Next To Heaven: A Novel

by James Frey Narrated by Gina Gershon

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Money can't buy you happiness — but it can give you unrelenting power. Delve into the underbelly of the world's elite in this dangerously dazzling tale from the author of A Million Little Pieces.

Narrated by actress Gina Gershon.

"NSFW Gatsby." -Book of the Month
"A sizzling beach read about the misdeeds of the rich." -Wall Street Journal
"The novel on every beach towel this summer, all summer, everywhere." -Esquire

Uncover the dark underbelly of the American dream America's most perfect town, in this “lurid” and “propulsive” novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author James Frey (New York Times Book Review Podcast)-and discover a world where privilege, sex, scandal, and murder lurk beneath a flawless veneer.

New Bethlehem, Connecticut. Picture-perfect lawns, manicured hedges, and multi-million dollar homes present a carefully curated facade. But beneath the designer yoga gear and country club memberships lies a darker reality.

In this world of excess, best friends Devon and Belle have it all-beauty, money, status. But they want something more. Something dangerous. Something that makes them feel alive. Their solution? A party-a meticulously curated gathering of New Bethlehem's elite, from a desperate ex-NFL quarterback to a hockey coach with a penchant for married women, and a ruthless Wall Street “closer” who wields his wealth like a weapon.

One night. An ultra-elite swingers party. Multiple betrayals. And a murder that will shatter New Bethlehem's carefully constructed facade.

Enter a world of troubled opulence and sharp betrayal that's reminiscent of "The White Lotus," “Your Friends and Neighbors,” and "Big Little Lies"-a world of spectacularly badly-behaved rich people where money can buy anything. . .until it ruins everything.

Behind every great fortune, lies a great crime. " -Honoré de Balzac

"A Connecticut sex romp-cum-murder mystery . . . 'big nods' to Jackie Collins, Danielle Steel, and Tom Wolfe." -Vanity Fair
“A satirical look at the "beautiful, wealthy and unsatisfied.'” -People Magazine
"Lurid . . . Propulsive. . . appeals to one's baser instincts." -New York Times Book Review Podcast
"A deliriously over-the-top portrait of decadence on the brink." -Bustle

Editorial Reviews

People Magazine

A satirical look at the "beautiful, wealthy and unsatisfied.'

Book of the Month Club

"NSFW Gatsby."

Wall Street Journal

"A sizzling beach read about the misdeeds of the rich."

Vanity Fair

"A Connecticut sex romp–cum–murder mystery . . . 'big nods' to Jackie Collins, Danielle Steel, and Tom Wolfe. Accordingly, its characters would feel at home in the White Lotus extended universe."

Kirkus Reviews

"Gleefully trashy page-turner set among the one percent . . .Frey is in his element here. Let the revels begin!"

Esquire

"Next to Heaven, by James Frey ... will be the novel on every beach towel this summer, all summer, everywhere. Because sex and murder, yes. And because Frey could always tell a great story."

Bustle

"With coke-fueled monologues, a surplus of extramarital sex scenes, and plenty of suburban ennui, Next to Heaven delivers a deliriously over-the-top portrait of decadence on the brink."

New York Times Book Review Podcast

"There's murder. There's intrigue. There's deceit. Lurid . . . Propulsive. . . appeals to one's baser instincts."

From the Publisher

"Gleefully trashy page-turner set among the one percent . . .Frey is in his element here. Let the revels begin!" —Kirkus Reviews



"A satirical look at the "beautiful, wealthy and unsatisfied." —People Magazine

People Magazine

"A satirical look at the "beautiful, wealthy and unsatisfied."

Kirkus Reviews

2025-03-22
A swingers’ party leads to murder in a wealthy Connecticut enclave.

After a seven-year hiatus from publishing adult fiction, Frey has found a groove with this gleefully trashy page-turner set among the one percent: four couples in the fictional town of New Bethlehem whose lives are thrown into chaos when two of the wives plan a spouse-swapping evening. (Rick Moody’s 1994 novel,The Ice Storm, lurks in the background, unnamed: “You know Key Parties were invented here.” “I’ve seen the movie, I’ve read the book.”) Their short-range goals are to sleep with someone other than their husbands (one is a sadistic nightmare, the other impotent), but there’s a long-range goal the reader won’t know about for a while. Frey is in his element here, with his signature breathless, over-the-top, unpunctuated sentences and one-sentence paragraphs; laundry lists of high-end brand names (at one meeting, people sit on Boca do Lobo sofas and Roche Bobois armchairs in Gieves & Hawkes suits); and a pharmacopeia so rich it almost gets you high to read it. (“He had cocaine from Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru. Pink coke from L.A., which has slight amounts of ketamine and ecstasy cut into it. He had mushrooms in raw form, in pills, in chocolate. He had twelve different strains of weed, four each of sativa, hybrid, and indica. He had ecstasy from the Netherlands. He had acid from Northern California. And he had the rarest of recreational drugs, quaaludes.”) Wild excess is everywhere, and is often played for laughs. As we happily race toward the sequenced reveals of who is murdered, who did it, and what happens to all these delightful people, Frey pauses to rhapsodize about his home state in a lyrical chapter titled “Color Fields”: “Oh, Connecticut, how beautiful you are.…Your Maples. / Sugar and Red. / In all their motherfucking glory. / And it is glorious.”

Frey’s literary affectations don’t get in the way of the good times. Let the revels begin!

Product Details

BN ID:	2940193527091
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	06/17/2025
Edition description:	Unabridged

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