The Club

November 1, 2021

The Home Group is a worldwide series of members-only clubs catering to A-plus-list celebrities, and its crown jewel will supposedly be Island Home off England's coast. As the guests arrive for the opening, the overworked staffers struggle to keep their own secrets tamped down and the guests' outr� behavior out of sight. And then the dead bodies start piling up. From the pseudonymous London-based husband-and-wife writing team Collette Lyons and Paul Vlitos, whose debut, People Like Her, sold to television and 13 territories. With a 35,000-copy first printing.

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Starred review from February 28, 2022
This masterly thriller from the pseudonymous Lloyd (People like Her) effectively delays revealing who among the large cast of characters has died violently. Ned Groom has created exclusive clubs around the world for the elite of the elite, who pay huge sums to have their every whim catered to. Groom has just launched his most spectacular branch yet, on a private island 90 minutes from London, accessible by car only by a causeway at low tide. Its amenities include Poseidon, a fishbowl-like restaurant with views of the surrounding sea. The prologue, in which two unidentified people in a Land Rover halfway across the causeway realize they aren’t going to make it as the tide rapidly rises, is followed by a Vanity Fair article, “Murder on the Island,” which describes Poseidon patrons noticing a submerged Land Rover and its grim contents outside the window. That development and the discovery of a body on the island turn “the party of the year” into “the murder mystery of the decade.” Flashbacks provide an array of suspects and motives. Lloyd (husband-and-wife writing team Collette Lyons and Paul Vlitos) makes the reader care about even unappealing characters, and the payoff is completely satisfying. Fans of Ruth Ware’s One by One will be riveted. Agent: Hillary Jacobson, ICM Partners.

March 1, 2022
At Ned Groom's lavish clubs, where decadence reigns supreme, only the glitzy elite have access. Named after Ned's ancestor Henry Home, the Home line of establishments has grown larger and more elaborate every year. Ned's new opening is the most audacious yet. He's purchased an island off the coast of Britain, making it his Island Home. All the most famous celebrities are there: actor Jackson Crane, boy-band superstar Frankie Hunter, legendary director Ron Cox's son, Kurt, and many more. Then there is the staff: Nikki, Jess, and Annie, who've been drawn into Home's toxic web in various ways. An article in Vanity Fair, interspersed with the text, draws out the suspense of what really happened that weekend on Island Home. Lloyd (People Like Her, 2021), the pseudonym for a married set of authors, delivers a satisfying and multifaceted thriller. As in Lucy Foley's smash The Guest List (2020), readers see the plot unfold from multiple angles while the characters' dirty secrets are revealed. A perfect suggestion for lovers of locked-room and island mysteries.

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