Please Join Us: A Novel

by Catherine McKenzie

Named one of 2022’s best and most-anticipated thrillers by Goodreads, CrimeReads, Motherly, Westport Magazine, and more!

A “propulsive thriller about secret organizations, hidden agendas, and the lengths one woman will go to reclaim her life” (Laura Dave, author of Reese’s Book Club Pick The Last Thing He Told Me) from USA TODAY bestselling author Catherine McKenzie.

At thirty-nine, Nicole Mueller’s life is on the rocks. Her once brilliant law career is falling apart. She and her husband, Dan, are soon to be forced out of the apartment they love. After a warning from her firm’s senior partners, she receives an invitation from an exclusive women’s networking group, Panthera Leo. Membership is anonymous, but every member is a successful professional. It sounds like the perfect solution to help Nicole revive her career. So, despite Dan’s concerns that the group might be a cult, Nicole signs up for their retreat in Colorado.

Once there, she meets the other women who will make up her Pride. A CEO, an actress, a finance whiz, a congresswoman: Nicole can’t believe her luck. The founders of Panthera Leo are equally as impressive. They explain the group’s core philosophy: they’re a girl’s club in a boy’s club world.

Nicole is all in. And when she gets home, she soon sees dividends. Her new network quickly provides her with clients that help her relaunch her career, and a great new apartment too. The favors she has to provide in return seem benign. But then she’s called to the congresswoman’s apartment late at night where she’s pressed into helping her cover up a crime. And suddenly, Dan’s concerns that something more sinister is at play seem all too relevant. Can Nicole extricate herself from the group before it’s too late? Or will joining Panthera Leo be the biggest mistake of her life?

• ISBN10: 198215926X
• ISBN13: 9781982159269
• Publish Date: 23 August 2022
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Simon & Schuster
• Format: eBook (EPUB)
• Pages: 320
• Language: English

Reviews

[Quirky Cat]

Please Join Us is the latest thriller novel by Catherine McKenzie. I'll admit that it was initially the vibrant cover that caught my attention, though the plot kept me invested enough to see the story through.

Nicole Mueller feels like her life is falling apart. In a desperate move to save her career, Nicole signs up for exclusive membership in a networking group. This networking group may or may not be a cult – but their offer is too good to pass up.

At first, the whole organization seems almost too good to be true. Her new connections quickly began providing her career with the needed boost. But then Nicole learned the meaning behind the phrase 'too good to be true.'

Okay, I'll admit that the premise of Please Join Us immediately caught my attention. An organization of women designed explicitly to uplift others? On the surface, that sounds great, right? Only, even without much thought, one could quickly see how such an organization would be highly dependent on the people running it and the rules they create for themselves.

I'm rambling; sorry about that. What I'm trying to say is the potential of this organization caught my imagination. It has the potential for good – and the potential for abuse. In the case of Please Join Us, you can probably guess which way it goes.

There are a lot of twists and turns in Please Join Us. Honestly, I went into this book expecting a few good twists. Instead, I got lots and lots of twisty surprises. That enhanced the story, making it all the more unpredictable.

I did have a few problems with this book, which kept me from loving it. Mainly, I didn't love some of the tropes Please Join Us leaned on (such as the inability to trust women). Overall, I would say that it was a solid read worth checking out, especially if the blurb caught your attention.

Thanks to Atria Books and #NetGalley for making this book available for review. All opinions expressed are my own.

Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks | Quirky Cat's Comics | The Book Review Crew | Monkeys Fighting Robots | Storygraph | Bookhype | Bookstagram | Twitter | Tumblr | Reedsy

[Jeff Sexton]

The More You Think You See, The Easier It Will Be To Fool You. For the first time since I began reading McKenzie's books (with 2018's The Good Liar) at minimum, here McKenzie uses her former profession as a lawyer to craft a women's fiction tale that almost rivals the legends of legal fiction such as John Grisham. The prologue pulls you in, the alternating timelines build the mystery, and while the pacing gets slow between the prologue and say the 3/4 mark or so, it is always with a tinge of menace right around the corner. And then that final 10-15% or so, where the title of this review *really* kicks in. Almost until the last word, McKenzie begins flipping everything you think you know around so much it begins to look like a Rubik's cube master's speed run. Quite an interesting tale, and very much recommended.