"The Garden Party" by Wendy Clarke is a novel that beautifully marries the essence of gothic mystery with a contemporary setting, making it an outstanding read. From the outset, the atmosphere is charged with a subtle, eerie tension reminiscent of classic gothic tales, yet it's distinctly modern in its approach. The protagonist, with whom I felt a deep connection, is intriguingly crafted. Her unique characteristics, although slightly odd at times, only enhanced my ability to relate to her, drawing me deeper into the narrative.

The story unfolds with a blend of suspense and intrigue, as the mystery surrounding a tragic incident in Rachel’s new neighborhood unravels. Clarke's mastery in weaving a plot that keeps the reader guessing is commendable. I found myself engrossed in the twists and turns of the story, with its rich backdrop of secrets and unresolved questions keeping me hooked till the last page.

What truly sets this novel apart is its ability to create a gothic atmosphere while being set in the modern world. This unusual combination made "The Garden Party" a refreshing read. It’s perfect for those who appreciate a good mystery with a touch of the uncanny, and for fans of authors like Lisa Jewell and K.L. Slater who enjoy a suspenseful story with a strong, relatable protagonist. For me, "The Garden Party" was a delightful journey through a labyrinth of mystery and suspense, making it a highly recommended read.

This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher, provided through NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Well that was quite some thriller, very intriguing, shocking and intense story plot for sure.

The story was brilliantly written, very well thought out. It literally had my head in a spin at times, trying to figure out what on Earth is going on, who can be trusted and who can’t be trusted. There were times when I was like okay I think I’ve figured it out only to then discover that actually no I hadn’t. Author Wendy is very good at sending lots of red herrings per se. Anyway bottom line, this story had me sitting on the edge of my seat in eager anticipation as to what would happen next.

If you haven’t discovered Wendy Clarke books yet then all I can say, is don’t delay any more. Her books are so darn good.

4.6 ⭐️

Make sure you are sitting down for chapter 45, and that all drinks and tray tables are secured in the upright position because you are about to go on a wild ride.
These people are CRAZY! I did NOT see that coming!!!

🏡 A reclusive husband in a book writing slump, an outgoing wife that craves a family, their relationship coupled with many secrets, trust and communication issues. They relocate to a new neighborhood where everyone knows your business and hides the past behind tightly sealed lips.

👀 How far would a man go for a good story? How far would a woman go to feel loved? How far would a neighborhood go to protect each other?

🤨 Ugh, I really did not like this couple. They are tangled with flaws and it’s really hard to tell who is crazy and who isn’t, or maybe they both are! Which made their relationship so interesting to watch. I mean, read… They had my sus meter bouncing all over the place.

🤐 The neighbors were covering up some major secrets of their own, leaving so much to unpack. They were dodgy, tight-lipped, potentially two-faced… I seriously couldn’t tell who to lean on, and I laughed out loud when I realized just how wrong all my theorizing was.

💫 I seriously thought I wasn’t going to like this book. It started off as a very slow read for me - I think in part due to some terminology that didn’t translate into my Southern U.S. speak-ease. But the mysteries kept me hooked, and I was invested to the end. So many mysterious things going on, I quite enjoyed the journey of seeing how they all intertwined, and the redeeming growth at the end.

Thanks to NetGalley, Bookouture, and Wendy Clarke for providing me with a complimentary ARC to review!

Wendy Clarke is one of my favourite @bookouture authors and I can safely say books is the best yet. I’ve read most of them so I can say that confidently.

This has been as gripping and captivating as I had expected. I have devoured this book with no regrets- only that I now have to wait for another book.

Clarke has a real talent for keeping me guessing. I think I know where a book is going then BANG, the ground is pulled from under me and I’m left speechless. I loved finding out about the characters in this one. I was constantly waiting for what might happen and still found myself gasping.

This is perfectly paced and completely addictive. The tension oozes from the pages and you can’t help but be all in on this read.

Clarke has written another masterpiece. This is quite possibly my favourite book of this author to date. Everything about this I have loved.

I love how Clarke writes. It flows effortlessly and you feel as though everything is familiar. I felt like I knew the characters and were right there with them watching the events play out in front of me.

This is a brilliant book and a must for the TBR.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

This book was pretty good and just okay for me . I wasn’t captivating for me. I didn’t really like the bouncing between characters in some chapters. I didn’t really feel connected to the characters at all throughout. There were some twists that I didn’t expect but they didn’t really surprise me so much. I was really hoping for a jaw dropping twist at the end and I honestly feel like it just didn’t happen for me. It was a little hard to get through. Things that I did enjoy were the setting . I really do like the neighborhood/new neighbor story line. It had a lot of potential to be an amazing page turner ! I really enjoyed the authors writing style . Very easy to read and understand I really enjoyed that aspect of it.

Special thanks to NetGalley and Bookouture for this arc, which I received in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.

If you are looking for a fast paced domestic thriller, this book is for you. What more can I say - this was a great read! I totally recommend!

Liked this one and will be recommending it, I give it three stars as I liked the writing but wasn’t hooked to the storyline.

This is a fast paced and twisty domestic thriller.
I engaged quickly with the plot and characters.
It’s a great read and I’d really recommend it.

What a book! Moving into a new home can be exciting but something doesn't feel right for Rachel. She hears a child crying at night, there's writing under the wallpaper when she redecorates and Owen, her author husband has locked himself away in his study. What is going on? So many questions, secrets and lies.

This was a gripping read and I was hooked by the characters. I always like reading a book with an author as a character, like a book within a book concept. Owen is a strange one, Rachel knows something isn't right when the neighbours seem to look at him with recognition but he's never been here before... right?!

I love how the storyline goes on, to uncover the hidden aspects of Pond Close, the mystery behind the ribbon tied round the birch tree in the enclosed pond area. The controlling way Phillipa is, is making Rachel uncomfortable but can she uncover the truth?

Loved this book and cannot wait to read more by Wendy in the future! I will keep my eyes open for more!

#blogtour

I feel really neutral about this book.
It took me longer than normal to read and it’s strange as I wanted to read it, I got excited at the thought of reading it and I thought the story itself- whilst a bit over dramatic was good. It had suspense and the thrill factor but the characters did absolutely nothing for me. Rachel and her Jekyll and Hyde husband were irritating. I can’t even remember her husband’s name of the top of my head and I only finished reading it this morning.
Rachel was annoying- one of those people you would cross the road to avoid. A real busy body shoving her nose and opinions in matters that don’t concern her and in the lives of people she has literally known for about 5 minutes. I want to shun her and be mean to her as well.
The husband and herself both come across as pompous and I could see why some of the neighbours were rude with them- I’d have been as well.
The scene setting was good, the flow of the story was good and the final twist at the end was ok. I had guessed something similar when the first twist came to light but it didn’t make it any less shocking.

Honestly… WOW! I was captivated by this book and it was a true nail-biter to the very end.

Rachel and Owen are a couple who move into Pond Close seeking a new start to their tense and struggling marriage. Little does the reader know, however, that this new place is full of secrets and has a dark history.

I had a feeling that one of the characters was shady from the start, but could not have ventured a guess as to how things turned out! It was impossible to decipher who you could trust, and that kept me hooked and looking for more answers.

I felt that the way the author tied everything together was brilliantly executed. The twists were genuinely not expected and that alone makes me want to read more from Wendy Clarke.

My only gripe with this book was how Owen’s chapters were written in the third person. It didn’t make sense to me to go from first person with Rachel to third with Owen. It just didn’t seem to flow as well.

All in all, this book was excellent and I look forward to more of Wendy Clarke’s work!

Thank you to Bookoture and NetGalley for this copy in exchange for an honest review.

The story is staged as a classic couple's attempt to meet and befriend the neighbors in their community. Like any society, some have secrets. The main character's conflict surrounding the happenings of a little girl in the neighborhood is a heart wrenching one. As a mom myself, I found myself connecting with the character and honestly picking my jaw off the floor as events, as they relate to this young girl, surface. It was a fast thriller with truly heart wrenching themes.

This book had many twists and turns, some were exciting but some I thought were unnecessary. The story started off strong and foreboding, with the introduction of the main characters to their new neighbours, but I felt it then became less of a thriller and more about a troubled relationship. At times I did wonder where the story was going and how some characters were linked to the main theme. All became clear though towards the end when the thriller aspect kicked in again. All the loose ends were starting to tie up and my questions were being answered. As a last point, I'm not quite sure why the title was chosen, as the garden party itself was such a tiny part of the story.

Another great psychological thriller from Wendy Clarke!

Rachel and Owen move into a house in Pond Close, a close knit cul-de-sac of just five houses. With Owen’s latest novel not doing so well they are having to downsize but are trying to see the move as a fresh start. Initially everything seems perfect, a lovely house, a safe neighbourhood, and warm and welcoming neighbours. However, when Rachel sees and hears her next door neighbour, Phillipa, treat her young daughter, Lexi, badly something stirs inside her in the face of her own fertility struggles and she feels she has to keep the little girl safe. So, Rachel begins work for Phillipa as a home help/ nanny and she grows closer to Lexi. When Rachel finds out a little girl, Maddie, died 25 years earlier in the Close all the gossip revolves around Phillipa being involved and so Rachel feels she must try extra hard to protect Lexi from Phillipa whilst trying to find out what really happened to Maddie. However, everyone in Pond Close are hiding secrets…. some more deadly than others!

Well, what a twisted tale this was!!!! I have to admit I didn’t like either of the main characters, Owen was such a selfish man, and I couldn’t understand why Rachel kept allowing him to treat her in the way he did, also both characters kept so many things from each other which, in my opinion, is not the way to a healthy marriage! However, just because I didn’t like either of them didn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the story and also, I felt the writing was great from Wendy Clarke to provoke that level of feeling about Owen and Rachel in me. I kind of had an idea about the twist but hadn’t fully nailed it down (this is probably down to me being an avid reader of psychological thrillers, rather than being an obvious twist) so still had a level of surprise and I enjoyed the premise of it (sorry this is a little mysterious, but I don’t want to giveaway any spoilers).

All in all, another great story from the talented Wendy Clarke. Any fans of psychological thrillers will enjoy this, and I very much look forward to reading what she writes next.

Thank you to NetGalley, Wendy Clarke and Bookouture for my advanced reading copy. Out now.

literally read the book in one sitting, it's so addictive. It's fast paced from the word go, The Garden Party is a brilliant, twisty thriller where everyone on the street has something to hide.

It's narrated from the POV of Owen and wife Rachel, both of whom I found unreliable narrators. I couldn't trust them and I certainly don't think they trusted each other.

Such a brilliant book and my favourite thriller from Clarke to date.

An unexpected twist came that I didn’t see coming after having ideas about multiple characters who seemed suspect. I was taken in with the intense storyline that Wendy Clarke crafted. This is a fantastic work of psychological suspense!

Thank you, Wendy Clarke, Bookouture & netgalley for my copy! All opinions are my own.

This was a pretty fast-paced thriller about a couple who move to a new neighborhood - new, creepy neighbors, strange history with the house, and an unreliable narrator makes for an interesting story with twists and turns!

The Garden Party by Wendy Clarke

Rachel and Owen just moved to a new place and they wanted to leave their past behind. Their new neighbours threw them a party in the garden. When Rachel tried to be friends with everyone, she felt something was wrong. The neighbours started to stare at them and their house. Rachel knew that they were hiding something.

The plot twist was definitely jaw-dropping. The secrets were mind-blowing. The characters were just perfectly created the tight community. I was able to picture that neighbourhood when I was reading the book. The author again surprised her readers!

Many thanks to Netgalley, Bookouture and the author for my copy.

Pub date: March 14, 2024

From the minute you pick up this book you will be hooked. I really struggled to pull myself away from this book as I needed to keep reading to find out what was happening.
An absolutely fantastic plot with so many unexpected twists and an ending you will definitely not see coming.

There is level upon level of intrigue in this book and Wendy Clarke really drip feeds the reader with information. I found that really tantalising and read late into the night sure that I wouldn't sleep until I got to the bottom of what was really going on in this seemingly perfect cul de sac. I have to say I was stunned when everything came out into the open. In a million years I would never have suspected the truth.. I'll be looking out for this author in the future.