The Party

AN OBSERVER BOOK OF THE YEAR A gripping story of betrayal, privilege and hypocrisy, set in the unassailable heart of the British establishment. 'Think Brideshead Revisited meets The Talented Mr Ripley with a dash of The Riot Club. I couldn't put it down' Louise O'Neill, author of Asking For It 'As the train pressed on, I realised that my life was in the process of taking a different direction, plotted according to a new constellation. Because, although I didn't know it yet, I was about to meet Ben and nothing would ever be the same again.' Martin Gilmour is an outsider. When he wins a scholarship to Burtonbury School, he doesn't wear the right clothes or speak with the right kind of accent. But then he meets the dazzling, popular and wealthy Ben Fitzmaurice, and gains admission to an exclusive world. Soon Martin is enjoying tennis parties and Easter egg hunts at the Fitzmaurice family's estate, as Ben becomes the brother he never had. But Martin has a secret. He knows something about Ben, something he will never tell. It is a secret that will bind the two of them together for the best part of 25 years. At Ben's 40th birthday party, the great and the good of British society are gathering to celebrate in a haze of champagne, drugs and glamour. Amid the hundreds of guests — the politicians, the celebrities, the old-money and newly rich — Martin once again feels that disturbing pang of not-quite belonging. His wife, Lucy, has her reservations too. There is disquiet in the air. But Ben wouldn't do anything to damage their friendship. Would he? 'The twists and turns that the novel takes are never predictable and the novel becomes as unsettling as it is involving. One of those books that a person reads in one day because you absolutely have to know how it turns out' John Boyne, author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas • A gripping literary thriller comparable to Notes on a Scandal by Zoe Heller (TCM 367,439), The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst (TCM 255,000) and The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith (TCM 115,000). • Elizabeth has a fast-growing profile as a journalist, with 13.5 Twitter followers. She is a feature writer for numerous publications in the UK and US including The Telegraph, The Times, the Guardian, the Observer, Vogue, Grazia, the Radio Times, Harper's Bazaar, Elle, Marie Claire, Glamour, InStyle, the Lonely Planet Magazine, The Pool and Cosmopolitan. • Elizabeth has appeared on Radio 4's Saturday Review, Woman's Hour, Broadcasting House, The Last Word and on LBC and TalkSport's Late Show. • She is the co-founder of Pin Drop, a storytelling initiative for adults which stages short story narrations in inspiring settings. • Her critically-acclaimed debut novel Scissors Paper Stone won a Betty Trask Award for first novels written by authors under the age of 35 • Her third and most recent novel, Paradise City was named one of the best novels of 2015 in the Observer, Paste Magazine and the Evening Standard, and was People magazine's Book of the Week. Competition: gather the daughters; house of names; lie of the land; past secrets; conversations with friends; fact of a body; under the sun; midnight line; he said she said; Eleanor Oliphant. Alan Hollinghurst; Amanda Craig; Sally Rooney; Julie Cohen; Gail Honeyman.