This story is an “I told you so” for anyone who has moved off grid to get away from having neighbors or even being around people.

A suffocating neighborhood where everyone is involved in everyone’s business and privacy doesn’t exist.

The Facebook community page tells us at the start that there has been a murder but then it takes almost the entire book to get to the incident. It’s a slow, slow burn.

If you like rubber necking when you pass a car crash then this one’s for you.

This is not the best suspense book I ever read, but it was very entertaining. I kept reading to find out what was going to happen. There was plenty of drama including cheating, lies, stalking, revenge, and even a death. The death happens at the beginning, but then goes back a year so that you have to keep reading to find out who died, who did it, and why. There are plenty of candidates as you learn more about this neighborhood. It reminded me a bit of Big Little Lies, though not quite as good.

You’re invited! Come to the suburbs where all is not as it seems …

The cul-de-sac on Alton Road is the scene of the annual Memorial Day block party and all is going well … until it ends in murder.

You be offered a side order of juicy gossip, a heaping spoonful of drama, a smattering of unlikeable characters, and an extra order of over-the-top scandals…everything you’d expect from this type of party. The checklist of ‘required’ topics is available, too - teen angst, philandering, drunkenness, etc.

While this may not seem any different than other books with the same setting or even similar to a block party you’ve attended (minus the death!), it will have a unique twist that will keep you guessing. I like supporting debut authors with promise and Day knows how to keep her readers guessing. Meadowbrooks has some surprises awaiting. Come and see!

If juicy gossip, wayward teens, and nosy neighbours are something you like to read about, this domestic drama debut will interest you. It’s the perfect beach read.

I was gifted this copy by St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley and was under no obligation to provide a review.

The Block Party

The Block Party is a hot mess! No wonder someone gets murdered in the opening scene. With all of the tension and drama poppin’ on that cul-de-sac it was bound to happen. Well, who gets murdered and why? The answers to these very important questions become clear as the author flips the story back a year to when trouble on the block first begins to brew.

This novel is narrated from the dual perspective of main character soon to be empty nester Alex and her seventeen-year-old daughter Lettie. Alex is the unofficial leader of her cul-de-sac community and as a result she cannot help but take a matriarchal approach to how she interacts with many of her neighbors. As a result, she is involuntarily drawn into their private lives and their darkest secrets.

While Alex is Queen Bee of the Alton Road cul-de-sac her daughter Lettie is most definitely the opposite. For the majority of the book she is focused on getting revenge on her former best friend Riley who is the reason behind her getting grounded for the summer of her junior year. Honestly, I wish Lettie’s perspective is not included in the book. I couldn’t care less about went on in her teenage world of first crushes and childhood nemeses. However, the inclusion of her viewpoint is justified once the final scene occurs and the murder victim is finally revealed.

“The Block Party “ is a pretty good summer read. Also, it will make you happy to not have neighbors like the ones in this book! Thanks, Netgalley for providing this advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

A block party. A group a friendly neighbours. Secrets. Murder. This was a good read that I enjoyed very much.

Told in the dual POV of a mother and daughter, the story recounts the year leading to the fateful block party. It felt a little stretched out sometimes, but I feel like it helped set up the mood. I was still fully entertained. I even audibly gasped at some point. Solid domestic thriller.

I enjoyed this book. It for sure kept me guessing up until close to the end and I thought the characters were well fleshed-out. I would definitely want to read another book by this author. I highly recommend!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Wow this is a great domestic suspense novel about a murder at a block party. I was invested in the story and the characters from the first page all the way through until the last page.

The setting: "The residents of the exclusive cul-de-sac on Alton Road are entangled in a web of secrets and scandal utterly unknown to the outside world, and even to each other."

A murder on the night of the annual summer block party [Memorial Day]. Go back a year earlier and learn the background of the many dysfunctional characters who inhabit the neighborhood. They include a drinker, a womanizer, a cheating spouse a controlling husband, troubled teenagers, a stalker, and more. And secrets galore. And then delve farther back into the past of many of the characters.

The novel started out so promising--setting up the thriller/mystery. BUT. I found it just kept cycyling down and I was bored. NONE of the characters were particularly likeable [MAYBE Lettie, a teenage daughter]. It did NOTHING for me. I could have put it down at any time, but persevered, the word in my head repeating: OY, OY, OY!!.

Question: would a parent be allowed to call a university and find out the status of their child's admission?

Only plus--a fast-enough read. Skip.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for my ARC in exchange for me honest review. This book will be published July 18, 2023.

Block Party centers around a neighborhood Memorial Day party and coincidentally I started reading it a few days after I attended a similar party. 😱

The book started off strong but about halfway through it started to get a bit too convoluted. There were too many characters and too many subplots. I guess that can work to keep the reader guessing but I felt it was just too much.

The ending did surprise me but by then I had lost interest.

This was a middle-of-the-road suspense for me. It had a decent, if not overly original, plot involving a neighborhood block party and a cast of sordid neighborhood characters and was mildly entertaining but it will not be a book that stands out for me a year from now.

The Block Party is easily one of my favs this year so far. Love stories about neighbors and all their dirty secrets!! The characters are great, the story was easy to follow and so well written. Lots of surprises along the way, full of suspense. this was hard to put down! Highly recommend this summer read!

I appreciate the opportunity to receive an ARC from Netgalley. I’ve never read anything by this author before and I have to say I was surprised that I didn’t like this book.

It began with a block party in a neighborhood of parents and teenagers, The main character, Alex, was becoming increasingly drunk, while her husband was becoming more and more judgmental. Then something happens, which prompts a text thread among the neighbors. And suddenly, we are transported back in time to a year before the party.

My issue was both in the pacing and the writing. It was slow for me and I didn’t find the storyline compelling at all. And the use of phrases was so sophomoric and out of character in current times anyway. The teenager’ dialogue, written in first person while everything else was third, was not the dialogue I hear from modern day teenagers at all. for examples, words and phrases like “tempest in a teapot”, “young love and naïveté go together like cookies and. milk” and at one point, a neighbor hurried back to her “abode.” If this were billed as a cozy mystery, it might have worked for me, as my expectations would have been completely different.

I couldn’t get into it easily at all and I found myself rolling my eyes and not caring at all what happened to any of them. This is definitely my opinion and I can see it has some good reviews. I’m glad as I want the author to achieve success. It just didn’t work for me at all.

This was my first book by Jamie Day but I really liked her writing style. There was a wide cast of characters in this so I was a bit afraid that I wouldn't be able to keep them straight, but the author did a great job of making their voices and personalities distinct. I found every character to be really interesting and intriguing because of all the secrets they were hiding. I liked how the stories all ended up intersecting in some way as well. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review. An exclusive cul-de-sac holds a block party for the residents every year and it is a time to relax and enjoy some drinks with your next door neighbours....only this year someone is murdered. The neighbourhood chat rooms start to go crazy trying to guess who it is. The new family who just moved in a year ago seem to be hiding something and why does Ken act like he knows Mandy? Especially when his wife and sister in law asked him if he did and he said no. What about Ken's niece who is 17 yrs old and just can't wait to move away to a College of her choosing. There are many secrets being kept behind closed doors on Alton Road and soon they will all be revealed. I really enjoyed this quick read and look forward to reading more from this author. Enjoy!!!

DNF @ 20%

I was interested in this neighborhood mystery a la Desperate Housewives and Big Little Lies, but the dialogue and many, many characters made this one hard to keep picking up.

While the premise interesting (affluent neighborhood murder, oh my!), I couldn't get past:
- teenage POV that felt forced and very much like an adult who has never talked to a teenage before would write a rebellious teen
- boring drunk, rich woman trope
-obvious foreshadowing to the upcoming "drama" between the MANY character

I realized I just didn't care and wasn't ready to invest almost 400 pages to find out.

Thanks so much for the arc!

Block Party is a creative murder mystery! We begin the book in discussions at the Memorial Day block sorry. Then we backtrack. We meet all the neighbors of this cul-de-sac. Then we dig deeper into each person stories and find that they often weave together. A murder takes place at the party but it’s not til the end of the book that we find out who dies. The book builds up suspense for the reader of who may by killed and who does the killing!

The simultaneously made me wish I had a neighborhood full of drama and grateful that I don’t. This story was a wild ride. It’s narrated by a mother and daughter. We learn of all the going’s on and drama through their eyes.

There were a lot of characters and some parts were a bit slow for me. But there was also a lot of gasps and shock too! It did keep me guessing and kept my curiosity up!

It's not all fun and games on Alton Street this Memorial Day for when the day has. ended someone has wound up murdered. Now who can it be and with a plethora of characters carting a wheelbarrow of secrets it's anyone's guess.

Our story is brought to us mainly by Alex Fox with bit and pieces presented by her snarky daughter, Lettie. Many characters in a story usually drive me batty, but Jamie Day has given us a multifaceted view of the members of this tony neighborhood.

Alex's sister and her son and husband live on the block so of course they are part of the mayhem, along with Willow and her soon to be ex and their daughter. There is of course a femme fatale, Willow, who seems to catch the eye of every make as she intends to, and Willow might be a wee bit murderous. Gus Fisher, aptly named the bug man rounds out tis motley crew and add some more snarky to the scene.

We begin the year of the present day Memorial and traverse over the events of the last year, building up the whodunit factor with each turn of the page.

It's a load of surprises for who knows who lurks behind the doors of your neighbors?

Thank you to Jamie Day, St Martin's Press, and NetGalley for both the audio and books version of this neighborhood thriller due out in July of this year.

Go ahead and add this one to your summer tbr, because you’re not going to want to miss this!

The desperate housewives vibes in this book were strong, and I’m here for it! Every family has secrets, every couple has drama and every reveal was just as shocking as the last! This neighborhood was all kinds of messed up and I loved every second of it. Releasing next month it’s the perfect summertime read.

Thank you @netgalley and @stmartinspress for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

The Block Party by Jamie Day was a great story of families, friends and neighbors. Great book that keep me coming back for more.

I love when a novel starts with a murder, then goes back in time to tell the story of how our characters became the hot messes they are. Alton Road is a cul-de-sac community of well-to-do families, but each family has secrets they're hiding, from alcohol abuse to affairs. The story is interspersed with a present day community Facebook type page where neighboring community members are speculating on what might have happened on Alton Road to lead to murder.