Warning this book starts out really slow and right when you want to give up it pulls you into a fast paced thriller that you do not want to put down

Kevin O’Brien always manages to suck me into the story and keeps me hostage until the last page. The first chapter grabs you and you will be flipping through the pages as fast as you can. As in typical O’Brien fashion, you will experience lies, secrets, murder, and some twisted, disturbing events. The Bad Sister is psychological suspense at its finest. Buckle up because you are in for a thrilling ride.

Thank you to NetGalley and Pinnacle Books for my advanced review copy. All opinions and thoughts are my own.

This is the second book in a series, and wow, just wow. It was a great continuation of a very entertaining and gripping story that started in The Betrayed wife already. It was a very well written read, and recommended for anyone who loves a great read.

Oops I had no idea books went into a non download file!
Read this through Kindle Unlimited

I really enjoyed this novel.. Its fast paced, keeps you on your toes.
The Bad Sister is a slow burn. It starts out a little slow, but before you know what has happened, you are in the middle of a storm that is full of secrets, lies and murder.
Its very intriguing and such an interesting story!
I very much enjoyed reading it!

Interesting read, but not sure if I liked it or not. Some of the characters weren’t my favorite but it was defiantly well written!

Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book follows from the last book The Betrayed Wife, so it's best to read that one first..

A great read with lashings of intrigue, twists, and turns. Recommended.

The Bad Sister is Book #2 in the Family Secrets Series. I was totally enthralled with the first book, so when it took me awhile to get into this book, I was a bit disappointed. However, that disappointment quickly turned to excitement the further I got into the book!

At first, I was really confused at the beginning of the story, but by the end of the book it all makes sense how it all ties in together. I think that’s what put me off at first because I had no idea what was going on and what it had to do with the subject of the book.

I was happy to get back to the story of the O’Rourke’s. The Betrayed Wife was all sorts of twisted, so I was hoping The Bad Sister lived up to it’s predecessor. It sure did! There were so many twists and turns in the story that you better just hang on tight! I LOVED it!

There were several characters in this book...some lovable, some not so much...some suspicious, some innocent! It was the perfect cast of characters to fill out this exciting story!

Ann Marie Lee was the narrator for this book and she was a perfect fit! She’s a favorite narrator of mine!

Overall, I am beginning to wonder if it’s even possible for me to not absolutely LOVE any of Kevin O’Brien’s books, but I sure hope not because I love being surprised with each and every book!

Most importantly, I would like to offer a HUGE THANK YOU to Kevin O’Brien, Tantor Audio, and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of The Bad Sister, which has allowed me to contribute this honest and unbiased review.

Kevin O’Brien is such an underrated thriller writer and this is a hill I will die on!

This is the sequel to his book The Bad Wife and I think I enjoyed this one more 😬 This book is set after the events of The Bad Wife and Eden and Hannah are now off to Chicago to attend college together thanks to a scholarship offered to both of them. It isn’t until they get there that they find out 50 years ago a serial killer stalked the campus they’re attending and the residence that used to exist right beside their new home was the site of his final slayings, known as the Immaculate Conception Murders. Of course, the past doesn’t stay the past and before you know it, someone seems to be recreating a 21st century version of the events that took place 50 years ago and of course, Hannah and Eden are not safe.

I loved the college setting of this novel and the academia vibe! The idea of a historic serial killer being recreated is amazing and I wish we would have gotten more details of what happened during the first murders. Despite this, the present day happenings were enough to keep me invested. One thing Kevin O’Brien always does a phenomenal job of is making your skin crawl during his chapters from the bad guy’s POV and I love it. Not many books manage to freak me out, but he does it regularly.

To wrap it up, this was a great thriller with a really enjoyable atmosphere. This would be great to pick up around September/October right when school is getting back in session, the air is getting cold, and you’re getting more in the mood to be scared for fun.

Thank you to Netgalley and Kensington Books for providing me an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Loved the plot !! This book sucks you right in , its full of secrets, lies and murders and betrayal. It keeps you guessing and throws you off if you think you really know whats going on. The first chapter just grabs you on a ride. I was shocked by the final ending. I highly recommend this book.

This book was a slow start for me but I thoroughly enjoyed the story once it got going. It was full of action, murder, and mayhem, but the twists were not the most surprising and the villains were not that well hidden. The bulk of the story is about Hannah and her half-sister Eden who got full ride scholarships to a tiny university about 2000 miles away near Chicago. Upon arriving they learn the small religious school has a sordid past including a serial murderer 50 years ago. Hannah and Eden have more than their fair share of sister troubles and Eden is known to disappear for hours or days at a time. When she takes off one Friday night no one but Hannah has any concerns, Hannah’s new roommate and “big sister” welcomes her and helps distract her from her worries. I enjoyed this book but the first third of it was a little bit of a push to get through. Once I did it more than paid off and I will be looking up more books by this author.

Wowza, what a beginning, definitely will grab you with a chokehold! Fast paced, thrilling, chilling, and absolutely shocking! Very well written, characters were done fantastically, and while it’s a bit out there, I felt it was still realistic! Definitely one I would consider to be unputdownable, but if you don’t like brutal and even a bit dark, likely not going to be your cuppa! Overall, I highly, highly recommend!

Will make sure to buzz around platforms and use lower Amazon reviewer number on release date!

The Bad Sister, by Kevin O'Brien, closely follows his excellent best-selling novel, The Betrayed Wife.
Hannah and Eden discover they are half-sisters in the previous novel and now they attend the same college where a series of murders took place fifty years ago.
The suspense ensues when the girls believe they are being watched. Is history about to repeat itself?
A story full of disturbing events, lies, secrets and murder.
I can always count on author Kevin O'Brien to deliver an exciting story!

Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Books for an arc of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

EXCERPT: Stripped down to his underwear, Gil was tied to the desk chair. He looked like a defeated boxer slouched in the corner of the ring. His handsome face was a swollen bloody pulp. Cuts covered his body. On his right arm and shoulder were square patches where it looked as if they'd carefully cut off some layers of skin.

The woman was sitting on the edge of the desk, her back to them.

Tightening his grip on Nate's arm, the man knocked on the window.

The woman quickly turned, the gun readied in her hand.

'Open the window,' the man called. 'I want Gil to hear his brother beg for his life.'

The woman nodded, almost as if she approved of the idea. She moved to the window and opened it a crack.

The man jabbed the muzzle of the revolver against Nate's temple and then took a step away.

Trembling violently, Nate realized the guy didn't want to get splattered with blood. Nate remembered that image from the Vietnam war - of the prisoner being shot in the head. He was certain he was going to die. 'Goddam it, Gil!' he cried out. 'Tell them what they want to know.'

ABOUT THIS BOOK: TOO CLOSE
The site of the old campus bungalow where two girls were brutally slain is now a flower patch covered with chrysanthemums. It’s been fifty years since the Immaculate Conception Murders. Three more students and a teacher were killed in a sickening spree that many have forgotten. But there is one person who knows every twisted detail. . . .

TO SEE
Hannah O’Rourke and her volatile half-sister, Eden, have little in common except a parent. Yet they’ve ended up at the same small college outside Chicago, sharing a bungalow with another girl. Hannah isn’t thrilled—nor can she shake the feeling that she’s being watched. And her journalism professor, Ellie Goodwin, keeps delving into Hannah and Eden’s newsworthy past. . . .

THE DANGER
When Hannah and Eden’s arrival coincides with a spate of mysterious deaths, Ellie knows it’s more than a fluke. A copycat is recreating those long-ago murders. Neither the police nor the school will accept the horrific truth. And the more Ellie discovers, the more she’s convinced that she won’t live to be believed. . . .

MY THOUGHTS: I abandoned this read at 21%, unable to sustain any interest in the storyline. This is the first book I have attempted to read by Kevin O'Brien, and while I can see that this will appeal to a strong group of people who enjoy action thrillers, I prefer something a lot more subtle.

And subtle is something I hadn't found by the time I finished reading. So, besides the lack of subtlety, there's a distinct lack of suspense. Things that ought to have been suspenseful just weren't. In fact, they were just crass. For example, the scene after which I stopped reading has a man standing in the abandoned section where two of the Immaculate Conception murders occurred fifty years earlier, peering through the uncurtained ground floor window of two college freshmen that he is stalking for who knows what reason, and getting a hard on. This should have been creepy. Really creepy. It wasn't. At the risk of repeating myself, it was just crass. The author seemed more focused on throwing in some sexual references than on milking the situation to its maximum effect.

The characters seem stereotyped, and lacking in depth.

So it is time for Mr O'Brien and I to part ways. I wish him every success with The Bad Sister. It will have huge appeal to a large number of readers. Unfortunately, I am not one of them.

🤦‍♀️

#TheBadSister #NetGalley

THE AUTHOR: Kevin O'Brien is an American bestselling author of thrillers. He grew up in Chicago's North Shore, but now moved to Seattle, Washington in 1980. After attending New Trier East High School, he studied journalism at Marquette University. (Wikipedia)

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Kensington Books via Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of The Bad Sister by Kevin O'Brien for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

For an explanation of my rating system please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com

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Not a bad book,its a slow building story.
I liked the writing Lots of twists and turns.
A must read for thriller fans!

I am a huge Kevin O'Brien fan and have read all of his books. This is one the few that was not a favorite. It is still good, I just had a hard time getting into this one. I LOVED Book 1, The Betrayed Wife. The Bad Sister is a continuation of that, although it can be a stand-alone. I guess I just wasn't into the 2 main characters and their teenage actions and dialogue. It seemed kind of forced and read like the run-of-the-mill murders-on-a -college -campus storylines. About a third of the way through, I really got into it and what followed was a pretty suspenseful story. Love this author and look forward to more!

Thank you to NetGalley, Kevin O'Brien and Pinnacle/Kensington Books for this ARC!

Read this! Lots of misdirection anThe Bad Sister was wonderfully and outrageously twisty. The fast pace and multiple plotlines makes for a complex and fascinating story with a large number of strings that all come together in the end. Recommended for fans of psychological suspense.d twisty turns. Kevin O'Brien been a favorite of mine since his first book. I love his characters as well.

The Bad Sister is an entertaining and fast pace read. It is book 2 of The Family Secret series. You don't need to read Book 1 The Betrayed Wife, you can still follow the plot, but I may have enjoyed the book more if I had read it, because Bad Sister made lots of references to characters and places in Book 1. Still it is a nice vacation read.

Shortly after Hannah O'Rourke and her fiercely independent (and often inconsiderate) half-sister Eden arrive at the small Catholic campus outside of Chicago to start their college careers a series of disturbing events and mysterious deaths begin to unfold. Amidst these events, when Eden doesn't come back to the campus housing that she shares with her sister and new roommate Rachel, her family is left to question whether Eden's disappearance is sinister in nature or whether she's just gone off on her own as she's been known to do in the past. As the length of Eden's absence grows Hannah's interactions with a trusted journalism teacher lead to the theory that what has happened to Eden and the ongoing spate of deaths are the result of a copycat serial killer who is recreating the Immaculate Conception Murders that took place on and around the college campus 50 years prior.

The Bad Sister by Kevin O'Brien is a complex and creepy thriller with many moving parts. From the opening chapter it's clear that a number of storylines are potentially in play, leaving the reader to puzzle over how each of the pieces are related to one another and ultimately to Eden's disappearance and the string of campus-related deaths.

One aspect of the book that I found to be somewhat frustrating was the persistent denial by both the school and police that the deaths were connected and tied to the Immaculate Conception Murders. Despite compelling and mounting evidence neither organization would acknowledge the developing reality of the situation, which seemed a bit far-fetched at times. Regardless, I enjoyed the suspense of the narrative and the journey to figuring out how everything would ultimately come together.

Thanks to Kensington Books and NetGalley for my advance copy.

The story was very good with well developed and descriptive characters. This is so much more than just the story of the O’Rourke sisters and Nate storyline. Someone is copying a long ago serial killer and for most of the story I kept trying to figure out who was behind it. There was so much misdirection as to who it could be and I loved it. I always enjoy a storyline that keeps me guessing.

A slow building story of suspense and mystery that left me wondering if there really are people out there who would go this far and I am pretty sure that the answer is yes since I see stories on the news every day of the crazy things that people do. The characters are well written and really complement one another in their roles within the story. I voluntarily reviewed an advanced readers copy of this book thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author.