I knew it would be great! Another twisty story from Catherine Steadman. What starts with a fiancée that dreams are made of,,,had to be too good to be true? Don't get engaged before you meet the family lol.

Whoa..this was great! I could not put it down..fast paced, twisty and I NEEDED to know what was going on with this family. I really loved the games, the twists and turns and figuring out who was going to "win" in these impossible situations.

Wow, this was a fun, twisty read with a fast-paced plot! I enjoyed it more than I thought I would after reading the first couple chapters and feeling it was too similar to the movie Ready or Not (a movie I love). Thankfully this had plenty of surprises to keep me invested in the story. Steadman was masterful with delivering all the clues to slowly piece together what’s going on and I loved how everything connected! My absolute favorite scene was the Krampusnacht celebration. Sooooo good! I think any fan of cat-mouse thrillers with sinister secrets, intriguing side characters, and family drama will enjoy this.

Favorite Quotes:

“I’m sure you’re surprised that a family like ours plays so many childish games, but, Harriet, that is the common misconception about the nature of games. Games take us as close as is acceptable to the strategies we use in life. Games reveal our most base instinct: the instinct to survive.”

“You can tell a lot about a person from the mess they leave behind.”

“A girl with a past tries to marry into money and all hell breaks loose. We all know how that story ends.”

I have read all of Steadman’s books so far and The Family Game was my favorite out of the 4. The novel centers around a woman with a past who becomes engaged to the son of a wealthy tycoon. After not meeting the family during the length of their relationship, she is invited to spend the holidays with them and begins to pick up on ominous vibes and realizes all is not what it appears. Harry herself is not who she appears to be so she knows all too well the secrets that can lurk beneath surfaces. I won’t go into more detail, so as not to spoil the plot.
This book has a unique tone and mixes some of the popular contemporary domestic suspense genre with a throwback gothic vibe. The tension builds slowly and the plot appears straightforward but there are some last minute twists that throw it into a different direction. The characters are engaging and Harry’s secrets begin to add to the dark tone. A very enjoyable and fast-paced read!

thrilling and full of attention grabbing scenes. completely upputdownable and diffidently recommend to others

The Family Game was made available for me to preview by the publisher. Harriet (or Harry, as she is known) is about to marry the man of her dreams, who happens to come from a very wealthy family.. A mystery author with her own dark past, Harry is lured into trying to understand the secrets underlying the family’s strange relationships and rituals, without having her own exposed. The Family Game is a fun, page-turner. Harry is a likeable character, and her account of the challenges of joining a close knit family is relatable and engaging, even before the creepiness begins to show up. I enjoyed some of the detailing of the rarified world in which Harry finds herself. There are some side threads and secondary characters that could have been cu, and the “twist” is less than surprising, but I still wanted to read to the end to see how the story would play out.

✨ "A girl with a past tries to marry into money and all hell breaks loose. We all know how that story ends."

True... until you read this book, that is.

The Family Game is so much fun and totally unputdownable! If you're worried about the synopsis sounding similar to other movies or books like I was — don't be. I'm pretty impressed at how the author has created a wholly original tale while drawing inspiration from existing cult favourites.

I was engrossed the whole time and this book was so worth staying up till 4am for. It has all the ingredients I enjoy in a thriller: A substantial cast of shady characters, a morally grey protagonist with an intriguing backstory, long-buried secrets, family drama, vivid settings and more!

I've read two other Catherine Steadman novels but this one is hands down my favourite so far!

Games are always played best when the stakes matter. The Family Game was an incredible story of a woman finding love, and wanting to be favored by an immensely powerful family her love is tethered to. When a tape of an alleged idea of a book is handed to her, it’s a question of whether it’s fact to Murder, or pure fiction.

The book was well thought out, and it was like watching a movie with its vivid descriptions & genuine relationships between characters. Harry, our lead was relatable to wanting to be liked by her love’s family, and being lonely after traumas. I did feel that the lead was guilted into quite a few situations where she should have been more insistent, and state boundaries. Her relationship to Edward seemed almost desperate, and wanted to keep him no matter what. There are also trigger warning content such as drug use, violence, and mental health.

I did eventually see the twist coming but it did not disappoint me personally. The last half of the novel had enough tension to have me enthralled til the end.

This reminded me of films like Ready or Not with its history with murder and games, and other media. I’m so grateful to Ballantine Books, Netgalley, the lovely Catherine Steadman, and random house for my ARC ebook of The Family Game. I look forward to November 2022 for the finished novel. 💫 #thefamilygame #netgalley

Thank you so much for allowing me to read and review your titles. I really not the opportunity!

I do appreciate it and continue to review books that I get the chance to read.
Thanks again!

Thanks to NetGalley and publisher for the advanced copy. First time reading Catherine Steadman and throughly enjoyed The Family Gamel. Real page turner and some of it scenes I guess a mile away. Overall I will recommend reading it to pass a lazy day.

Rating: 3.75

I was immediately drawn in starting from the prologue and really enjoyed Steadman's writing style. She has a way of taking simple words and coating them in glitter. That is what kept me reading through to the end.
Although there were some likable traits with the protagonist, I didn't quite connect as deeply with her as I would have liked to. She was described as being strong willed, however her actions portrayed more of a pushover until the end. Character development was just a bit lacking for my taste.
It was a slow burn thriller and I felt some chapters could have been removed altogether. There were subplots that were too drawn out that I was hoping would end sooner.
The last 20% of the book was a page turner and when the action finally happened. The ending was just great and I'm glad I stuck through to the end.
My favorite part of this book was her writing style and the ending.
Going to give her other books a try!
Many thanks to Catherine Steadman and Ballantine Books for allowing me to read this advanced copy. Expected release date of September 29, 2022.

Omg what a twisted read! If you like thrillers that keep you on the edge of your seat trying to guess what is coming next, this is the book for you. It’s all in the family, love, secrets, terrifying family games. How far would you go to keep your secrets safe?

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. Thank you NetGalley Catherine Steadman and Ballantine Books for this edition and hearing my honest review. Looking forward to reading more with you
#partner

Tension. That is how it starts and continues until the end of this book with a plot full of secrets.

Daily events appeared to be normal for Harriet with a wildly successful first novel and a happy life with her adoring finance in NYC. Then she met Edward’s family for the first time. The Holbeck lineage was “generations of wealth, woven into the fabric of America since the Gilded Age.” She knew they were worth billions with huge connections and maybe a tad crazy but she didn’t think much of it until the day she stepped inside their circle.

Edward’s father, Robert, sent her home after a private chat with a personal message on a tiny cassette tape. She had to find a store that still carried a cassette player just to listen to it. And then she had to squeeze in time to hear his words. Her life was on the edge of being totally absorbed by finishing her second novel. That wasn’t all. Family members started calling. They were eager to get together during the holiday season. They loved to play games at gatherings -- terrifying ones without a lot of advanced warning. When she finally found a private place to listen to the tape, she found herself caught in his web.

I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough with an abundance of twists and turns from the first page forward. The author did a great job creating a mind-blowing plot with characters that one could easily see. I just wanted to hug the little boy, Billy, who seemed very sweet. The reader had to pay careful attention to the hints of who in the family had her back. It’s a different kind of holiday book; one full of surprises.

My thanks to Catherine Steadman, Ballantine Books and NetGalley for allowing me to read this advanced copy with the expected release date of September 29, 2022.

When I first read the synopsis of this book it reminded me of Slasher: Flesh & Blood, so of course I had to have it!
While this isn't quite a dark as the tv show, this is still a dark and suspense-filled wild ride.
There's family drama, there's bloodshed, and there's twisted good fun.

This book is an intricate cat and mouse game that starts off with a bang and will leave you second guessing until the end. That's all I'm going to say though because I don't want to give anything away.
I highly recommend it to anyone who's a fan of thrillers.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to netgalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book was absolutely amazing - I have a few qualms with it (ie some choices the main made frustrated me - being TOLD the main not recording something is frustrating but then not doing it? It felt like a cop out, and I was yelling at her to finish the tapes in one setting). I initially requested this book because it sounded like Ready or Not - and while there are some elements there, it’s definitely it’s own individual book.

I really enjoyed the main character - she was fun to read and was strong and (for the most part) pretty smart. I think one of the subplots where she’s attracted to another character was weird and unnecessary, and ultimately didn’t seem to serve any purpose, and I wish one of the reveals had more of a buildup or hints throughout the book - it’s something I felt like would play wonderfully onscreen, but on text felt a tiny bit random, though not completely out of the blue. I guess in hindsight writing this review maybe I should put this at a 3.5-7 with the critiques I have but the book was so fun that I can’t bring myself to make it any less than a 4.

I’d definitely read this book again though, and it was a fun time! I kept saying “okay just one more chapter” and then kept on going to kudos for the author for having such an engaging story.

Harry has a secret. But so does her father-in-law. Who wins the game determines who keeps the secret. Would you play? Would you win?

As a fan of Catherine Steadman's other novels, I was excited to see "The Family Game" available on NetGalley. The novel starts off with a strange relationship between Harry and her soon-to-be father in law. It almost put me off with reading the book. But it was going somewhere... Harry's soon-to-be in-laws had a twisted sense of humor and played weird games but those games also served as a sort of power play.

A high 2 stars. Fun to read, but in the end, not worth the effort!

This is an incredibly slow and sometimes choppy book. The story starts and stops a lot. Nothing really happens and while there is an attempt made at building some kind of tension, it sadly doesn’t succeed at all. At no point did the text convey the feeling of danger the protagonist was apparently experiencing.

This very messy family wasn’t as fun as it could have been as the characters were very flat. The relationship dynamics and the way everyone behaved made no sense. The protagonist and her actions were incredibly irritating, her thought processes were very repetitive and the central relationship, the one with her partner, wasn't believable at all.

The promised plot didn’t really start until 80% into the book. Those last 20% could have made for a fun thriller if they had taken up and been spread out over the entire novel.

I found the blurb to be incredibly misleading. It implies that this book is focused on a deadly game, which it isn’t at all, in my opinion. It's about a pregnant woman deciding if she wants to be a part of this wealthy family or not while dealing with her own past. Also, most of the plot points mentioned in the descriptions don't come into play until almost halfway through the book, with some elements only being introduced almost at the end!

I had an enjoyable time reading it. And while it was very engaging and I wasn’t bored, I was mostly waiting for something to happen. For there to be more to the story. For it all to actually make sense. There was clearly a lot of potential. But I was just very frustrated by the end.

🔥💰 The Family Game💰🔥
By Catherine Steadman (via #netgalley)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Wow! What an incredible book! Full of twists that keep you guessing. At times it was strange and maybe a bit far fetched, but a true thriller and certainly unique nonetheless. 10/10 definitely recommend.

Harriet ‘Harry’ Reed has been keeping a deep dark secret. She did a terrible thing in the past, but she’s the only one who knows. Fast forward to adulthood and she’s a best selling author. Her boyfriend/fiancé introduces her to his family (soon to be her new family) and things seem to be on the up and up. But his family is different. Eccentric. Secretive. Mysterious. And the family loves to play daring games. Harry’s future father in law hands her a cassette tape of a recording. The tape holds a confession that will change Harry’s future and listening to the tape marks the beginning of the family’s traditional Christmas game. This game isn’t one for the faint of heart. Will Harry survive the game or will her secret be exposed?

The Family Game will be released November 2022!! Thank you #netgally for the ARC!

#netgally #netgalley #bookstagram #books #read #readmore

I really enjoyed this Catherine Steadman masterpiece. So I went into this book thinking it would be a rehash of one of my favorite thriller movies " Ready or not" where the bride is forced to play a cat and mouse game as her in-laws take to hunting her down with the intent to kill. But this book pleasantly surprised me with its fresh take on a similar premise. Bestselling author Harriet ( Harry) gets engaged to Edward who comes from a wealthy and powerful family. When Edward finally introduces her to his family the Holbecks, Harry is thrown into a game devised to test her to see if she is worthy of being part of this mysterious and eccentric family. She is given the rules of the game and they are quite clear; 1.) listen carefully 2.)Do your research. 3.)Trust no one. 4.) Run for your life. Harry of course does her research. She writes thriller novels for a living after all. What she discovers is secrets stacked upon secrets and even murder. There have been others before her that have failed this game and paid with their lives. Harry has no choice but to play along until the end because the patriarch of the Holbecks knows one of Harry's own darkest secret from her past, and he holds it over her head as leverage. Read the book to find out if Harry wins this game and gets to join the Holbeck family alive. Thanks to publisher and Netgalley for the ARC.

Wow. Catherine Steadman has done it again! This is my favorite novel of hers. I was sucked in from the first page and I had to know how everything would play out.

This book is so fast-paced. It has a great plot twist, a main character harboring a secret, and a rich & mysterious family who plays high stakes holiday games. It has all my favorite characteristics in a thriller, and I can’t wait to get my own physical copy later this year!

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for a digital copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.