This book caught all of my attention in the beginning but I slowly started to drift as I neared the first half of the story. I became a bit confused en which way the story was going and it became a bit slow for me. The thing that confused me mainly was all of the different characters, it was a little hard to keep up with at times and where the the spy/espionage come in at. Over all the story had a great and promising storyline but it was just lost in all the unnecessary stuff.

I would like to thank the Publishers and NetGalley for the chance to enjoy this book in exchange for my honesty.

People spying on people, spying on people is the theme here. Everyone is trying to be all unwittingly sneaky, and there is just so much of it, it distracts from the story. Not only did I have to fight my way to the final bitter end, it left me thinking what did I just read? And not in a good way. I wish I could have enjoyed this book more, but a woman giving up her happiness just to be what she considers herself a badass spy just left a lot to be desired as she was never as sneaky as what she thought. Infated ego, or just having that one person she couldn't have? She was not a likeable character, but neither was anybody else.

BOOK BLURB: On the surface, Anna Witherall has the perfect life. Married to her university boyfriend David, she has an enviable job, beautiful home, and gorgeous three-year-old twin daughters, Stella and Rose. Their competent and capable nanny, Maria, is practically part of the family. But beneath the veneer of success and happiness, Anna is hiding a dark secret.

Hyped as the most compulsive book ever, I found it fell way short. The plot is complex and filled with characters who are, at most times, simply uninteresting and boring. The writing is a little choppy. I found myself skipping pages just to get to the end. And what I found there left a lot to be desired. Too many unanswered questions .... some characters bounced in and out, and never showed up for the conclusion. I'm sorry I didn't like it ....

Many thanks to the author / Borough Press / Harper360 / Netgalley for the digital copy of PART OF THE FAMILY. Read and reviewed voluntarily, opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.

This is an excellent combination of domestic thriller and espionage. Deception and lies are the focus of this compelling page turner. A sense of foreboding and danger is expertly interwoven in this fast paced thriller. Thank you NetGalley and Borough Press for my ARC.

I couldn't get into this and was utterly confused as I trudged through it. If you like tales of espionage perhaps it's the book for you though. I wanted to like it, but I just couldn't really get into it.

Review: Part of the Family by Charlotte Philby, pub date 1/26/21
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Synopsis: A young woman, manipulated by the one she loves, married a different man in hopes of releasing family secrets for her true love.
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Things I liked:
My anticipation was on alert through this whole book. There are so many instances where the main character is a little clumsy with her sleuthing that had me on the edge of my seat.
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This one did move a bit slowly for me and at 440 pages it’s no wonder why. There are distinct plot points so it’s not like it’s all the same content but the redundancy of her pining for her true love was always lurking in the background.
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I’d you’re a domestic thriller fan you’ll probably like this one and won’t mind the length. For me, it was a bit too much.
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Thank you Harper 360 and #netgalley for the free drc

This book starts out with an interesting (if common) premise: Anna’s marriage appears ideal, but may be less so....and she’s making her escape. Some additional interesting elements are introduced: a love triangle (or rectangle?) when Anna was young, immense wealth, and even a little espionage. The author has an engaging and page-turning writing style, but ultimately the plot got a bit too convoluted and began to get in its own way with too many characters. It was a bit confusing to follow and somewhat hard to understand Anna’s motivations or root for/empathize with her as a heroine because of some of the things she was doing. I also wasn’t as interested in the secondary story/family introduced later on, and the espionage angle of the story was less interesting to me than the domestic thriller I originally thought I was getting.

I would definitely try this author again, because I like her writing style. But this plot just wasn’t for me.

Thanks to Harper Collins, NetGalley and the author for the ARC to preview!

Anna is a loner but she makes a few friends and then keeps them when she graduates. She keeps her love for Harry but marries David.
I could not like Anna at all. She cheats on her husband. She isn't appreciative of all of the life she lives.
Marie the left over friend of David is a much more valued individual.

I received an ARC copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for my honest opinion of it. Way too confusing and could not begin to get into it.

This was a fast paced, fun read! Definitely well written, with amazing character development! Lots of fun twists and turns, thrills, chills, and shocks! I think most looking for a well written, unputdownable thrill ride, will enjoy this book! I highly, highly recommend!

Will make sure to buzz up and use low amazon reviewer number!

Part espionage, part slow-burning thriller, this one was long and slow… and normally, I don’t mind long, and I don’t mind working for a resolution, but the ending was just… disappointing.

Anna Witherall falls in love with Harry, a man she meets while starting her career as a journalist, but she ends up marrying David, a man she was friends with in college. Anna has a job she loves, twin daughters who are cared for by a loving nanny (Maria, who happens to be a childhood friend of David’s,) and David happily goes to work in his family’s business. On the surface, they have it all. But, no one is who they seem, and everyone is harboring deep secrets, which might ruin them all.

I don’t mind long books. (Last year, I got sucked into an 800 page book that I couldn’t put down.) But this one dragged a bit. I even put it down halfway through, read a couple more books, and then came back to finish this one over a couple of days. I will say, the second half did move a lot faster than the first half. But, there were a lot of twists, some of which just kept spiraling in a people spying on people spying on people spying way.

I also really didn’t understand the characters’ choices. Because Anna loves one man – even when he so obviously is just using and manipulating her – at his request, she ends up with a completely different man and even has children with him. And then she leaves raising her children to the nanny – who also has her own (random?) secrets – because she knows that she’s going to have to leave at some point and won’t be able to take her children. And the whole time, Anna has no idea who she is actually working for! What?! Why would she (potentially literally) sacrifice her entire life for some invisible, unknown entity, all because of what basically amounts to unrequited love? At some point, I really wanted her to wise up and make a change, so I was very disappointed. At the same time, the author definitely committed to the character’s behavior and was very consistent throughout, so the author at least developed and stuck to a plan.

And then the end of the book. Or, maybe I should say, the lack of end of the book. It ends on a cliffhanger, we don’t find out what actually happens, and we’re left to guess at what might come next. Unfortunately, I’m not sure we’re going to ever know for sure. Doing some online digging, it looks like there might be a book with some character overlap coming out in 2021, but from the synopsis, it looks like it might be a prequel to this one, so I don’t know that we’ll get any answers to where we were left with this one.

Not a bad read, but the disappointing ending makes it hard to wholeheartedly recommend this one.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley and Harper 360/The Borough Press in exchange for my honest review. It has not influenced my opinion.

I found myself confused about some parts of the plot and what was really going on behind the scenes, and that made my experience reading this a little less enjoyable. That being said, I still thought it was a good book, and some fellow mystery/thriller fans may enjoy it.

Anna and David, who met at university, have twin daughters and what appears to be a wonderful life. Except it's not. She's has mental health issues, an odd backstory with her parents, and an ongoing relationship with Harry. David's wealthy father Clive has a large company which might be committing crimes, lost his mother young, and he has a relationship with Maria, a childhood friend now working as their nanny. Under all of this runs an espionage story that frankly doesn't make sense. This moves back and forth in time and while Anna might be sympathetic in spots, she's not in others- which is the nature of real people of course but here it's not clear how reliable she is as a narrator. Who is Harry, really? What happened to Meg? Who is Felicity, really? Up to you to find out- no spoilers from me. This is overwritten in spots and could have used another edit. All that said, I found myself turning the pages = in part hoping that things would be sorted out and in part because it's a plot with potential. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC.

In Part of the Family, Charlotte Philby has delivered a domestic thriller wrapped in mystery and tied up with secrets. Read carefully, for the characters and plot change quickly. And remember, Philby is the granddaughter of Kim Philby, member of the Cambridge Five spy ring.

Betrayal and deceit are the twin themes of Part of the Family. No one is innocent. Not Anna’s friend Meg from her university days, not Harry, her mysterious older lover, not her husband David, nor Maria, her daughters’ trusted Nanny. And especially not Anna. For Anna is at the center of the lies that are at the core of her marriage. What would David do if he knew? Or does he?

Told in alternating voices by Anna and Maria, this puzzling, complicated thriller is totally addictive. It is impossible to put down. I will not say more about the plot because anything would be a spoiler but don’t believe you have figured out what is happening. You haven’t. 5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley, Harper 360 and Charlotte Philby for this ARC.

This is not your usual domestic thriller. Anna delves into the world of espionage and finds her world turned upside down.

Frankly - this book was too choppy and weird.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I just don't know what to say about this one. I have struggled through so many thriller books with the same problems lately: characters who see unreal or unconnectable, a twist that isn't fully fleshed out. This one falls in line with those, unfortunately, and I found myself really trying to keep up and failing.

This was so good, I read it in one sitting. I could not put it down until I found out what happened! Definitely a thriller, with some unexpected twists.

I received an ARC of Part of the Family in exchange for an honest review. The publisher's description for this book lead me to believe that this was a domestic thriller/drama. While the story does revolve around a family, it is actually an espionage/spy thriller. Honestly, books and movies about spies and espionage just confuse the heck out of me and so I usually avoid them. Had I known that this is what this book was really about, I would have avoided it too. I did read the entire book, and even read certain parts more than once, since I felt like I maybe wasn't following the story completely. Even doing that, I was still confused and I don't think it was just me according to some of the other reviews. The story didn't seem real believable and then there were parts I wondered why she was doing that and how she lasted as long as she did. The ending was weird, there was switching back in forth in time that was hard to follow and it just wasn't my cup of tea.

Thank you so much to The Borough Press, Netgalley, and Charlotte Philby for this advanced review copy. I loved the sound of this book initially but had a tough time connecting with it. I'm not sure if it is meant to be confusing, but it definitely was. Something I hate is having a lot of unanswered questions so that could have contributed to why I did not enjoy this as much. The characters were not particularly likable and the characters were unreliable as well. I don't mind a slow burn story, but this was a bit too confusing. I tried to give it a chance, but in the end, it didn't quite work out for me.

Though I enjoyed the plot, I had a hard time figuring out the heroine. I feel like I was supposed to be rooting for her, but she wasn’t very likable. I ultimately had a lot of questions at the end, and not in a good way. I thought the story was well-paced though, and I appreciated the dialog.