With Regrets , from author Lee Kelly, is equal parts Big Little Lies and Bird Box , a suburban drama wrapped in a 24-hour survival story at the end of the world, perfect for fans of David Koepp’s Aurora.
Seven courses, seven guests, twenty-four hours that will obliterate everything.
When recent NYC-transplant Liz Brinkley and her husband are invited to an exclusive soiree by their neighbor, “lifestyle guru” Britta Harris-Che, Liz’s immediate thought is hell no. Britta is insufferable, and Liz is wary to leave her young children with a barely-teenage babysitter. And yet she RSVPs anyway, trying to extend an olive branch to her withdrawing husband, who seems desperate to get in with the cliquey elite.
They’ve barely made it through their first round of champagne when a “red alert” comes through their phones, and every channel on the television tells the same strange atmospheric masses, reported to look like “glimmering clouds,” have been spreading through major U.S. cities and killing anyone they touch. Authorities have just one clear Find shelter. Immediately.
A collective panic seizes the dinner party; all the guests have children at home. In the mad dash to their cars, they see a shimmering net floating over the town. The street is littered with wrecked cars and dead bodies. Leaving now is not an option. Instead, the group launches into survival mode, grabbing supplies to take shelter in the hosts’ wine cellar. But everyone has very different opinions about the best plan from there.
Liz becomes increasingly willing to do anything it takes to get back to her children. As the glimmering clouds continue to kill anyone who steps outside, the tensions and suspicions among the party guests near a boiling point. But she begins to realize that there may be others in that cellar even more desperate than she is.
WITH REGRETS
Lee Kelly
Liz Brinkley has regrets. She’s been invited to an elaborate seven-course dinner with neighbor and social media influencer, Britta Harris-Che. She’s just left her kids with an undesirably inexperienced babysitter; her sister is due to arrive any hour and Liz really wishes she would not have RSVP’d for this dinner. She wishes she could be at home with her children, waiting for her sister to arrive.
Merely a sip or two into the first course of the dinner party the guests receive an emergency alert that something is happening in the sky and seek shelter immediately. All the dinner guests retreat to the wine cellar. Liz is now trapped in the cellar with six “friends” as an apocalyptic event happens just outside their door. As deadly as it is outside it’s even more dangerous inside.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
As the story unravels, we watch as each guest deals with the perilous situation in their own way and in conspiring ways together. Who will be left to tell the story? Who will not survive the night?
The set-up is the perfect playground for my imagination to run wild. However, the plot was more than disappointing. There just wasn’t much that happened. The stakes didn’t feel high enough, and I didn’t feel pulled towards the characters and the situation they were in.
I struggled to stay invested. I struggled to be horrified. I struggled to care.
The writing itself was a big part of the downfall for me in WITH REGRETS. It felt undecided and disjointed. Often splitting hairs within one sentence, saying two things ineffectively instead of expressing one with clarity. It had no rhythm, and the sentences were rambling, kinky and jarring. It was neither flowery nor succinct, lazily laying somewhere confusingly in between.
I gave WITH REGRETS three stars and that feels generous. WITH REGRETS is out today everywhere books are sold. If you pick this one up, let me know what you think in the comments.
Thanks to Netgalley and Crooked Lane Books for the advanced copy and the opportunity to provide feedback!
WITH REGRETS…⭐️⭐️⭐️
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