A Good Father begins “By the end of next summer...I will kill my family”.
It’s a great opening line but unfortunately the book doesn’t live up to its promise.
Des is a nasty, controlling, bad tempered man with an unhealthy relationship with food. The book flicks back and forth from the present day to how his relationship with his wife, Jenny, began. Jenny is thinly drawn and, given that Des’s more unpleasant character traits are barely hidden, it’s is incredibly difficult to understand how she falls for him. The description of his current family life is hardly more believable. He is destructive and jealous, angry and viscous with their children. Why any wife would stay is beyond me. The whole book is written from Des’s perspective, often a self obsessed rant. I didn’t care about him and his problems, and thankfully I didn’t care enough about his family to worry about whether he would kill them or not. It’s a good idea for a novel but I didn’t enjoy it.

I was really looking forward to reading A Good Father as it sounded like an interesting read but I'm afraid it did not live up to my expectations. I thought it was just a bit long and drawn out and it did not grab me as I expected it would.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my ARC.

This book had me at this “before the end of next summer, before the kids go back to school , I will kill my family.” I was hooked but then it went downhill for me. this story is told from Des’s point of view in two timelines 1995/96 when Des and Jenny first got together and 2017 when it was all broken. The author did really well in building a character riddled with jealousy and obsession that it was actually quite scary because this kind of thought process is quite common in real life and people don’t see it until it’s too late.

I didn’t really like any of the characters I felt Jenny was not really present most of the time, which was just odd, and I just found Des absolutely horrible and suffering from little man syndrome. What this book did illustrate though was that you don’t always have to be violent in a relationship, all it takes is just one snap of that messed up Brain and you can end up killing your family, unfortunately this happens in real life which is incredibly sad.

Des is a good husband to Jenny and a good father to their three children.
He encourages Jenny's artistic passions, manages his sons' football team, cooks nutritious meals to his family, and reads to his children.
Des is a good man. And by the end of the next summer, he will have killed his family.


Having been enticed by a good premise, I was excited to be approved for this ARC. The book opens with a bang, and this along with the gripping, refreshingly different narration was encouraging.
Unfortunately, for me, that's where the positives end.
I found the story lacked suspense; it was the same throughout, and there was no feeling of a build-up leading to the culmination of the story that despite my hopes, didn't provide any surprises.
The whole book is basically Des' ramblings about his life, including his toilet habits. I think the story could benefit from another person's perspective, but as it was, I found it too dull.
Overall, for me, it turned out to be a disappointing read, but if you're looking for a book with a narration that is a bit different from the usual, then give it a go.

A Good Father by Catherine Talbot is a dark yet strangely engrossing read, one that I was unable to put down while at the same time dreading where I knew the story was going. The book opens very dramatically and I was immediately gripped. Told in the first person, this is the story of Des, a self proclaimed good father and good man, who is married to Jenny and father to Maeve, Joey and Mikey. On the surface he has it all, a beautiful family, and a well paid job, but underneath something dark is bubbling. Moving between the 1990s and current day, we see the development of his relationship with Jenny, and the formation of their family, and as this story is revealed so too is the unpleasant, jealous, manipulative and violent side of Des.
As a character Des is really unpleasant, and I can understand while some readers found the book too much to handle, it does get very dark, but I found myself unable to give up on it Despite knowing better I still had hope that somehow there would be a happier ending than the beginning suggests. As a slow burn character study this book is magnificent, I don't know how the author managed to pull it off, but hats off to her and her skill., I was astonished to discover this is a debut book.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

The first sentence of the book sums up everything that's going to happen, and there was really no point in the rest. Des's stream-of-consciousness narrative was a bold choice, especially for a debut author, but I struggled to understand <i>why</i>. Why did we need two timelines? Why did we have to sit through the random thoughts of this very unlikeable person? There is no plot as such, just repetitive accounts of their daily life, particularly about the food Des was cooking. And then he did what he had intended to do and the book ended. I'm giving it one star for the writing, which is good and kept me reading even though the story showed no signs of moving forward.

(Review copy from NetGalley)

Good premise but just did not deliver for me. Did not enjoy the slow and often boring writing style or relate to the characters. Sorry found it hard to get to the end. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the chance to review it.

Harrowing but utterly compelling, this story takes us into the mind and motivations of Des, the good father of the title, as he grapples with his conflicted emotions about his life and family. He provides for them, cares for them and loves them, yet as he looks back to the beginnings of his relationship with his wife, we see his darker side emerge in bouts of violence, vindictiveness and jealousy. Now he is afraid he is going to lose his children to another man - does he love them enough to let them go, or will he cling to them at all costs? From the very beginning, we know what Des is contemplating - whether or not he will follow through his dark plan to kill his wife and children, and what brought him to this pass, makes for rivetting reading. The thing I admired most about this story was the way the author skilfully brought Des to life in all his pitiful self-delusion - he is not in any way a sympathetic character, and yet the insight we get into his character and emotions helps us understand - though never excuse - just why he behaves as he does. Bleak as it is, Des's story offers contrasts between light and dark, between romance and the disintegration of love, between the mundane reality and the happy highlights of day-to-day life. As the examination of the breakdown of a man and his marriage, it's a masterpiece.

A good father, a good man, a normal man, with a normal routine.. he doesn’t want his perfectly thought out life to crumble and change, but what if he can’t stop it? I couldn’t put this down!

The first sentence in this book drawn me very keen to read it, however I found that the story is very slow and flat. The story is narrated by Desmond, told both in present day and flashback. Desmond, a father, married to Jenny, with three kids. It describes Desmond's insecurity,  jealousy; it's like hearing a story from a disturbed man on and on and on. I got a bit interested with the ending,  but pretty much flat all through the book, even thinking about DNF the book.
🌟🌟/5

Felt as though the story did drag on, and didn’t live up to the first few pages. I felt as though the story became disconnected from the synopsis as I went through, and my interest faded as a result.

Told from Des’ point of view, this story unfolds via two distinct timelines: the beginning of Des and Jenny’s relationship (from first meet, to early relationship and then marriage) and the present, where Des and Jenny appear to be growing apart and have three children demanding their attention.
The first line, “By the end of next summer, before the kids go back to school, I will kill my family,” is fantastic, and obviously had me completely hooked; however, there is no real sense of mystery or tension as the book progresses.

Essentially, this is the stream of conscious ramblings of a closet sociopath, who also happens to be the most dull and boring man in Ireland. As the entire story is told from his point of view, there is very little to get excited about. You hear everything from his perspective, which is clearly warped, though without any other character’s input it’s hard to make a judgment between fact and fiction.

Des is a fairly unlikable individual; however, he certainly believes he is a good man, and a good father. On the service, he probably is. Perhaps in reality he is, he just has a few issues, too.

As so much of this book hinges on his relationship with his wife, it would have been better to have some interjection from her at some point. Ultimately, she ended up being a bit of a non-character, with limited development, which made it hard to connect to her, and therefore care about what happened in the end.

This was an exceptionally disappointing read, and I don’t really understand what the point of it was. Personally, I didn’t even find it to be particularly dark and twisty (though, I can see how this could be very triggering for some – I hope the publishers handle this appropriately when the time comes).

This is a very dark, no end in sight thriller. This book suffers from not hearing the point of view from anyone but the central character Des.

I have no issue with a dark thriller but this did feel almost a chore to read

I liked how this story was told from a man.
The storyline was full of unexpected twists and kept me wanting to read more.
Defiantly an author ill read more of!

It’s clear from the opening sentence of A Good Father that we’re in for something deeply disturbing:

“By the end of next summer, before the kids go back to school, I will kill my family.”

The novel is a chilling portrait of a psychopathic mind. It recounts the day-to-day life of a family in Killiney, an upscale coastal suburb of Dublin, as narrated by husband and father Des. Chapters set in the present (2017) alternate with chapters set in the 1990s, when Des met, wooed and married Jenny. From the start, the relationship is fraught. Des is controlling and manipulative. But Jenny, who has a history of similar relationships, sees only a loving and attentive man who supports and defends her. She is blind to the warning signs.

In the present, they have three children. Des narrates his routine of making family meals, taking the kids to football practice, bedtime stories and nights out with his wife.

But Des is an unreliable narrator. And every now and then he drops a bombshell that shatters the image of perfect family life. For example, in the middle of rambling thoughts while playing with the kids, comes this:

“When I hit [Jenny], which isn’t often, I am careful not to go too deep around her cheekbones because her cheekbones are a great feature of hers.”

And then it’s back to the kids. From the start, you’ve known that things are very wrong. The fact that the domestic violence is, mostly, only hinted at, or mentioned as an aside, rather than described in detail, only makes it more revolting. But Des depicts such an image of happy family life that at times you wonder if you’ve misread. You start doubting your own understanding of what is happening.

Psychological suspense at its best
A Good Father is a very well written novel, finely balanced. Talbot has a powerful, confident voice. As a debut novel, it’s astonishingly good.

The pacing is superb. The story evolves slowly, so the suspense is almost unbearable. You helplessly watch Jenny and the kids, waiting for the inevitable, dreading it. The looming threat of violence is more effective than lots of blood and gore.

The author does not shove the psychology of the characters’ actions and interactions in your face, but it’s there and it’s perceptively and delicately done. This makes this novel stand out from similar books, where the psychology is often rather clichéd and trite.

It also stands out for the quality of the writing. At the risk of sounding patronizing, here’s a writer who knows how to handle the ‘show, don’t tell’ technique. Much is suggested and hinted at, rather than plainly described. And this itself is balanced with scenes that are described in painstaking detail.

Catherine Talbot is an author I’ll be keeping an eye on; I hope she has more books in the pipeline.

I really struggled with this one. I don’t mind a dark thriller but usually you can see some light at the end of the tunnel or you know it’s fantasy but this one felt too real and depressing for me. I guess it was because the main protagonist is the murderer and I just wasn’t ready to be inside their head. The writing is good so I would try another book by the author but this one just wasn’t for me.

Really enjoyed this thriller. Twisty and tense with great characters that keep me turning the pages! Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read an advance copy.

Dull dull dull. This started brilliantly for the first few chapters and could have been so much better than it was. I speed read it and guessed the ending but it was a very boring read with a dull plot. The most boring book I’ve ever read.

The premise of this book fascinated me and the opening line offered a glimpse into what could be a compelling story.

I’ve got to say that in some ways the author has captured the mind of the central character, Des, almost too well. It made this book too difficult for me to carry on and in a very rare experience for me I could not finish it.

The story is told exclusively by Des, the thoughts inside his head, flitting between present day and going back to when he met his wife and the early years of their relationship. His narrating is cold and dispassionate and reveals chilling cruelty to his wife as he puts her down or physically hurts her.

I wanted to hear from Jenny, his wife, to see the impact of his words and actions. I found it difficult to feel anything about her as she didn’t really ‘do’ anything (although perhaps that could be down to the way Des portrays her, rather than an actual reflection on her personality).

I felt uncomfortable reading this, he was verbally abusive to his children and I couldn’t warm to any of the characters. It just made me feel down, as I felt the disappointment of Des with his life. It’s for that reason I couldnt finish it, we need more cheer and excitement right now!

All in all, as a debut novel, you can tell the author has worked hard and succeeded in creating a wholly disturbing character. I will read future novels but unfortunately this one wasn’t for me.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the arc in exchange for my honest review.

It is so easy to dislike the main character. From the blub you expect him to be a good guy, but once you start to read the story, you realise what type of character he actually is. There's quite a bit of black humour in there, and it's an interesting read. An enjoyable story.