The premise is that Beth is a divorced women with two children, a boy and a girl. The relationship with her ex and his new partner is excellent and the children are happy to live with Beth and equally happy to spend time with Dad and Crystal. Her father is in a brilliant care home and she visits him regularly. She works as a practice manager for a doctors’ surgery. She is friendly, efficient and happy. She has good friends at work and two very good friends as neighbours. The only blot on her horizon is the nightmares that frequent her dreams. These she associates with the disappearance of her mother when she was very young. She can recall the unhappy woman and can almost understand why she left her father who was 40 years older than her. Still… The police have plenty of suspects, but few clues. This isn’t a new premise, but I loved how this story unraveled, including a few surprising twists and a surprise ending. I think this would make a terrific movie!

Poor Dan, is the mentally and emotionally weakest link of the trio. He reminds me of Successions’ Kendall a lot. His father targeted him from the beginning, abusing mentally and psychically, selling the company he’d worked hard for and left him penniless and unemployed. And his last unfortunate business investment left him high and dry. The father of the year rejects to borrow him money, humiliating him in front of everyone, pleasing to watch him squirming in pain. Being middle child and only boy must be toughest. He’s none of his parents’ favorite, left excluded and has every right to reflect years long boiled anger in different ways. Could he be the killer? Why not?I did not expect the final third of the book to play out the way it did, and while I did guess some aspects of how it would pan out, there others that completely blindsided me and left me sitting with my mouth hanging open. Dave's follow-up And then there are other twists that through me completely and well I just love a book that keeps me on my toes.

I want to thank the publisher "Harper 360/ One More Chapter for the opportunity to read this book and any thoughts or opinions expressed are unbiased and mine alone! The chapters are short and sweet, making it easy to pause if you need to...but propelling you to continue. Then there's the two other women we get to meet Robyn her housekeeper n nanny and a lovely homeless lady Nadia. Both women seem like ladies you want as friends so I just loved the part they play in Beth's life. Now everyone in the family is a suspect. They all had a motive. Most of them had an opportunity. Who done it? When Beth’s long-lost mother abruptly turns up on her doorstep, Beth asks no questions, instead seeking the relationship that she has craved for so many years. Keen to see her a part of the family, Beth encourages her mum to stay in the family home for the long-term so that she and Beth can catch up after such a long absence. Beth is delighted that her children respond so positively to their grandmother and when Alice announces that Beth also has a step-sister, it is like the dream of a properly family is suddenly coming true.

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When the storyline was recircling, many times I felt that the text was repetitive and drawn out, like the author had a word count to meet. There are lots of twists in this story, and just when you think things can’t get any worse for Beth, they do. A long-held secret – something which, since their move to Cheltenham after the childhood incident, only Beth and her father are aware of – suddenly has reared its very ugly head. Beth looks in danger of losing everything and everyone close to her until someone totally unexpected comes to her rescue – yet another fabulous twist. Who is Beth’s saviour? Well, while the twist is hugely surprising, it’s not too difficult to join the dots and find her guardian angel, though Beth does make a meal out of that task! I rarely DNF books, and I almost never do it when I get a review copy, but I completely understand why one would chose not to finish this novel, as it was too repetitive with all the he said she said parts that it became boring. Alternating between everyone, you get a full picture of what being a part of the Merton family was actually like. It wasn't pretty.

I have now read all six of Shari Lapena’s novels, and have found them all to be entertaining! If you enjoy domestic suspense and haven’t yet read this author-it’s time to change that! That is actually the case with the whole book. It seems like it was brought to us in such... passive way that the it was hard to be emotionally invested. I’m not a huge consumer of psychological crime novels or thrillers but I do turn to them whenever I need to give the brain a break after reading a string of powerful or immersive books. But they still have to deliver something more than just the entertainment value of thrills and suspense. A protagonist with a complex personality is a must. A strong evocation of a specific location or time period is important. Ideally I want both to be matched with an interesting issue or a theme.Watching Beth’s life come tumbling down, I felt really sorry for her. As I have seen with many characters in similar stories, Beth turns to excessive amounts of alcohol, in the attempt to numb the pain of what is happening. However, this just leads to distorted memories and that Beth no longer trusts what she believes. It’s a terrible cycle and I was desperate for Beth to find the answers to why she thought someone is watching her. My god- "The Happy Family" had so many emotions running through it I really felt for Beth, I felt it when she was happy and content, and I really felt it when her life started to go a bit pear shaped!!. In all honesty to start with Beth's relationships all seem a bit to perfect even with her ex husband and his girlfriend. So the fall out during the book is great to read. This is a novel that over-promises but under-delivers on the menace front. We get hints early on that all is not right in Beth’s life even before mum comes calling.

This book was a slow burner. It’s been a while since I’ve DNF’d a book because I am usually pleasantly surprised in the end. That was for sure the case here. From the outside, the Joshi family is the quintessential Indian-American family. Decades ago, Bina and Deepak immigrated to America, where she became a pillar of their local Indian community and he, a successful psychiatrist. Their eldest daughter, Suhani, is following the footsteps of her father’s career and happily married. Natasha, their middle daughter, is about to become engaged to the son of longtime family friends. And Anuj, their son—well he’s a son and what could be better than that? All the characters were really likable and everything was really well explained, no ends left untied with thoughts you may of had as a reader throughout. This story is one where you want to yell at the main character most of the story. But at the end of it all, you end up having sympathy for her and love her. This is such a well written story that has twists around every corner. At the end it is a story of acceptance and redemption.

Take every conceivable part of what makes a great psychological thriller, add every ingredient from a family drama and mix it up with a classic whodunit and you either get a disaster OR you get this Catherine Tate as Baba Yaga, Dracula's former captive witch. She is responsible for turning the Wishbone family into monsters. Good thing about this book is that it is easy to read, so we all finished the book faster then we planned, excluding one girl who DNFed it. The theme of gaslighting is handled well and we see how seemingly insignificant remarks and incidents snowball so that the victim ends up questioning their own judgment and grasp on reality. Even though I didn’t care that much for Beth as a character it was still sad to see how much her life spins out of control, particularly when intimate film footage of her is posted on social media. Overall, a compelling and addictive read that I raced through. Admittedly, it sagged a little in the middle as Beth’s paranoia spiralled out of control repeatedly, but the ending more than makes up for that. As does the witty dialogue and hilarious “menopause” chats she and her friends have at the beginning. As the title says, Beth really did have the happy family.