A Death at the Party: A Novel - Softcover

Stuart, Amy

 
9781668009109: A Death at the Party: A Novel
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1668009102 ISBN 13: 9781668009109
Verlag: S&S Canada Adult, 2023

Inhaltsangabe

In this tense, spellbinding thriller set over the course of a single day, a woman prepares for a party that goes dreadfully wrong—for fans of Ashley Audrain and Lisa Jewell.

Nadine Walsh’s summer garden party is in full swing. The neighbors all have cocktails, the catered food is exquisite—everything’s going according to plan.

But Nadine—devoted wife, loving mother, and doting daughter—finds herself standing over a dead body in her basement while her guests clink glasses upstairs. What happened? How did it come to this?

Rewind to that morning, when Nadine is in her kitchen, making last-minute preparations before she welcomes more than a hundred guests to her home to celebrate her mother’s birthday. But her husband is of little help to her, her two grown children are consumed with their own concerns, and her mother—only her mother knows that today isn’t just a birthday party. It marks another anniversary as well.

Still, Nadine will focus just on tonight. Everyone deserves a celebration after the year they’ve had. A chance for fun. A chance to forget. But it’s hard to forget when Nadine’s head is swirling with secrets, haunting memories, and concerns about what might happen when her guests unite.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Amy Stuart’s fourth novel, A Death at the Party, emerged as a longstanding #1 bestseller. She is the author of three other bestselling novels—Still Mine, Still Water, and Still Here—which have been optioned for television by Lark/NBC Universal. Amy’s other love is hockey. She is one of only four women head coaches in the GTHL, the world’s largest youth competitive hockey league. She was born in Toronto, where she still lives with her husband and their three sons. They also spend much of their time on Prince Edward Island, where Amy’s family is originally from. Find her on X @AmyFStuart.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter 1
IT COMES DOWN TO THE little things. The fine details. Picking flowers from the garden, buying the last of the cheeses, saying a prayer to the weather gods that the rain holds off. And, of course, the hope that the day unfolds without a hitch.

My mother’s birthday party is tonight, the first grand event at our house in years, weeks and weeks in the making. Months, really. It’s taken me ages to convince my mother, the famed writer Marilyn Millay, that she’s worthy of a celebration, that her friends and family want nothing more than to gather in her honor. And what better occasion than for her sixtieth birthday? When she finally conceded, we wrote up a guest list of more than a hundred people and sent the invitations properly, by mail. A garden party in July.

And now, here we are. The party begins at eight. In thirteen hours. The last-minute preparations await.

It rained just before dawn, but the clouds have since split open to a stark blue sky. The front lawn out the kitchen window glows moist. All signs now point to a glorious July day. I’m standing at the sink drinking a glass of warm lemon water. I berate myself daily for not sitting down for an actual breakfast. How many online articles have I read that say one must sit to enjoy their food and drink? I was terrible at it in the best of times, but since the accident, since my fall, my appetite has all but disappeared. Even drinking this lemon water requires my focus.

Next to the sink, my notebook is opened to my list. I make a list every day, but today’s is longer than usual. As I said: last-minute preparations.

I lift my pen and strike a line through: Water the lawn.

Tasks written down, crossed off.

My cheeks are warm. I didn’t sleep well last night, and the few hours I did get were beset by sweaty nightmares. At one point my husband, Paul, shook me awake.

‘You’re talking in your sleep again,’ he said.

‘About what?’ I asked.

‘You keep saying no.’

‘Oh,’ I said.

‘Your arms were flailing. Like you were breaking a fall.’

He looked worried.

‘Sorry,’ I said, kissing his forehead. ‘I’m fine. Go back to sleep.’

More fitfulness followed. At six a.m. I gave up and came downstairs. An ungodly hour on a Saturday, and now that I’m alone in the kitchen, the quiet of the house unnerves me. I’ll do my tour. That’s what Paul affectionately calls it—my tour—the rounds I make every morning to check on my family who always sleep in later than I do. It’s a habit I developed after my eldest, Isobel, was born, a balm against the many anxieties that came with new motherhood. I’m just forty now, and Isobel is seventeen. I should be long past the need to check on her as she sleeps but, well. I’m not.

I climb the stairs. They creak less than they once did; they’re less slippery too. Paul insisted we add a carpeted runner after I fell down the stairs and broke my hip six months ago. Still, I tiptoe to the second floor. Old habits die hard.

The master bedroom is at the top of the stairs. I left its door ajar when I got up. I peer in to see Paul sound asleep, splayed on his back, not a care in the world. He must be alert to me on some level, because though his eyes never open, he lifts his head off the pillow as if straining to hear a distant sound. For a lawyer, Paul maintains a remarkably low level of stress. I’m tempted to crawl back in bed with him, to insert myself into the warm nook formed by his bent arm. To seduce him, even. Since the affair ended—my affair—things have been good between Paul and me. There’s a renewed vigor. But I can’t. Not now. There’s no time.

I hover in the quiet of the hallway for a moment. For the past six months, every time I stand here, I relive it. The moment of midair suspension at the top of the stairs. That pause in time, that oh! I felt, more surprised than helpless or afraid.

Next to the master is Isobel’s room. I know the perfect sequence to follow so that her door doesn’t squeal when I press it open. I lean a hand into the doorframe before gripping and turning the knob. Her room is entirely devoid of light thanks to the expensive blackout curtains I bought Isobel this spring when sleep was eluding her. I can only make out her shadowy outline on the bed, but I do hear her breaths. It sounds morbid, but fundamentally, that’s what I’m checking for on these morning tours—signs of life. Isobel’s gone through hell these past few months, and it’s made me fear for her. My darling girl, one year left in high school and already too well versed in how cruel life can be. I blow her a silent kiss then pull the door closed.

Damien’s room is next. My son. I could blast a trumpet in his face and he wouldn’t wake, so I take less care in opening his door. His room is stuffy and smells of a fifteen-year-old boy; cheap pharmacy cologne and sweat. You could set a metronome to the steadiness of his breathing. He is shirtless, his blood-sugar detector glowing white on his bicep. He’s been through a lot too, my boy. A diagnosis of diabetes at ten, all the tests and processes and adjustments that came with it, not to mention two stressed and overprotective parents hovering constantly. But he’s endured. He’s resilient. He was a gorgeous, rosy-cheeked toddler, and now he’s a gorgeous, rosy-cheeked teen. Paul often jokes that his baby face helps extract him from the trouble he stirs up. That’s what worries me. Lately, Damien’s been secretive, quiet. His bedroom door is always closed. There’s been girl trouble. Normal teen boy things, Paul always reassures me, but my tendency is to imagine the worst-case scenario. I worry about my two kids equally. Most parents do. But if I had to delineate it crudely across gender lines, the truth is that I worry about the things that might happen to Isobel, and with Damien, I worry about the things he might do. I fixate on how the reckless abandon that made him such a happy boy will translate as his hormones take hold. Who was it who said: You can do your best to teach your children right from wrong, but you can’t fundamentally override who they are?

I yank Damien’s duvet straight and kiss him. He barely stirs. Time to go.

The final room down this hall overlooks the garden. This is where my niece, Margot, has slept for the past six months. I was in the hospital for a long time with a series of complications after the accident and transferred to rehab from there. Paul needed help at home. After I was discharged, I required support to get back on my feet. So, Margot moved in to help.

Margot is twenty-four, poised and tall, kind, and clever. I press my ear to the door and hear nothing, but I won’t open it. That would be an invasion of her privacy. Margot and I have an understanding. We respect each other’s time and space. I’d even say we are the keeper of each other’s secrets.

It’s past seven now. I need to shower and get moving. Back in the kitchen, I pick up my notebook with today’s list in it. I feel a little steadier now, calmed by my tour and by the sight of my beloveds cozy in their rooms. When the kids were little, they’d routinely climb into our bed too early in the morning. Paul would pretend our mattress was a boat on choppy seas, rolling them each over and back as if they...

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Verlag
S&S Canada Adult
Erscheinungsdatum
2023
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1668009102
ISBN 13 
9781668009109
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
304
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

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