The New Year’s Eve Party
It started with the party…
Frankie, Verity and Alice live in the idyllic Cotswolds community of White Fir Lake, but behind closed doors everyone has a secret they’re desperately trying to keep…
And ended with a bang!
Now, as midnight on New Year’s Eve approaches, the three women will face the consequences of a long-ago holiday, one which changed their lives forever … and threatens to shatter their perfect worlds into perfect pieces.
- Frankie - Red’s wife
- Red - Frankie’s husband
- Maisie - Frankie and Red’s daughter
- Bella - Frankie and Red’s daughter
- Harry - Frankie and Red’s son
- Verity - Max’s wife
- Max - Verity’s husband
- Alice - Luna's mother
- Luna - Alice’s daughter
- Betsy - Verity’s younger sister, deceased
- Jamie - The man Max killed in Cape Cod
- Verity has had several miscarriages.
- Alice meets Frankie and Verity after crashing her car into a wall in front of Frankie’s house.
- Max has been receiving anonymous letters, the most recent saying ‘have you told anyone?’
- Verity asks who they are from, but Max swears he doesn’t know.
- Verity finds comments on her social media posts that appear to be from her, but she doesn’t remember making them.
- Verity confides in Frankie that she’s forgetting and misplacing things and thinks she’s losing her mind.
- Seventeen years earlier: Frankie and Verity are on holiday in Cape Cod, where they meet Max and both take a liking to him.
- Alice is there with her family as well but is not invited to hang out with Frankie and Verity.
- A man named Jamie tries to rape Alice, but Max intervenes and smashes Jamie on the head with a bottle, killing him.
- Red and Alice sleep together.
- Present: The New Year’s Eve party at Max and Verity’s house
- Alice is the one sending the letters to Max.
- Red is Alice’s father.
- Frankie finds Verity’s perfume, lipstick and bra in Red’s home office; he had been stealing her things because he’s obsessed with her.
- Red tells Verity he loves her and wants to give her a baby.
- Red admits he’s the one posting on social media as Verity.
- Verity hears Alice and Max arguing, and Max admits the secret they’ve been keeping about killing Jamie.
- Luna, Bella and Harry go into the lake, and Red has a heart attack while saving them.
- Harry is in a coma for three days.
- Luna tells Frankie that Alice said Frankie wanted the girls to go in the water.
- One year later:
- Luna sees her half-siblings regularly.
- Frankie forgives Alice because she knows it’s partly her own fault for not watching her kids.
- Verity and Max move to France, and Verity gives birth to their baby girl, Maria.
If you are going into The New Year's Eve Party by Hannah Emery expecting a fast-paced, edge-of-your-seat read, you will be disappointed. I wouldn't call this a thriller at all; it leans much more into suspense and mystery with a strong "everyone has a secret" vibe.
The story is told from a few different characters' POVs. It starts off in the present, but once you hit the second half of the book, it starts jumping back and forth between the past and the present. Unfortunately, the time jumps got pretty repetitive because when the perspective switched to revisit a scene, we had to read through the exact same conversations all over again. Instead of just giving us a different character's internal thought process or a fresh angle on the event, it felt like rehashing what we already knew.
On the positive side, the character development is great. I found myself really caring about Frankie and Verity. Their personal struggles felt real and grounded, and my emotional investment in them is what kept me reading to the end.
Overall, this is a solid mystery, especially if you want a holiday tie-in to read this season, but it's best skipped if you are looking for actual thrills.
- Red - Dead - Heart attack while saving the children
- Luna - Alive - Attending college and bonding with her half-siblings, Maisie, Bella and Harry
- Alice - Alive - Happy that Frankie welcomes Luna into her and the children’s lives
- Harry - Alive - Fully recovered from the near-drowning
- Frankie - Alive - Successfully navigating life as a single parent
- Verity - Alive - Happily living in France with Max and their baby, Maria
- Miscarriage
- Attempted rape
- Stalking
- Child endangerment
- Drowning
Publisher: One More Chapter
ASIN: B09DTPBDKF
Publication Date: December 17, 2021
Note: Details are for the original edition. Other formats, editions, and audiobook versions may be available.
