This was an audiobook from Audible, which I listened to over a number of runs during one week. It is narrated by Juanita McMahon, who did a great job overall. There were seven main characters, and she did give voice to them all.

The story concerns three couples – Chris and Beth, Tony and Sarah, and Marie and Duncan. The women have been friends for years, and the men are therefore friends by default, and all six of them meet up once a month at each other’s houses, for a dinner party. Then one night, Chris invites his friend Simon along; Simon is gorgeous – and heartbroken because his wife has just left him for another man.

Having another person in the mix soon changes up the dynamic of the group, as the men feel their territory threatened (with the exception of Chris) and the women are intrigued by the new face.

Throughout the year and the various dinner parties, Simon’s role in their lives means new alliances and new animosities are forged and created and eventually everything culminates in one unforgettable dinner party at his house…

On paper, there is a lot going for this book, and I would say I enjoyed it – for the most part. For the first 45 minutes I had severe doubts though, and considered giving up on it. Repetition can be quite funny, but at times throughout the book, and especially in the first part, it seemed as though Bloom had had some kind of bet to see how many times she could shoehorn a particular word in. In the first part for example, we see just how obsessed with dips Chris is. He loves his dips, and we are hit over the head with this fact as the word dips is trotted out too many times to count. Later on the same thing happens when Beth laments that people find her cuddly. How many times do we need to hear the word cuddly to realise that it annoys her? (It annoyed me too!)

The characters are a mish-mash, and for the most part, not particularly likeable. Chris is so relentlessly cheerful, but yet completely oblivious to what is going on around him (and his failure to pick up on social cues is annoying) that he just comes across as shallow and stupid. I did love him for one scene though, which I won’t reveals here as it would be a potential spoiler.

Tony is pompous and chauvinistic and goodness knows why Sarah put up with him!

Marie is the worst of all. Vacuous, self-absorbed, vain and insensitive, I couldn’t stand her and was amazed that she had managed to find two friends and a nice man who wanted to marry her (I liked Duncan most of all).

What I would say is that the writing flowed well, and it was an undemanding listen/read. I’d give it a middling scream which is to say that I didn’t think it was brilliant, but it kept me entertained enough while I pounded the streets. ( )

Please see all of my reviews on my blog at www.robinlovesreading.blogspot.com.

Once a month three couples get together for a dinner party. They are Beth, Sarah and Marie, and their respective husbands, Chris, Tony and Duncan. It is Beth's turn to host and Beth and Chris are quite frazzled. She is more than annoyed at his forgetfulness during preparation, and even more so when he suddenly mentioned he has invited a new friend to the party, Simon. Simon's wife recently left him, and Chris thinks Simon could use a pick-me-up. Simon attends and everything that could go wrong did go wrong, if not at that event, certainly to come.

There are a lot of chapters in Dinner Party. Each chapter is written from one of the group's point of view. We are also treated to an ongoing interview with the individual members by a journalist of some sort at the end of each chapter. Hints are given as the story goes along that chaos has ensued. It takes a bit of reading through to absorb all of the consequences that will occur by simply inviting one extra person to the dinner party.

Dinner Party is truly a character-driven story. We are easily drawn into the personalities and characteristics of each one in the group. There is a fair amount of humor in this story - let's just mention Chris and his obsession with dips. Yeah, definitely humor. However, it certainly is not the laugh-out-loud sort. As the connections are made with each character, there is also a fair amount of sadness, especially concerning specific individuals. This is an easy and pleasant read. I was able to enjoy this book and do look forward to reading more of Tracy Bloom in the future.

Many thanks to Bookouture and to NetGalley for this ARC to review in exchange for my honest opinion. ( )