The New Year’s Party
Would you trust a stranger with your New Year’s resolution? Carrie and Andy’s elegant evening takes an unexpected turn when they meet a couple with a bold, unconventional plan for the coming year. A surprising offer leaves them questioning everything, making this a New Year’s celebration they’ll be talking about forever.
- Carrie - Andy’s wife
- Andy - Carrie’s husband
- Sally - Carrie's best friend
- Martin and Michaela - A couple attending the NYE party
- Carrie and Andy are spending New Year’s Eve at a party and staying overnight at a hotel.
- Carrie and Andy are seated at a table with Martin and Michaela.
- The couples share their New Year’s resolutions.
- Andy’s resolution is to get a Ferrari, and Carrie’s is to take a trip to New York.
- Martin and Michaela say their resolution is to sleep with someone else.
- Martin tells Carrie and Andy that if they sleep with him and Michaela, he will fulfill their resolutions as well, and he invites them to go to their hotel room after the party.
- That night in their hotel room, Carrie and Andy discuss Martin and Michaela’s offer, and Carrie firmly refuses.
- When Andy and Carrie return home they find a red Ferrari in their driveway with a note signed by M&M.
- Inside the house is another note from M&M with plane tickets to New York.
- Michaela reveals to the reader that it was all a test. She and Martin are wealthy and begin each New Year by rewarding a deserving couple. Andy and Carrie proved themselves by refusing the offer.
- Carrie already knew about Martin and Michaela before the party because Sally had told her about attending the previous year with her husband, meeting Martin and Michaela, and having their resolutions granted after refusing their offer.
- Carrie snuck into the party early that night and made sure her and Andy’s name cards were at the same table as Martin and Michaela.
- In the early hours of New Year’s morning, while Carrie was still asleep in the hotel room, Michaela and Andy snuck off to an empty conference room and slept together.
- Afterward, Michaela tells Andy about the game but says he will get the car anyway so she can keep from Martin the fact that she cheated.
- Martin had known that Michaela snuck out that night and slept with Andy.
- Martin hires a hitman to kill Michaela and Andy, staging their deaths as accidents.
- Martin hopes that at the next New Year’s Eve party, Carrie will be the woman on his arm.
Daniel Hurst’s The New Year’s Party is a well-written, four-star mystery that serves as a perfect atmospheric read for the holiday season. It carries a dark edge and plenty of suspense in its 51 pages, packing in a surprising number of twists at the end for such a short book. It was nice to find a story centered around New Year's Eve, a holiday that often feels underrepresented in this genre compared to other holidays.
If you are looking for a quick palette cleanser with a bit of a bite, this is a solid choice for your end-of-year reading list. It delivers a fast-paced, moody experience that manages to keep you guessing until the very last page.
- Infidelity
Publisher: Independently Published
ASIN: B0BR66MT8F
Publication Date: December 26, 2022
Note: Details are for the original edition. Other formats, editions, and audiobook versions may be available.