Before entering Phyllis’s world, however, we hear her aged voice, confiding and clear. “Someone said to me once, when I was young, that my hair was as glossy as the flank of a well-stabled horse,” she recalls in 1979, when it has turned “yellowing white.” By then, she has been incarcerated for years, we don’t yet know why. Her children, when she is released, shrink from her embrace and Phyllis can hardly blame them. “Here was this haggish-looking old person instead of their mother. My clothes must have seemed very drab, too. And then of course prisons smell awful.” In a few plain sentences, the novel’s intimate, understated tone is set, and a hook is cunningly baited: “What I did was terrible,” Phyllis confesses. “Had it not been for my weakness, someone who is now dead could still be alive.” Then we return to the summer of 1938. There’s some extremely deft writing here from Cressida Connolly who manages to create an almost entirely sympathetic heroine from a member of the British Union of Fascists. To be fair, there were many in the 1930s who were taken in by the charismatic oratory of Oswald Mosley, known as The Leader, and were keen for peace at any cost after the annihilation of a generation in the First World War. But this book is as interesting for what it doesn’t say as for what it does. (Antisemitism, for instance, does not get so much as a mention.) Ms Connolly spins an absorbing story about a woman who may – or may not – have been naïve, who may – or may not – have been as nice as we readers would like to think.

Thank you to NetGalley, Harper Collins UK l, One More Chapter and Georgina Lees for letting me read “After the Party”in exchange for an honest review. Phyllis Forrester and her husband, Hugh, return to England, after some years abroad, with their children, Julia, Frances and Edwin. Phyllis is keen to find a house near her sisters, Patricia and Nina. Indeed, while house hunting, the family stay with Patricia, her husband, Greville and their daughter, Antonia. Her other sister, Nina, and husband, Eric, also live nearby. While there, she hears about Nina’s ‘camps,’ which are talked about as a bit of fun and a good way to socialise. There is also much socialising with Patricia; although her taste runs to the more conventional dinner parties.

There's a little bit of 'death to the jews' graffiti, the true crime there being the graffiti itself not the message (graffiti is frightfully jejune don't you know). We gloss briefly over the little spot of trouble in the East End (the battle of Cable Street?), not the fault of the BU, obviously. But the thing is, there's no context given in the book. If you didn't already know about Oswald Mosley and his despicable party before you read this book, you could reasonably feel sympathy for the plight of the imprisoned party members. In this era where the far right is once again on the rise I find this unforgivable.

At the companies’ Christmas party she finally finds the courage to tell Dean, but oh no, Dean shares his news first. He has already a love interest. Rebecca, their co-worker, who disappears the night of the party. And we are left with the question of what happened and who made it happen, no pun intended.The ending left me with more questions than answers, characters I didn't expect to be instrumental to the missing character and Lizzie to my mind with the wrong person. This ambiguity is what the whole show pivots around. Penny can’t let it go, the community just wants to move on. Phil’s return dredges all this unresolved tension to seethe at the surface. Penny’s possessed by this knowledge, breaching friendships and boundaries and the law. You see the way this terrible knowledge eats her alive, burning through whatever vestigial relationships have survived her obsession to this point. Peter Mullan as Phil and Robyn Malcolm as Penny in After the Party (Image: Supplied) It also subtly presses against recent trends in NZ On Air-funded series, in a way I want to carefully commend. The cast is largely Pākehā, and a character describes a restaurant as “gay”. I am not, to be clear, suggesting that this is good in and of itself. The push toward greater representation and consciousness of bias in New Zealand productions is manifestly excellent and essential. Yet at times the fact such a large number of our screen communities are perfectly racially blended and confident in their reo can make a show feel like it’s less about reflecting the messy reality of our society than an aspirational window into what we’d like it to be. After the Party emerges at a tense time for NZ drama – more on that below. A longer version of this review will run on The Spinoff next week. WOW!!! I. COULD. NOT. PUT. THIS. DOWN. I read it all in ONE sitting! It was amazing! The storyline was captivating and engrossing while the main characters, Suzie and Emily, were so well written and interesting that I couldn't get enough of them. Plenty of suspense and twists to keep you guessing until the very end! Bravo!!’ Yamil, NetGalley

McNary, Dave (June 27, 2013). " 21 Jump Street Directors, Sony Reunite on New Comedy (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety . Retrieved March 19, 2020. The Afterparty ' Season 2: Release Date, Cast, Teaser, and Everything We Know So Far". Collider. June 7, 2023 . Retrieved June 29, 2023. Chapman, Wilson (January 18, 2023). " The Afterparty Season 2 Sets April Premiere — Here's Your First Look". IndieWire . Retrieved January 18, 2023. Ilana Glazer as Chelsea, a veterinary clinic receptionist who blamed Xavier for her ostracization by the whole school I'm gonna say, I had some real high hopes for this one just by the synopsis but sadly it just didn't work for me. I really struggled reading this one and it wasn't because it was slow. It was the fact that Lizzie drove me nuts. She reminded me of a whiny high schooler dealing with her obsession of unrequited love with Dean. I will say this had such real potential and writing was really well done, but a lot of redundancy in it that made it difficult.Despite the fact that I feel quite mislead by the blurb (which seems to imply her imprisonment is because she had a part in someone's death), I enjoyed this book tremendously. It's a fascinating look at a lost world, written in the clearest language, exploring some very interesting ideas. The ending of the book was a surprise that actually included a few different twists. It didn’t turn out how I expected and I can’t say that I approved of decisions that were made, but I loved the unexpectedness of how it all came together. Regardless, I’m not too hung up on this flaw. I really enjoyed all the other aspects and richness of the book. Cressida Connolly was a delight to read.