With Regrets

By: Lee Kelly

Narrated by: Gail Shalan

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: strange atmospheric masses, reported to look like “glimmering clouds,” have been spreading through major U.S. cities and killing anyone they touch. Authorities have one clear directive: 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 it: 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.

As tensions and suspicions among the party guests near a boiling point, Liz becomes increasingly willing to do whatever it takes to get back to her children, but she soon realizes there may be others in the cellar even more desperate than she is...

©2023 Lee Kelly (P)2023 Dreamscape Media

A dinner party during the apocalypse? Yes, please!

Do you LOVE dinner parties? Then you will love this book.
Do you HATE dinner parties? Then you will love this book EVEN MORE.

The same can be said for Instagram, #hashtags, PTA meetings, expensive Electric Cars, cell phones, and the state of New Jersey.
No matter how you feel about these things, there is probably something in this book for you.

At first, I was drawn in by the mystery… what is the deal with these glimmering clouds, and why is it so difficult to find good babysitting in New Jersey? I spent the first half of the book obsessively trying to guess what was going on. I was asking myself questions like:
“Who are the heroes and who are the villains?”
“Is this going to end with the apocalypse?”
“Are there going to be zombies or vampires in this book?”

Then, I realized the more interesting questions were way more personal and grounded in reality:
“How would I act during a time of great panic and tragedy?”
“Would I help others, or be selfish?”
“What would I do to get to my children?”

The story is thrilling, but with the right amount of humor. There are plenty of twists and turns throughout.

By the end, I changed my mind about a lot of the characters. You never really know what other people are going through, and we should all be nicer to each other.

Also, when bad things happen in this book, they happen in SPECTACULAR ways! The text is so vivid you feel like you’re right there. You have to read it to see what I’m talking about. No spoilers.

If you like sci-fi you’ll love it! NOT A MYSTERY/THRILLER

If you want a mystery murder thriller - skip this, but if you don’t mind post apocalyptic things, this was fantastic! Personally this is not a book I would have selected & I actually was going to rate this lower until i realized they did say it was sci-fi & post apocalyptic, I just missed that part. I do not like sci-fi at all & I still liked this book!