This was a FAST read. Like, finished the audiobook within 24 hours fast, and it had me interested from page one. We follow a tech company to their executive retreat in Miami, and it all goes awry from there. The story is told from multiple perspectives of the executives with no single person is the main character. There's a death and a mystery on our hands. True to it's title, this is indeed a Very Bad Company.

Imagine going on a work retreat and while you are there one of your co-workers ends up dead. After this, lies, betrayals, and suspicious behaviors start happening amongst your other co-workers. All of a sudden, people are looking for answers to explain what happened and aren’t afraid to point fingers at each other. All of this, and more, happens in Very Bad Company.

I really enjoyed this audiobook. I thought the narration was good, and it kept my attention throughout. The book was filled with mystery, twists and turns, and some humor (and some pg-13 material lol).

I really liked the characters. There was a wide variety of personalities and I liked how you really got to know each of the characters. This was an easy read and I found myself wanting to keep listening to find out what was going to happen next.

📚 #BOOKREVIEW 📚
Very Bad Company by Emma Rosenblum
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / Pages: 253 / Genre: Mystery
Audiobook Narrator: January LaVoy
Duration: 8 hours 49 minutes
Release Date: May 14, 2024

The executives at Aurora are on a company retreat in Miami. The CEO is crazy weird. Two of the execs are hooking up. One exec doesn’t make it home alive. And everyone has a secret to hide.

The characters are all very interesting and have great banter. It has a vacation feel with co-worker snark and a little mystery thrown in. I really enjoyed this one! Another great beach read for the summer.

The audiobook is narrated by January LaVoy, who delivered another great performance.

Thank you, @netgalley, @macmillanaudio, and @emma.rosenblum for my gifted copy. I loved it!

Emma Rosenblum just gets me. I freaking love her books. Terrible people, lots of money, beautiful settings, and lots of lots of drama. This is the perfect book to listen to to kick off summer!!

I've been on a couple work retreats and it's safe to say, my company must be doing them all wrong because I've certainly never stayed in a five-star resort, gone jet skiing, clubbing, or eaten a Michelin-starred dinner on a yacht. Aurora definitely knew how to party and John Schiller definitely knew how to throw a bash. So what someone died? Just a little more drama and another story to tell, amiright?!

Honestly, even as the reader it was easy to forget that someone had died. I really can't imagine a real life scenario where a work trip wouldn't be cut short if one of your own died on the trip, but you can't say it didn't make for some great reading!

I had such a hard time knowing who or what to believe. The way everyone was so nonchalant about the death made me wonder if it truly was an accidental overdose. But as the secrets started spilling, everyone seemed (and was!) guilty of at least something and I started to believe anything was possible.

I loved how everything shook out, how despicable everyone was, and the (maybe not so realistic) insight into a startup hitting major success and going through a sale.

This book was perfect for audio and I loved the narrator. It's told by different character perspectives and I usually prefer multiple narrators for those formats, but January LaVoy is so good I didn't need it here.

This is one I definitely recommend and I can't wait to see what other shenanigans Rosenblum gives us next!!

Thank you to MacMillan Audio and NetGalley for the copy.

A group of executives from a high-flying tech startup called Aurora are on a fancy corporate retreat in Miami. The stakes for this elite group are high: exorbitant salaries, huge bonuses, tons of stock options. But when one of their own meets with foul play at the lush resort, the stakes turn deadly.

This is a bingeable read filled with corporate intrigue and catty backstabbing. A big cast of complex, compelling characters and multiple POVs keep things interesting. Between this book and Bad Summer People, Emma Rosenblum has clearly found her calling at crafting characters that are unlikeable but fun to hate!

Narrator extraordinaire January LaVoy did a fantastic job, flawlessly differentiating the various characters and infusing the narrative with wry humor and sarcasm, making for a very entertaining listening experience.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for providing me an advance copy of this book. #MacAudio2024

I work a corporate job and found this book to be really fun. I loved all the different dynamics of everyone that worked at the company. The narration was phenomenal. January LaVoy is one of the greats and always makes things more interesting. Definitely a nice, easy listen.

This was entertaining but I don't anticipate it being a standout for me this year. Recommended for those who enjoy a good deep dive into the complexities and toxic nature of corporate culture. Good on audio too. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early audio copy in exchange for my honest review!

Very Bad Company was a very entertaining book. I listened to this via the audiobook narrated by January LaVoy and the narration of it was great! I love this kind of books where there is a murder with so many suspects and we get to go through the journey of finding out who did it from everyone’s POV. There was so much going on that I was continually trying to guess who did it and hadn’t figured it out until the end when it was revealed. Some, alright most of the characters were pretty unlikable so it was very easy to think each one of them was a murder. I believe this was my first Emma Rosenblum book and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I will definitely be added more of her books to my TBR.

January LaVoy is one of my favorite narrators so the audiobook portion was amazing! The characters were all very flawed and most of them were annoying but it helped make the book more interesting. I wasn’t in love with this one, I was expecting more investigating of the mystery and less gossip. I would still recommend this one though, it just wasn’t a favorite for me.

I can easily sum up my opinion of Emma Rosenblum's work: I absolutely hate her characters and LOVE her books!

This is the second book I've read by Emma Rosenblum and I really enjoyed both. Her books are dramatic and over the top. They're more b*tchy than suspenseful, but I love that about her books and think if that is your expectation, you'll enjoy it too. She writes wild casts of characters and manages to make everyone hatable (and potentially guilty!) for different reasons.

If you're looking for a dramatic thriller (heavy on the drama!) this is the perfect book to stash in your beach bag this summer.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Flatiron Books and Macmillan Audio for gifting me an audio ARC of this book by Emma Rosenblum and perfectly narrated by a favorite, January LaVoy. All opinions expressed in this review are my own - 4 stars!

The trendy tech startup, Aurora, has gathered the company's top employees for an exclusive retreat in Miami. Aurora is led by John, obsessed with all things Churchill, has just hired Caitlin as Head of Events. Caitlin is pulled in by her huge salary, stock shares and bonus so if Aurora doesn't really do events and she doesn't know what her job entails, who cares? Then another top executive goes missing - with Aurora's future on the line, everything is at stake.

While this was obviously over the top, anyone who's worked for a company is probably familiar with all this drama and forced team-building on a much smaller scale. This was like watching a train wreck - you just couldn't look away! When money and power are involved, people do bad and crazy things. There were a lot of characters here, and January LaVoy once again was outstanding.

On a tech company retreat, executives live it up-until one of them turns up dead. This story is filled with bad, unlikeable, wealthy people. It's not a mystery but a juicy, gossipy story. It was enjoyable.

Very Bad Company is indeed…very bad…at least, as a business!

I believe this is the first I’ve read by this author, but wow! Where does she come up with this stuff? And, these characters?!

Very entertaining, but also got my haunches up! There were multiple times that I wanted to reach through the book and RING OUT the boss’ neck!!

So, this very high profile, cutting edge tech company is on a retreat in Miami. We start to meet all the players… and, oh, what a group it is!!

Caitlyn, who has JUST been hired, (and will be making multiple millions for a job that doesn’t even exist on the books!!) is invited too.

But, once they all get there, things start to get weird…
One of the top/ high tier executives goes missing.

Yes, this is how the book opens…

I’ll leave it here, but just know that this one has MULTIPLE PLAYERS who ALL seem very greedy!

But the craziest one is the head honcho, John! And he seems to be going off the deep end, repeatedly…

3 1/2 ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 for me, rounded up to 4.
It is due out in a few days on 5/14/24.

⭐️. Absolutely CRAZY male main character! (MMC)
⭐️. Terrific female main character (FMC)
⭐️. Crazy supporting characters/staff too!!
💫 Promises made for large sums of $$…Can they be kept? And…it takes place in Miami!!

#VeryBadCompany by#EmmaRosenblum and read expertly by #JanuaryLaVoy! I mean, she actually COULD read a phone book, and get you interested in listening to it!!

Thanks so much to #NetGalley and #MacmillanAudio for an ARC of the audiobook, in exchange for an honest review.

Emma Rosenblum knows how to write about bad people! I loved Bad Summer People and couldn’t wait to listen to Very Bad Company. In typical Rosenblum fashion, these characters are behaving very badly and something about that has me all in! If you liked Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson, you may enjoy this one!

Aurora is a tech company on an exclusive executive retreat in Miami. John, their egotistical boss makes a big announcement, but the retreat takes a twisty turn when one of the employees goes missing.

This book has a cast of characters that have some very questionable morality and it makes for page turning excitement. January Lavoy does a great job narrating this cast of characters.

Pick this up for an entertaining listen about bad people.

This book unfortunately wasn't for me. I nearly decided to put it aside and not finish it, but decided to continue through because I was somewhat interested in finding out how everything would end up. I generally have trouble with books/TV shows that are full of people who are kind of rotten and this one is one of those, so it's nothing against the writing, it's just not my style of story.

Very Bad Company by Emma Rosenblum takes readers on a twisted journey into the heart of a tech startup's annual retreat, where the boundaries between work and leisure blur with deadly consequences. When a colleague disappears and turns up dead, suspicion and paranoia grip the group, revealing hidden agendas and dark secrets.

The novel boasts a large cast of characters, each with their own complex backstory, but this abundance can overwhelm at times. Readers may find themselves struggling to keep track of who's who, hindering their immersion in the story. Despite this, the multi-POV narrative adds depth to the plot, though some characters may feel too similar.

Narrated superbly by January LaVoy, the audiobook maintains its grip on listeners even during slower moments. While the characters may not be particularly likable, the allure of unraveling the mystery and witnessing the power dynamics at play keeps readers engaged.

Very Bad Company may not find its place among readers' favorites for the year, but it offers an enjoyable escape, particularly for those seeking a light beach read. Overall, Rosenblum's novel delivers an intriguing blend of suspense and intrigue that will keep readers guessing until the very end.

3.5 stars
I was hoping this was going to be a witty murder mystery. It was more of a bunch of rich people working for a huge company taking a vacation but where everyone has secrets. Someone does die, but that doesn't happen until halfway through the book and it really is not a focus of the plot.
The characters were ok, there were a lot of them so it was hard to keep everyone straight at the beginning and even by the end there were still a few I would mix up details about. The CEO of the company Aurora, John had hired several women for higher up jobs and they all had POVs. I think my favorite was Olive, but I also liked Deborah.
The plot was interesting enough for me to easily be able to keep interested through the whole thing even while doing other things. Weirdly, I've read several books recently about characters with wealth gap, so I think I'm just kind of sick of that plot point (though this one was more just about rich people kind of flaunting their wealth). The fact that these full blown, rich af adults going to a work retreat in Miami and doing things like jet skiing was actually quite entertaining to me as well as the characters. As stated by someone else, they were a strangely close group of coworkers which made the dynamic quite fun. I was hoping for more murder mystery, the death is ruled an accidental drug overdose, and the ladies do some digging but it's very minimal.
January LaVoy is one of my favorite audiobook narrators, and while she knocked it out of the park, it was hard to differentiate between the characters because almost everyone had a POV and January did them all, including the men. I wish there was at least one male to do the male POVs.

Thanks to Macmillan Audio, NetGalley and the author for the ARC of this book.

I wanted to like this book so much because I loved the book summary. I love January LaVoy as the narrator and she, of course, was amazing.
The book, however, was just mediocre. I could not get involved with the characters because there were so many and character development was lacking. I was confused as to who was whom.

Writing was good and narration was fabulous. I just wasn’t interested in the plot.

Very Bad Company is aptly named indeed, as this novel outlines the numerous faults and misdeeds among the C-Suite of a search ad optimization company, and it's Churchill-obsessed, Napoleonic CEO. The action takes place at a company retreat to Miami where everything comes to the surface, but there is a ton of flashback excavating the roots of the issue that is necessary but bogs down the plot.
The characters are farcical but sadly not much exaggerated or removed from reality, as the references to real-world companies like the WeWork flameout prove.
The characters are compelling and interesting, as their family, money, and professional issues and the opportunity of a distracted "leader" enable them to damage the company in diverse and creative ways.
Anyone who's been on a corporate retreat or junket can definitely appreciate the inanity of the forced fun, and this group takes it to the extremes with their drug use, plotting, and possibly murder.
A fun read that will make most workplaces look well-balanced and functional by comparison!

This book was not great at all. Very blah and nothing really happened, would not recommend to my friends to read. It's a skip for me.