Meh, just an ok and slow story. Not really anything to try and keep up with. Abandoned at 30%
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the Advance copy.

Thanks to Netgalley, I received a free copy of this book. It was an okay story. I couldn't get into it that much.

Pretty slow, but easy read. The pace picked up at about 70% and ending up being better than I expected..

Will give feedback and my review when the HCP union gets a fair contract. Thank you so much for the book and can't wait to leave a review in the future.

You know you are in trouble when you start reading the dedication in a new book and it makes you cry.

Family is troublesome. And when you belong to a family of con artists, the trouble is increased exponentially. The book opens with Jillian Moorewood being released from jail and returning to the family compound. The compound is a 45-acre oceanfront Rhode Island estate. She makes a grand entrance via a helicopter. She is going to make the family to go legit. Their response is to try to kill Jillian. Strange events necessitate the need for a body guard to protect her from her family. It was a wise move. She finally gets her family evicted from her home. The body guard is a keeper.

I loved the hijinks and family drama in the witty book about a con family. Definitely some very funny laugh out loud moments in this novel. The writing lends itself to creating vivid images of each character. Overall a fun read that kept me engaged throughout the book.

I tried to get more than 15% into this book before DNF. While I greatly appreciate the copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review - it got too muddy for me with all the different characters. The dialogue was lost on me - just not the book for me.

This book reminds me of the movie Knives Out and I love it!

It was so fun to see the Moorewood family dynamic and the ways they go about as a family. I hope no one has this type of dysfunctional family in real life.

Each character was interesting and helped keep the story going. There were so many secrets you wanted to know about and the big one of all....Who ratted out Jillian to the FBI?

The romance between Jillian and her bodyguard was so sweet and he added a lot of funny moments to the book.

Thank you Avon and Harper Voyager for a complimentary copy. I voluntarily reviewed this book. All opinions expressed are my own.

MOOREWOOD FAMILY RULES
By: HelenKay Dimon


HelenKay Dimon's MOOREWOOD FAMILY RULES (April 2023) is a delightful treat. I began reading this book on a whim on a day when nothing seemed to hold my attention for longer than five seconds. A couple of hours later, the book completed, I looked up to find what began as a down day had, in fact, retreated on a positive note thanks to the dysfunctional Moorewood family. Don't bother denying the crazy in your family tree because we all share this affliction in varying degrees of embarrassment.

The Moorewood family exists within a delusional bubble world of their own making where, to keep said bubble intact, pretty much anything is justifiable. The family motto should be something like, "Deny until death or jail." I love the whole pretend-like-everything-is-fine -and-it-will-magically-disappear attitude. It makes for good entertainment. Moreover, I loudly applaud those devilish family members (aka black sheep and troublemakers) who, rather than sitting in silence, choose to let the dirty laundry flap in the breeze on the front porch for all to see. Would you be complicit or defiant in this situation?

Poor Jillian, though, sacrificing a chunk of her life and sanity for such ungrateful horrible people. I can't decide if her former decision was selfless or stupid. In her shoes, once free, I would have done much worse to these lousy grifters. And the freaking freeloaders? Don't even get me started down this path! Honestly, Jillian is just too kind in the overall scheme of things. I wanted her to throw a bit more fire and brimstone at some very deserving liars. Any toll Jillian exacts from these people is a hard won victory. I will say this for the Moorewood family: what they do they do well. Which is unfortunate for so many people.

MOOREWOOD FAMILY RULES is an amusing and (sometimes) frustrating (that is, for those who like their revenge with more vengeance) read with a well achieved balance of quirkiness, truthfulness, deceitfulness and snarkiness in both its twisty plot and lively characters. As a story that can be read in a few quick hours, I found it very worthwhile as well as memorable.

Ultimately, in this tale of profound greed and family betrayal, revenge is sweet, and dessert is served. Aren't scandals and gossip wickedly delicious?

After a three year stint in the slammer, Jillian descends upon her conning extended family to show them exactly who they messed with, landing herself in a precarious position pitted against family members who aren’t above killing for what they want.
The sprawling Rhode Island estate isn’t the idyllic calm one may want from an ocean-side mansion, what with the assorted family and all of their dysfunction prowling around. Jillian, paired with her new body guard (so the family doesn’t kill her), are here to enforce the ground rules that have been laid out time and time again...Will she finally do what it takes and force the family business to go legit?

Moorewood Family Rules was a quick and fun read. I loved all of the rules at the head of every chapter. Overall, I felt the synopsis did too good of a job providing what the book was about and didn’t leave anything to be told. Overall enjoyed the book, style of writing, and the comedy.

Honestly, this booked DRAGGED for me for over 65% of it. I almost DNF, but because this was an ARC I pushed through. The concept of the story was great. A revenge plot on a con-artist family who let one of their own take the fall and end up in prison to save them all? Fantastic. But the story fell very flat for me. I expected more drama, high stakes murder schemes and tons of twisty revenge schemes. Instead I got characters that I didn't enjoy. Jillian and Beck's chemistry was very forced and I honestly hated reading their cringy, flirty banter.
The backstories are constantly over-explained, to the point where I was literally falling asleep during so many chapters because it was the same thing I had read a few chapters back.
There were some great moments, even some very funny laugh out loud moments, but it took SO long to get interesting and that really killed the whole book for me.

Thank you NetGalley and Avon and Harper Voyager for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. This book is set to release on April 25, 2023.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced e-arc of this book.

This was a fun easy read. I found myself actually laughing quite a bit. I enjoyed that the book centered mostly around the family dynamics of the Moorewoods.

Even though I enjoyed this book, it was a rough start as the first two chapters to me just didn’t make sense. Once I got past them is when it got really enjoyable. I also feel the romance aspect was very rushed but I did love the banter between the main character and love interest. I think it would have been nice to have a prologue of the main characters time in prison before the first chapter and I wish there was an epilogue to give more of an update on all the family members at the end.

Overall I really enjoyed the book, it was the perfect light easy read that I needed after the holidays.

Knives out meets Oceans 8 is about the best way to describe this book. It’s hilarious without a doubt, it had my laughing and kicking my feet- which if a book can make me show that much emotions, it’s a win. I found the protagonist to be likeable while also finding she had a good amount of flaws to make her believable. The book had some areas where things fell a little flat, but overall I found myself turning each page with excitement!

Okay, so the cover definitely sold me on this one! I love the bright colors and when I read the description I was even more sold. A woman gets out of jail and returns to her con artist family to try to get them all to go clean? Sounds fun, sign me up!

This book was just that : fun. The family dynamics are quirky and entertaining and I couldn't wait to see what they were going to pull next!

While I did enjoy it overall, it was a little lacking in the plot department. A lot was repeated over and over and the plot never got very deep. There was a tiny bit of romance thrown in which didn't do anything for the story and actually took away from it, in my opinion.

I'd recommend if you want a fun and quirky read!

Thank you so much to Avon and Harper Voyager for the chance to read and review this book prior to release. This book will be available on April 25th.

What do you do when the protagonist is also the antagonist. Or are they? In Dimon's novel Moorewood Family Rules we meet the Moorewood family. A family a con artists, manipulators, devilish sneaks, and people willing to do anything to keep the con on and money flowing. So when one of their owns threatens to disrupt their livelihood and do aware with their grifting ways, things get a bit dicey. This book is filled with humor, a family so dysfunctional it will make your head spin, and bunch of conniving con artists (and one ex-con). The cast of characters includes a string cheese fanatic elder, a manipulative and downright dangerous twin who will stop at nothing to protect the con, and an uncle that has lived in the con for so long he has even conned himself. If you enjoyed Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, or Where'd You Go Bernadette, this is another great book to add to your TBR list.

If there is one word to describe “Moorewood Family Rules” it would be “fun.” It flowed easily and drew me right in with the funny remarks and quick engagement with the plot. The idea of the story was intriguing and unusual. It set up a lot of anticipation as to who, how, and what was going down. There were lots of snappy, fast-paced dialogue and dark humor. The POV switches between multiple characters, and they're all well fleshed out and three dimensional. Annika especially is an excellent character with an arc that I thoroughly enjoyed following, even though I fully didn't expect to. Being inside her head was my favorite part of the book and I thought she was the most well-developed character. Jillian and Beck's romance is closed door and not the focus of the story; their chemistry was strongest during their banter and blunt, humorous conversations. I kept trying to untangle the web of relationships, and to guess who was really at fault for myriad cons and assassination attempts. The one thing I loved about this book is the rules of the family that's motioned at the beginning of each chapter, and the chapter covers how the rule applies to it. The supporting characters did not disappoint! The shadiness and ridiculousness of them made it that much more fun to read. While it was fun and flirty, it was also sharp and witty, which was perfection and I could not put it down! I think that this would make a great movie adaptation! If you enjoyed “Knives Out”, you will definitely enjoy this book! This was a fun and quirky read. I hope that this isn’t the last we see of the Moorewood clan. Thanks to HelenKay Dimon, Netgalley and Avon for an e-arc in exchange for my thoughts. I can’t wait to see what she writes next.

If you are hoping for a dysfunctional family of con artists and grifters this book is for you! Jillian, just out of prison is determined to make her family of crooks go legit but they REALLY don't want to. Watching her maneuver around their schemes and dangerous plots to off her was a pure delight. A perfect book for vacation or the beach!

I went into this expecting it to be like Knives Out but with con artists; meaning, I was expecting something fun, fast-paced, and witty. Sad to say, I really didn't get that much from this book. Like many other reviewers are noting, it's slow-paced, and honestly, there's a real difficulty in nailing down the tone that the book is trying to strike. One minute, it's fun and the next, it's talking about real issues such as suicide and PTSD.

It doesn't help that the characters tend to convey exactly what they're planning on doing. The perk of con artist stories is that the audience is always one step behind them, but these cons are kind of terrible at that. Additionally, since half of the chapters follow Anika instead of Jillian, the reader always knows what the antagonists have planned and what they've done. It takes all the suspense out of the novel.

ARC provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I was very intrigued and excited by the description of this book....unfortunately I might have hyped myself up too much for this one. I won't say this is a bad book because it is not in any sense of the word. I will say that I personally didn't feel connected to any of the characters and therefore didn't care about their goals which lead to a very dull reading experience.
I wish more happened throughout this book. I felt like a lot of it was people sitting around and talking about heists and schemes rather than actually doing heists and schemes.
I think the story was good, but as someone who enjoys more character focused stories, this fell flat.
I also found the plot twist underwhelming. Although I didn't see it coming the way it was revealed had me waiting for something bigger to happen.
Overall I will say I can see people reading this and very much enjoying it, but for me personally it wasn't a right fit.

This reviewer supports the HarperCollins Union. I've read and written a review, but won't be uploading it here or on any other platforms until the HarperCollins Union has a fair contract.