⭐️ 2.5 ⭐️
Rounded up to 3 stars.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC, in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.
I’ve read lots of rave reviews for this one so I’m definitely in the minority with my thoughts on it, but here goes…

I enjoyed the beginning of Keep it in the Family but after the first few chapters my interest waned. I thought the characters were one-dimensional and I disliked them all — usually when I dislike a character I can still connect with them in some way, but on this occasion I honestly didn’t care what happened to any of them.

I guessed the ‘twists’ quite early on and I nearly DNF a couple of times because I just wasn’t invested or immersed in the story. I expected the book to be atmospheric, eerie and chilling but for me it was none of above, I thought the atmosphere felt flat and even though the subject matter is gruesome, disturbing and shocking I didn’t think it felt in any way creepy or scary.

The book is well-written and there are some aspects of the story that I enjoyed, but overall, sadly it just wasn’t for me.

Keep It In The Family by John Marrs ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Mia and Finn buy a fixer upper to turn into their dream family home and get away from her interfering mother in law, but during the building work they make a truly horrific discovery in the loft.

Understandably Mia is traumatised by the experience and becomes determined to uncover the mystery, even if it creates a divide between herself and Finn, and their new baby boy.

This was a brilliantly written story and loved the distinctive voices from the four main characters, as well as a splattering of police and newspaper reports. The twists just kept coming and certainly kept myself and my fellow buddy readers guessing

I’ve really loved my other, more dystopian feeling reads by Marrs and this rating is based purely on the disturbing nature of the book which is one I would usually avoid, rather than the writing itself.
I’d say that if you enjoy your thrillers on the darker side you should definitely give this one a go.

This book was so disturbing and so good! It’s told in multiple timelines and POVs with so many dark twists and turns. Highly recommend grabbing a copy of this one!

Another fantastic book by John who is a phenomenal writer and one of my favourite authors. This was a very dark and disturbing read but it kept me hooked from start to finish. Amazing twists and a great ending

**Many thanks to NetGalley, Thomas & Mercer, and John Marrs for an ARC of this book!**

Did you ever forget you had an assignment until the absolute LAST minute?

I'm talking two hours before, no chance for an extension, and your grade counts on handing something, ANYTHING, coherent in by the deadline....even if all you think you'll manage to squeak out is a 'D'?

THIS kind of book from an author as capable and talented as John Marrs....was sadly VERY reminiscent of that type of last-ditch effort that just went nowhere.

Mia and Finn are ready to make their new house a home. Sure it needs some upgrades, but they feel lucky they avoided being gazumped (yes, the use of this word was one of the high points of my reading experience) and ended up with the house. To cap off their happiness, Mia is pregnant and the timing seems perfect. UNTIL one day in the attic Mia notices a disturbing message on the skirting board up above: "I WILL SAVE THEM FROM THE ATTIC." Naturally, she and her husband are horrified...and the problems multiply when the two, with help from Finn's parents Dave and Debbie, EXACTLY what that message means...and the disturbing tragedies that took place there. Have Finn and Mia been harboring something dangerous under their own roof? And have they put their precious new baby DIRECTLY in harm's way?

Although I've said it once, it bears repeating: I had a hard time even believing this book was written by John Marrs. To start, things weren't so terrible, although they were a bit slow, with lots of set-up and drama involving the house buying and drama between Mia and Finn's parents.

But then Marrs got into discussing Mia's pregnancy...or rather, discussing what HE thinks apparently takes place during pregnancy...and I started to realize everything was going to come crashing down around me pretty quickly. I understand not knowing the ins and outs, but Marrs is usually reliable when it comes to his research...but not this time. An intruder pops in on sleeping Mia and this narration takes place: "Now I am standing over her, my face, directly above hers, my mouth next to her nose. I gently exhale so that she breathes me in and I become the oxygen that fills up her lungs and feeds her baby."

Uh...okay.

(Not to mention that a few pages earlier, Mia is fourteen weeks pregnant and has to ANNOUNCE it because she isn't showing...and yet, when this intruder arrives, they talk about her "swollen belly' etc.) I could go into more, but I'd rather not revisit it. Suffice it to say, there is example after example of weird idiosyncrasies that don't make a lot of sense. Mia is also purported to have postnatal depression...but instead of being treated for it or helped in any way, everyone around her sort of ignores the 'problems' to her face and berates her behind her back. Which brings me to my next point...

ALL OF THESE CHARACTERS are unlikable. (Except Mia and Finn's baby, I guess...we don't really get enough info until the very end for that to matter.) If you can't stand a thriller where everyone is awful, terrible, and no-good, this is NOT the book for you. This is also not the book for you if you can't stand reading about horrific things being done to children. In all honesty, I was able to remove myself from the gruesome bits being discussed throughout the book and not let that get to me, but I'm not sure how...I think because the quality of the writing was so meh, I was able to distance myself emotionally and at times mentally, because I was just struggling to make it to the end in one piece.

Marrs also slips in fake news articles, etc. throughout to sprinkle in clues (?) to help you solve the mystery, but the whole thing was just so unbelievable and over the top, they didn't particularly help me maintain any sort of interest. Unlike the page-turning, gripping suspense of What Lies Between Us, this one ran out of gas early and I simply couldn't wait for it to end.

I had figured after a couple of misses with Marrs' tech/sci-fi leaning books that a dive back into the psychological thriller realm simply couldn't miss. But after two thriller books revolving around the attic (one hit and one miss) perhaps all Marrs needs before his next is some fresh air...down on the ground floor.

2.5 stars

When Mia and Finn buy the ultimate fixer-upper for their first family home, they are excited to get started on making it their own. What they could never have anticipated was the grim secrets they were about to uncover and how they were going to affect their entire family.

That is all you are getting plot-wise, but if you are in the mood for a dark and twisty tale with some great characters (to love and to hate!) With a big chunk of family drama, this is the one for you!

Brilliant!

Another dark, chilling read from the master of warped minds - John Marrs.

This book is told by several narrators, each giving their own unique spins. The unknown person telling the story from a variety of times in the past helps complete the reader’s understanding of the plot and adds a really dark dimension and real fear in the present. Be prepared for parts that haunt you!

It seems strange saying I ‘enjoyed’ this book due to its chilling nature, however I will say I read compulsively to unwrap the plot. There are times when I suspected everyone, and also times when I wanted to scream at Mia!

The derelict house is a perfect scene for the monstrous crimes committed there and even the annexe at the in-laws doesn’t feel ‘safe’. John Marrs has a real skill for matching the settings with the ‘feel’ of the book.

The pace of the book increased as the story progressed and the ends all begin to come together. A great (chilling) haunting plot and another unnerving read!

Disturbing to the max! Dark and wickedly entertaining. The ending though. Don’t know that i 100% saw that coming. Did I say disturbing. Fast paced and flipped through this book in 2 days. If you like disturbing, this one’s for you too!

I'm a thriller author, so it takes a lot to creep me out, but this book managed to do that. The book opens with a Ted Bundy quote, so I immediately knew it was going to be a crazy book. Until about the halfway point, I was sure I knew where the story was going, but I was pleasantly surprised and caught off guard by one of the plot twists. Besides the big twist, I was captivated enough to stay up way too late last night to finish reading it.

This book is dark, chilling, and twisted in all the ways a thriller should be. It's the first book I've read by Marrs, but I'm definitely going to read his other books now.

If you like dark serial killer thrillers and don't mind a bunch of trigger warnings (child abuse, child death/murder, kidnapping, etc.), you'll enjoy Keep It In the Family!

*I received a free ARC, but this is my honest opinion. Thank you to the publisher, John Marrs, and NetGalley for the ARC!

would like to thank netgalley and the publishers for letting me read this very disturbing book

i think i am scarred for life after reading this haunting book, in one way or another its going to stay with me for a long time

mia and finn have bought a house that needs extensive work done on it to make it habitable and along the way mia finds out she is pregnant

but its the attic that holds the secrets of the house and mia and finn are about to find out in the most shocking of ways.....

oh man i will never look at another suitcase again without thinking about this book...its going to haunt me for a long time

everything i’ve read from Marrs thus far has been 4-5 stars so i was obviously eager to get my hands on this one. unfortunately this didn’t quite live up to my expectations but i’m kinda finding it hard to pinpoint exactly why i didn’t LOVE it. there are some good reveals in here (he does family thrillers really well) but i felt like it was all a bit low-stakes until the last 20% or so of the book so i found it meandering and overly long at times

Mia and Finn haven't been married very long and are living with Finn's parents, Debbie and Dave when they buy their dream home in an auction. They know it needs a lot of work doing to it, but Finn and Dave will do the majority of the renovations. Not long into the refurb, and after many failed attempts, Mia is surprised to discover she's pregnant, so it's even more important to get the house finished. When she's seven months into the pregnancy, she discovers a sinister message on one of the skirting boards; I WILL SAVE THEM FROM THE ATTIC, intrigued as to what it means they venture up there and the discovery they make turns their dream into a nightmare.

Keep It In The Family is told from the perspectives of the four main characters; Mia, Finn, Debbie and Dave with interspersed chapters from the killer and random podcast/news reports, and goes back and forth between different timelines. It’s a tense and disturbing plot, the chapters are short, just how I like them, and the characters are authentic. Marrs knows how to do dark and twisted, and this one is all of that and so much more, I was drawn in from the prologue and taken on a rollercoaster ride of gruesome discoveries right till the very end, and oh what an ending it was! If you like a creepy read with lots of twists then this one is for you.

I’d like to thank Amazon Publishing and Netgalley for the approval, I will post my review on Goodreads now and Amazon on publication day.

This is a very dark psychological thriller that definitely held my attention.
Mia and Finn are excited to buy their first house but it needs a lot of work.
Whilst the renovations are underway a disturbing message is discovered which leads them to find dead bodies in their attic.
With Mia heavily pregnant events go against her and the baby is born early whilst the Police investigate the house.
I can’t say too much more as there’s lots of twists and turns and you need to discover these for yourself.
This is a dark and slightly disturbing book but one that I really enjoyed.
Thanks to Amazon Publishing and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

✔️this one kept me entertained and guessing - I read it in less than a day - definitely hard to put down . I saw some of the twists coming but definitely not all, and the ending was a surprise

Whewwwww!!! This one is going to take a lot to unpack in my mind for quite awhile! This was such a dark and twisted book full of shocking twisty turns that just keep coming and coming right up until the very last page! Nonlinear timelines that jump back making me think and clue after clue working backwards had me furrow my brow in concentration many times! This was by far my favorite Marrs book!

"I will save them from the attic."

Wow! I'm speechless. Seriously speechless! Where do I begin to review a book like this? Ok, first think of Fred and Rosemary West combined with Ian Brady and Myra Hindley...and multiply them a couple of generations! Then you have John Marrs' latest and probably darkest thriller yet KEEP IT IN THE FAMILY.

So Marr's is known for some really dark psychological thrillers. I've read two previously - "The Good Samaritan" and "What Lies Between Us" - and loved them despite how dark and twisted they were. But this one takes things to a whole new level of disturbing. I think it's the type of victim in this story that makes it all the more chilling. Don't worry, it's not graphic. Just...chilling.

Mia and Finn have just bought the house of their dreams...or it will be, once they've finished renovating it. A gothic Victorian five bedroom detached house that has stood derelict for four decades. Finn's parents Dave and Debbie had originally intended to purchase the property, renovate it then flip it but Mia had her heart set on it. Renovating is going to be a tall order but Dave is a builder and Finn is a plumber so between them, and their contacts in the trade, the men intend doing most of the work themselves.

And no sooner has work begun, than Mia suddenly discovers she is pregnant. The couple can barely believe it. And Debbie is excited at the prospect of a grandchild, despite the fact she and Mia have never gotten along. So it's decided the renovation will be undertaken in stages with the first stage ready for completion by the time the baby is due.

Then one day as Mia is surveying what will be the nursery, she discovers seven words etched into the skirting in a childish scrawl.

"I will save them from the attic."

Save who? And from what? All at once Mia sends Finn into the attic with Dave to take a look to see what is hidden up there. In her impatience she climbs the loft ladder to see for herself...and wishes she hadn't. For laid out are seven suitcases and inside each one of them is the body of a child. Shocked by the discovery and at seven months pregnant, Mia falls from the ladder breaking several bones and inducing a labour that would have her son prematurely born by caesarian. It's a miracle they both survived. But not completely unscathed. Almost every waking moment, all Mia can see are those dead children and so instills an even greater fear that she must protect baby Sonny from at all costs.

Of course the media have lapped up this juicy news of the "Babes in the Attic" as the police tear down their newly renovated home in search of clues as to who these children are and how they got there in the first place. And instead of leaving it to the police, Mia decides to do some investigating of her own...which can only have dire consequences.

And THAT is only a tip of the iceberg that sunk this tale of Titanic proportions! To find out what happens and where it leads you're going to have to find out for yourself because in all honesty, that's really the only way to experience a thriller as dark, disturbing and as chilling as this. Hearing about it is not believing...only seeing for yourselves can you really believe what you are reading. And there is no truer title than the one given to this story.

I knew from the very beginning when I read the opening prologue that this was going to be a dark and twisted read. Penned by an anonymous narrator who pops up throughout the story tells of the part they played in the abhorrent and chilling murders, the story then begins with Mia and Finn's respective narratives, also interspersed with Debbie and Dave's. We are also given excerpts of transcripts, interviews, newspaper articles and reports throughout at just the right time before lunging deeper into the past under the guise of the anonymous narrator. It is eye-opening, insightful and at times heartbreaking. The entire story is dysfunctional, as is the family it portrays, but it's the ending that is just too sad.

The story itself is filled with twists and red herrings that will keep you guessing - is it or isn't it? - leaving you wondering if you are able to figure them out. I did work out who the anonymous narrator was through a few drip-fed clues and things that were left unsaid. But that wasn't the only twist to be revealed...there are plenty more to come!

KEEP IT IN THE FAMILY is a twisted and delicious dark unnerving read that is chilling to the core. It makes you wonder what goes on in the author's mind to be able to conjure up such macabre plots! He did say in his note at the end that this story was the result of a dream and that you wouldn't want to be inside his head at the best of times let alone at night!

This is one of the most disturbing, tense and completely unputdownable thrillers I have read. It is atmospheric and addictive and oh so chilling. Everything I love in a dark thriller...and Marrs excels in this genre. I'm not a fan of sci-fi so I don't read those of his but these dark and twisted thrillers are right up my alley! I thought "The Good Samaritan" was dark and then "What Lies Between Us" which had echoes of "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?", a very dark movie for its time...but this one? It knocks those out of the ballpark! The entire story was oh so twisted and the epilogue was chilling.

But oh! What a read!!

I would like to thank #JohnMarrs, #NetGalley and #AmazonPublishing for an ARC of #KeepItInTheFamily in exchange for an honest review.

This review appears on my blog at https://stinathebookaholic.blogspot.com/.

This was quite a dark read, with some unexpected twists along the way. Everytime you think you have it worked out something happens to reveal another twist.
Definitely a must for readers who enjoy a pschological thriller, this will blow your mind!

Thank you to Netgalley, Amazon Publishing UK and John Marrs for the chance to read this ARC in return for an honest review.

This is the 3rd book that I have read from this author and so far he can do no wrong. I am becoming a huge fan of his.

Mia and Finn, with the help of his parents Debbie are Dave, are busy fixing up their dilapidated house before the baby arrives. Mia discovers a chilling message scrawled into the skirting board: I WILL SAVE THEM FROM THE ATTIC. As they search the attic they make a gruesome discovery: their dream home was once a house of horrors.

This book is dark, twisted, and full of surprises. As soon as I thought I knew where the story was headed it would take an unexpected turn. I definitely recommend this book.

Thank you to NetGalley, Amazon Publishing UK and John Marrs for an ARC of "Keep It In The Family" in exchange of an honest review.

Oh dear. I’m on a bad run of reads and this one I had high hopes for.

Young couple buy their ideal doer upper house but soon discover mysterious secrets in the attic that link to dark secrets in the families past and perhaps present.

The spiel sounded really interesting and the book is by John Marrs, an author I have read and enjoyed in the past.

The problems with this one were many.

The format. Told in the first person from different view points, there’s a real abc type of narrative here, almost a childish style of storytelling that didn’t work at all for me.

The characters. A bunch of vacuous and unlikeable ones that make ridiculous decisions purely for the author to move the story on. I didn’t care about any of them. They weren’t even interesting in an unlikeable way. They were just nasty wafer thin and silly.

The story. What unfolds is pretty silly(and nasty). A ludicrous premise, we have twist and turns that add nothing to the story and don’t misdirect as it was obvious to me from very early on what was going on.

The ending. If the book itself was bad, the ending was beyond awful.

The only surprise in this book is the authors name. How the same man who wrote The One can write this trash is beyond me.

One of the silliest, wafer thin, poorly written and thought out novels I’ve read in a long time.

I’m sorry but a hard miss from me.

Thanks to the publisher for the ARC through Netgalley.

I had previously loved John Marrs's other novels (particularly The One) but this one felt like a standard popcorn thriller, which was very disappointing.