A few weeks ago, one of the neighbor kids rang our doorbell to inform us that my brother-in-law Rodolfo’s Samoyed was out of the yard. We were able to get her back, but in the next panicked moments, we realized that our shih-poo Oreo was missing.

Someone had come into the yard earlier to do some work and hadn’t closed the gate. (Shame on us for not checking before letting the dogs out. Ultimately, it’s our responsibility to make sure the yard is secure, but we had not had this problem in the past. If you open it, close it, as they say.)

I checked our Ring camera footage to see if we could figure out which direction the dogs headed out and discovered they had actually been gone for more than an hour. I posted in three local Facebook groups in case anyone spotted Oreo, and Rodolfo and I set out in opposite directions by car to see if we could find him. When Corinne arrived home from band camp a little more than an hour later, he still hadn’t turned up.

She hopped in the car with me, and we set out again. She texted several of her friends. One said that she would keep an eye out near her house. One said she would let her brothers know since they were out. And one of them hopped in the car with her mom immediately to help us look. They also called the non-emergency police number and discovered that someone had already called about him and left an address. Within 10 minutes of Corinne texting her friends, we had Oreo back.

Something special happens when people pull together.

These friends we’ve made over the years (mostly parents of Corinne’s school friends) have shown love in ways I never could have expected. After my husband Dennis was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, they helped in the smallest but most powerful ways—helping me keep the house clean, taking Corinne to and from school and activities when I couldn’t, just being here to pray and talk with us.

After Dennis passed, these same friends organized a meal schedule to drop off dinner every night for about a week. We just had to let them know how many people would be here and what time we wanted to eat.

Even my boss (and friend), through Dennis’s diagnosis and treatment, gradually pulled things off of my plate so that I wouldn’t have to worry about work. She wanted to be sensitive to the fact that I wasn’t going to be able to focus every day. I took four months off after Dennis died, and I didn’t worry about anything. I left her a message and said I was going to be gone, and everything was taken care of.

Two months after I went back to work, we lost my mom suddenly, and I took another two months off. I didn’t worry about what would happen when I finally went back to work, and that’s how it should be. Too many people have to choose between taking care of themselves and losing a job. I am grateful to work for a company that prioritizes its people.

And my best friend Stephanie…I know that I can call her or text her anytime. If I need her, she will be here at the drop of a hat no matter what. She’s my ride or die, and I would do the same for her. She’s my tribe…along with all the other awesome friends we have. These are people I would do anything for.

Catherine McKenzie has a book coming out this week about women who bond together as a “pride.” (Yes, it’s a lion reference.) They stick together no matter what, and they help each other make connections and succeed personally and professionally.

Back in March, I wrote “Eight Years, Six Days on My TBR List” about an earlier work by Catherine McKenzie. At the time, I was hoping to see Please Join Us as an Amazon First Reads selection. I’m so glad that I was able to get an ARC, though, because my First Reads tend to stay on my TBR list for a while (sometimes eight years and six days 🤪).

Don’t let this one sit too long. Please…join us. We will be your pride. 🦁

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Book Review

⭐⭐⭐⭐
4 Stars for Please Join Us by Catherine McKenzie

317 pages
Publisher: Atria Books
Publication Date: August 23, 2022
I received an advance copy of this title from NetGalley and Atria Books.

Publisher’s Description

At 39, 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?

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Main Characters:

• Nicole Mueller – 39-year-old junior partner in a law firm at risk of being pushed out due to her billable hours being down
• Dan Mueller – Nicole’s husband who works as in-house counsel at a bank, a move he made five years prior after not making partner as a litigator
• Athena Williams – 35-year-old recently elected first-time congresswoman who came from a modeling career in her early 20s
• Connie Chu – early 50s, founder of a security company, also owns several rental properties
• Samantha Cole – a television actress
• Heather Davis – works in corporate finance and specializes in hostile takeovers
• Michelle Song – former lead singer of the Songbirds in the 80s, currently in her 60s, co-founder of Panthera Leo
• Karma – creator of a wellness brand called Good Karma, co-founder of Panthera Leo with Michelle

How would I describe Catherine McKenzie’s Please Join Us? Twisty…check! Mean girls…check! Girl power…check! Manipulation…check! Revenge….check! If you’re looking for any of these in a good book, you’ll want to pick this up.

Nicole, who we first meet as she’s sneaking into Athena’s apartment in the present time (October) and finds a dead body, narrates throughout the book. When the prologue ends, chapter 1 takes us back to June when Nicole hears from her mentor at her law firm that her points are being cut. Her billable hours are down, and she’s seriously at risk of being forced out unless something drastic changes.

An hour later, among the emails from recruiters and colleagues, she receives an email from Karma and Michelle inviting her to join them at an “experience” with Panthera Leo, a secret organization of women helping women to succeed in a man’s world. Convenient timing, right? 😏 Nicole sees it as a networking opportunity. Dan thinks it’s a cult. I think they’re both right.

As Nicole takes us through her first experience with Panthera Leo and the activities all of the members of her “Pride” are supposed to participate in, she becomes increasingly more suspicious about the goal of the organization. But she has a huge new client, thanks to Panthera Leo. She has a great new apartment, right when she desperately needed one, thanks to Panthera Leo. Because true to the word of the founders, all you have to do is ask your Pride for help. It’s all about supporting one another. You know the old adage. If it seems too good to be true…. Yeah, well, this book has that in droves.

And when it’s Nicole’s turn to help and support her Pride, when there’s a dead body in Athena’s apartment and she knows she’s getting herself into illegal territory…well let’s just say you’ll want to keep reading.

I really enjoyed the twists and turns in this. I completely believe how Nicole could let herself be taken in by Panthera Leo when she hit a stumbling block in her career. It’s kind of ingrained in us that women are supposed to look out for each other, and Nicole is feeling a little desperate.

There were two things that knocked this down to 4 stars for me. The first was Nicole’s use of “lists” throughout the book. There’s no description of a quirk or personality trait, and the only explanation is a passing comment that Nicole’s mind is “logging” as she goes.

“— The ball field that looked like it was built for toys.
— The pools in the backyards of the suburban houses.
— The puffy clouds we were reaching for.”

As I think about it now, I guess it could be to demonstrate that Nicole is methodical in her thinking. In the moment, though, I didn’t get that sense. They were way more of a distraction than anything else and didn’t seem to add anything to the story.

The other thing that knocked it down was the very end. I don’t know whether the end is a good thing or a bad thing. An epilogue would have been ideal here. You’ll know what I mean when you get there. It is totally worth getting there. Pick this one up.

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