Greenwich
- Judith D Collins
- Jul 22
- 7 min read
By: Kate Broad
Narrator: Imani Jade Powers
Macmillan Audio
ISBN: 9781250363046
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Publication Date: 07/22/2025
Format: Other
My Rating: 5 Stars (ARC)
A riveting debut novel for readers of Celeste Ng and Liane Moriarty, Greenwich explores the nature of desire and complicity against the backdrop of immense wealth and privilege, the ways that whiteness and power protect their own, and the uneasy moral ambiguity of redemption.
Summer, 1999. Rachel Fiske is almost eighteen when she arrives at her aunt and uncle’s mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut. Her glamorous aunt is struggling to heal from an injury, and Rachel wants to help—and escape her own troubles back home. But her aunt is oddly spacey and her uncle is consumed with business, and Rachel feels lonely and adrift, excluded from the world of adults and their secrets. The only bright spot is Claudia, a recent college graduate, aspiring artist, and the live-in babysitter for Rachel’s cousin. As summer deepens, Rachel eagerly hopes their friendship might grow into more.
But when a tragic accident occurs, the family turns on Claudia in a desperate bid to salvage their reputation. Caught between her upbringing and her feelings for Claudia, her desire to do the right thing and to protect her future, Rachel must make a pivotal choice. She’s the only one who knows what really happened—and her decision has consequences far beyond what she could have predicted.
My Review
Kate Broad's stunning debut novel, GREENWICH, is a haunting, complex, moody slow-burn domestic suspense, family drama, and coming of age, both atmospheric and introspective, with highly charged themes of class, sexuality, power, race, and identity, with a peek into the darkest consequences of privilege.
Brilliantly exploring how our actions shape our common world, and how the stories we tell ourselves about those actions influence their meaning.
Audiobook...
Immersing myself in both the e-book and the audiobook, I was captivated by the talented Imani Jade Powers' performance. Her narration perfectly captures the mood, setting, and essence of each character, making for an engaging and captivating listening experience. I highly recommend the audiobook, which brings the story to life.
About...
Rachel (Boston) decides she wants to visit the summer with her wealthy aunt and uncle in Greenwich, CT and their lovely estate before college.
She has made some mistakes, and her mom is too busy with her younger, sick sibling and thinks it will be a new adventure.
Her aunt Ellen has suffered a fall from a horse, and she is in a lot of pain. She was supposed to be there to help out; however, did she help out?
Her uncle is so obsessed with business that her glamorous aunt is taking pain pills (which Rachel gets into), and the three-year-old toddler, Sabrine, is being cared for by the live-in nanny, Claudia (black).
Claudia is not much older than Rachel, but she appears to be more mature and focused, and knows her place. She does not want to lose her job, as she is dedicated and needs the money.
On the other hand, Rachel is bored and is enamored and obsessed with Claudia.
However, things get out of control and a tragedy occurs. What happens thereafter will change the trajectory of their lives.
My thoughts...
GREENWICH is an impressive debut and prime for the small or big screen. Rachel is not a likable character and seems always to play the victim. The author delves deep into her character and how she sees all the characters through her eyes, offering a psychological depth that will keep you intrigued and engaged.
Narrated from the unique perspective of Rachel, now 38, as she unveils the events of that fateful summer in Greenwich. This narrative choice adds a layer of intrigue, as we see the summer that changed her life through her eyes.
The book is quite hypnotic, as you are drawn into a mystery that unfolds, a tragedy, and the circumstances that led to it, along with the fallout, while exploring the dark underbelly of privilege and power, negligence, and corruption.
GREENWICH is a deeply psychological and heartbreaking read, with a strong takeaway message. Serving as a cautionary tale, leaving the reader both warned and reflective, and adding a thought-provoking depth to the reading experience.
From race, class, privilege, guilt, the weight of secrets, regret, power, betrayal, obsession, female friendship, social expectations, identity, and the devastating consequences of actions, the novel delves into a myriad of thought-provoking themes. The choices we make shape who we become. Mistakes can have life-altering consequences.
'Greenwich' also explores the themes of grief, justice, and the deeply flawed nature of humanity. It poses intriguing questions about motives and the lengths people will go to protect their secrets, leaving readers in a contemplative state.
The cast of characters is profoundly flawed and richly complex. Kate Broad has delivered a remarkable and insightful debut—ideal for book clubs and further discussions.
Recs...
GREENWICH is a must-read for fans of 'Saltburn', Celeste Ng's 'Little Fires Everywhere', 'When We Were Bright and Beautiful' by Jillian Medoff, and Sara Koffi's 'While We Were Burning'. If you enjoyed the complex characters and gripping plotlines of these novels, you'll find 'Greenwich' equally compelling.
An author to watch. If this is a debut, I'm eager to see what comes next.
Many thanks to St. Martin's Press and Macmillan Audio, as well as #MacAudio2025, for providing an advanced reading and listening copy, allowing me to share my honest thoughts.
@JudithDCollins | #JDCMustReadBooks
My Rating: 5 Stars
Pub Date: July 22, 2025
Praise
"Kate Broad masterfully combines can’t-put-it-down slow-drip suspense with sticky-summer coming-of-age, immersing us along the way in the lives of characters who are heartbreaking and complex and, best of all, given no easy outs. Greenwich is timely, smart, and immensely enjoyable."
– Laurie Frankel, bestselling author of Family Family
“Kate Broad’s Greenwich is a page turner, an engrossing tale of a family tragedy layered against class and racial rifts in an upscale Connecticut suburb. Told from the perspective of a young adult discovering her voice and identity, it’s a riveting read and not-to-be-missed debut.”
– Vibhuti Jain, author of Our Best Intentions
"More than just a compelling coming-of-age story, Greenwich takes a hard look at class, race, and privilege in one of the country's most affluent suburbs. Nobody gets off the hook in this brave and unflinching novel of penance and place."
- Christina Clancy, author of The Snowbirds
"Greenwich is a dark, lush, complex tale about the ways in which perception can be manipulated and privilege rules all. It’s the story of a girl mired in doubt, a girl who’s learned to stifle herself, and the woman she becomes when she learns to let it all go. I simply could not put this urgent, gorgeous book down."
– Lindsay Hunter, author of Hot Springs Drive
"Greenwich is as absorbing and gripping in its suspense as it is deeply affecting in its depth. Kate Broad has fashioned a story and a character that offers a moral tale without absolutes, insights without certainty, and a reading experience that will stay with me forever. Greenwich had me in its grips from start to finish: a beautifully written, unflinching, and harrowing tale of the catastrophic effects people can have on each other, even before they know who they are."
– Liz Harmer, author of The Amateurs and Strange Loops
"Prepare for an intense reading experience. Greenwich examines race, privilege, and culpability in a coming of age story that reads like a powerful thriller. Book clubs will find themselves immersed in lengthy discussions about whether accidents just happen - or is someone always responsible. Get ready to have your opinions challenged and your emotions heightened when you spend a summer in Greenwich with Rachel and her family."
– Pamela Klinger-Horn, Valley Bookseller
About the Author
photo by Brittanny Taylor
KATE BROAD holds a BA from Wellesley College and a PhD in English from the CUNY Graduate Center. She is a Bronx Council on the Arts award winner for fiction, and her writing appears or is forthcoming in The Rumpus, No Tokens, The Brooklyn Review, and elsewhere. Greenwich is her first novel.
Author’s Note
Dear Reader,
Greenwich begins with an epigraph from Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition, a book that’s influenced so much of my writing for its look at how our individual actions shape our common world, and how the stories we tell ourselves about those actions influence their meaning.
The germ of my novel started with the image of a lonely teenager as she’s picked up from a train station and whisked to her aunt and uncle’s house. I felt her excitement for a fresh start—and my own sense of foreboding. I asked myself, what if it wasn’t just a house, but an estate, its grandeur seductive and dangerous? What secrets would those brick walls hide? What would it be like for a young woman to step into this world of wealth and deception right as she’s entering adulthood and learning who she is? In a novel about the reach and ripple effects of privilege, it was important for me to critique Rachel’s choices while also exploring where her views come from, the impact they have, and how pervasive they remain.
Greenwich is a story about class, race, sexuality, and power. It’s about how mistakes can have life-altering consequences. It asks how our perceptions and biases shape our versions of events. Who is allowed to have a childhood and stay innocent? Who is the first to be blamed? Who has to labor for others? Who gets to be believed and forgiven?
No one novel can have all the answers, but I think the questions Greenwich raises are important to grapple with—in our politics, in our relationships with each other, and in our literature and art. I hope the novel will spark conversation, and that it will be as meaningful to read as it was for me to write.
