to put down! The mystery part keeps your attention completely intact. You’ll just want to keep turning the pages to guess who did it creating so many ideas in your head and then you get to the end and it’ll blow you away. It’s such a touching wonderful mystery even though those words don’t usually go together! I wish it was longer. I can’t wait to read more from this author in the future.

It's the 'wanna be' syndrome, feeling that someone else has everything you want and need- the servant who thinks the lords of the manner have it all. Even when they don't.
Moving back home to clean house after the death of her grandmother, Lucy has to confront some terrible memories from a party many years ago. Tangled relationships, lies and betrayal confuse recollections, until the whole sordid truth comes out at last. Its not who we think or even who we want to have done it, so its fun to see how it all unfolds. '
Real.ly entertaining story, fun to read.

The Summer Party has such an intriguing blurb, that I hit the request button so quick on Netgallery. The first part of the novel was really interesting, Lucy is back to clean out her grandmother's house after she has passed. Due to a recent discovery, events from 19 years ago is on everyone's mind. Back then, Lucy was a shy girl who was desperate to hang out with the cool rich family that her grandparents worked for.

I wasn't a fan reading about current day Lucy since she had seemed to regress into her teenage self and beg for the attention of the cool kids. I was quickly tired of Lucy's desperation and I was eager to get back into the past scenes to see what happened at the summer party. I was surprised by the events of the party and the secrets that eventually came out.

Thank you to Netgallery and Aria & Aries, Head of Zeus -- an Aries Book for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Fantastic mystery! There was no puttering around with this one, as soon as you start the book you're thrust into the plot and the center of the mystery. This is my first book based in Australia and the author does a wonderful job of bringing the area to life. The pacing was a bit slow, I'm not the biggest fan of the past/present time jumps but I definitely think in this instance it adds to the suspense. I found Lucy to be a bit unlikeable and it made it a bit difficult to truly invest in the story but the writing, the clues and hints interwoven into the chapters, hooked me either way. I enjoy when everything is muddled just enough that I have a hard time settling on a suspect and this book does just that. A solid debut novel! 3.5/5.

Lucy has returned to her childhood summer home to pack up her grandmother's things. It's been months since she passed, but after some trouble at work, it's finally time. It also just so happens that a body has washed up on a beach nearby, so the timing seems coincidental at least.

In her youth, Lucy was in love with all three Whitlam siblings. Mae, with her cool, older girl ways. Annabelle was Lucy's closest friend and Harry was the most beautiful boy she had every seen. The closer she grew to each of them, the more she found out about the darkness of their family and the pain the suffered from their hateful mother.

Lucy finds herself at the center of a murder investigation...has her desire to be part of the Whitlam's come back to haunt her or is there something darker going on?

This is a fast paced thriller but left some things to be desired. I wanted more about Harry and Lucy's ongoing relationship as well as what exactly Lucy did at work. I did feel the resolution wrapped up a little too neatly.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.