The Club

I picked up The Club after seeing it was a Reese's Book Club pick for March 2022, and it read exactly like a show I would binge. First published in 2022 by Harper at 308 pages in hardcover, it is about an ultra exclusive island resort for celebrities and the week it all goes wrong. Ellery Lloyd is a pen name for a married couple who write together, and you feel two minds in the many voices. Guests, staff, family, paparazzi. Everyone wants something. Someone dies. I had fun even when I guessed parts early.

The island is called Home, or the Club, depending who is selling it. A rich couple, Jess and Oliver, built it to be the most private luxury spot in the world. No phones in public, no paparazzi boats close, villas hidden in trees, chefs, spas, security that smiles while watching. They invite A list actors, singers, models, tech money, old money. The opening weekend is meant to make them. Investors are watching. Press is hungry. One bad headline could sink years of work.

Jess and Oliver are not steady. Their marriage is strained by money and ambition. Oliver is charming, big ideas, blind to detail. Jess is sharper, tired, doing the real work while smiling for photos. They have a young child, they have debts, they have a staff that sees their fights. I liked them as hosts who are also suspects. They need the week to go perfectly, which means they have reason to hide anything bad.

Guests arrive with baggage. A pop star with a fading career and a new boyfriend who may be using her. An actor couple pretending to be happy while cheating and fighting about kids. A model turned wellness guru with a past she scrubbed. A tech founder who thinks rules do not apply. Old friends with grudges. Each gets short chapters in first person or close third, rotating fast. You learn who is sleeping with whom, who owes money, who is sober, who is not. It is a lot of names at first. I kept a mental list for fifty pages, then it clicked.

Staff see more. A young waitress saving for school, a security chief loyal to Oliver, a chef who hates waste and wasteful people, a cleaner who finds things guests forget. Their chapters are my favorite because they are clear eyed. They smile, they serve, they notice phones left open, pills in bathrooms, bruises covered with makeup. They need tips and references, so they stay quiet, until quiet becomes dangerous.

A party that turns

The first half is buildup. Boats, tours, dinners, speeches, a beach bonfire, a missing phone that might have photos. Small thefts, rumors, a storm that cuts signal. Lloyd does a good job with luxury that feels sticky. Sunscreen, sweat, champagne warm in the sun, music too loud at lunch. You feel rich and trapped at once. The island is beautiful and there is nowhere to go.

Then a body is found. I will not say who, to keep it clean, but the death looks at first like an accident. Too much drink, a fall, a late swim. Then details do not fit. A mark, a time gap, a witness who saw arguing. Police from the mainland come by boat, polite but slow. The island staff try to keep guests calm. Jess and Oliver panic in different ways. Oliver wants to spin. Jess wants truth before spin kills them.

The middle becomes a classic closed circle. Everyone is still on the island because of weather and police. Interviews happen in villas and kitchens. Alibis crack. Phone videos appear. A staffer admits seeing something but did not report because she feared losing her job. A guest admits lying about where he was because he was with someone he should not have been with. Each confession helps and hurts. You start to see how many people had reason to wish harm, even if few would act.

I guessed the killer about two thirds through, but not the full why. The motive mixes money, jealousy, and protection of a secret that would ruin more than one career. That felt right for this world. People here do not kill for one reason. They kill because several pressures meet at once and someone snaps. The book does not make murder glamorous. It is messy, stupid, sad. Someone meant to scare, not kill, or meant to silence for a night, not forever. The aftermath is worse than the act.

The paparazzi thread adds bite. A photographer in a boat, a blogger bribing staff, old photos that could out someone. Lloyd knows celebrity culture. How a rumor starts, how a denial feeds it, how a star's team works to bury. One character, a publicist, is brutally good at her job. She drafts statements before bodies are cold. It is chilling because it is believable. Grief becomes content in minutes.

What works and what wobbles

What works is pace and voices. Short chapters, cliffhanger ends, new secrets each time. You can read it fast without getting lost, once you learn names. The island setting is strong. Private resort as locked room feels fresh after many country house mysteries. The staff view gives class tension without preaching. Rich guests waste, staff clean, both lie to survive.

The couple behind Ellery Lloyd write dialogue well. Fights sound like fights, not speeches. Short sentences, interruptions, things not said. A dinner scene where two couples trade compliments that are really insults made me laugh and cringe. A staff meeting where Jess begs for loyalty while Oliver promises bonuses is painfully real. Anyone who worked service will recognize the smile that hides anger.

What wobbles is number of characters. At least ten matter, plus police, plus family back home. A few blur. Two male actors with similar issues, two female singers with similar fears. I had to flip back to check who was married to whom. A family tree at the front would have helped. Also, some twists rely on phones and cameras working or failing exactly when needed. Signal dies in storm, then a video uploads. A phone is dead, then it pings. If you think about logistics too hard, it frays.

The ending is busy. Rescue, confession, fight in rain, boat chase, press release. It fits the binge tone, but quieter readers may want more breath. I liked the final chapters that show what happens after press leaves. Who pays, who quits, who keeps the island. That aftermath felt more honest than the big reveal. Wealth absorbs scandal. Staff do not. One young worker loses everything while a star gets a comeback interview. That sting stayed with me.

There is drinking, drug use, cheating, some violence, no graphic gore. Language is strong in places. It is adult but not explicit for long. Parents should know teens will get the celebrity satire but may miss the marriage sadness that gives it weight.

Who should read it

Read it if you like Big Little Lies, The White Lotus, or Lucy Foley style resort mysteries. Read it if you like many narrators and fast secrets. Read it for a plane or beach, ironic given the setting, because you can dip in and out and still follow.

Skip it if you want one detective and a tidy puzzle. There is no Poirot here, just scared people covering tracks. Skip if you dislike unlikeable rich people. Almost everyone with money here lies about something. You have to enjoy watching them fall.

For me, the staff chapters carried it. The cleaner who finds a bracelet and must decide whether to return it or sell it. The waitress who sees a bruise and wonders if she should ask. Those small moral choices felt bigger than the murder. They asked what you do when your job depends on silence and silence starts to feel like help.

The Club is 308 pages and reads faster. It is not deep about fame, but it is sharp about work. Who serves, who is served, who cleans after. Jess and Oliver built paradise and learned paradise needs maids, guards, cooks who remember everything. I closed it thinking the island will reopen under a new name, new guests will come, new secrets will grow, because money forgets fast. That cynical note felt true, and it is why the book worked as more than a puzzle. It is a party you are glad to leave, with a few faces you will not forget.

The marriages under the sun

What stayed with me after the murder part faded was how many marriages in this book are performing. Jess and Oliver perform for investors. The actor couple performs for fans. The pop star and her boyfriend perform for each other, trying to believe it is love and not use. Even staff perform steadiness for guests while their own lives wobble. Poolside, everyone smiles for photos that will be posted with captions about paradise. Behind doors, they argue about money, about kids, about who forgot to call home.

Jess in particular felt real to me. She is not a villain who built a death trap. She is a woman who wanted to make something beautiful and got trapped by debt and by loving a man who dreams bigger than he plans. She checks linens, she tastes food, she remembers staff names, she tries to keep the island kind. Oliver sells. He shakes hands, he promises privacy he cannot fully give, he tells himself problems will pass. Their fights are not loud for show. They are tired, whispered in an office while guests laugh outside. Have we paid the boat crew. Did you tell security about the blogger. Can we move money to cover the chef. That tiredness made them human when the plot needed them to be suspects.

The actor couple gave me a similar ache. They arrived holding hands for cameras, then fought in their villa about an affair and about whether to have another child to save press. One of them drinks too much at lunch and says something cruel about the other's mother. The other smiles and orders dessert. Later, one cries in the spa while a therapist pretends not to hear. Fame did not make them cruel. It gave their worst habits a stage and an audience that rewards staying together no matter what. I felt sorry for them even when they lied to police, because lying felt like another performance they thought they had to give.

The pop star thread hit differently. She is younger, still hoping the industry will be kind if she works hard. Her boyfriend carries her bags and her secrets, and maybe sells one secret to pay a debt. She finds out in pieces, a text seen too long, a photo she did not approve, a friend who stops answering. Her chapters are short, bright, then flat. I wanted to tell her to leave the island and the boy both. When she finally stands up for herself near the end, it is not with a speech. She just says no to one more photo, no to one more lie. Small noes that add up.

Staff eyes

I keep coming back to staff because Lloyd writes service work with respect. The waitress who saves tips for a course, who knows which guest likes extra lime and which likes to be left alone. The cleaner who can tell by sheets and bins what happened in a room, who decides what to report and what to pocket to survive. The security man who likes Oliver but knows Oliver cuts corners on safety to save money. The chef who hates seeing whole fish thrown away for one photo. These people are not background. They are the island's memory.

One scene I liked was a morning briefing where Jess thanks everyone and promises bonuses if reviews are good. Staff nod, tired from a late party clean. One asks about a broken lock on a villa door. Oliver says it will be fixed tomorrow. It is never fixed tomorrow. That lock matters later. It is not planted like a clue with music. It is just neglect from trying to save money, and neglect turns dangerous when people are drunk and angry. That felt honest about how accidents and crimes happen in real resorts, not from master plans but from small unfixed things.

Another strong bit was about phones. Guests promise to lock phones, then hide them, film staff, film each other, film the sea. A video of a fight surfaces, cut to look worse. A photo of a bruise is shared without context. Staff are told not to film, then blamed when no footage proves what happened. The book shows how privacy is sold but never real when everyone carries a camera. Jess believed she could sell privacy. The island proves she cannot, not fully, not when money and spite mix.

If there is a moral here, it is not shouted. Rich people need poor people to keep secrets, and poor people pay more when secrets break. After police leave, stars hire lawyers and publicists. Staff get fired or blacklisted for talking or not talking. One young worker takes a payoff to stay quiet and hates herself for it. Another tells truth and loses a reference. I thought about that for days. Who gets to have a comeback. Who gets to disappear.

I also liked the police, who are not heroes or fools. Two officers from the mainland, tired, polite, out of their depth with lawyers shouting. They take statements slowly, they check times, they notice who cleans what. They do not solve it with genius. They solve it because lies do not line up and someone finally talks to protect someone else, not themselves. That felt true to small place policing.

Would I stay at Home if it were real. No. Even before the death, it sounds exhausting. No signal but pressure to post, no meat that is not flown in, smiles that cost. Give me a small place with a lock that works and staff who get days off. The book made luxury look lonely, which is probably the point. Sun and sea do not fix marriages or careers. They just make cracks easier to see.