This was a excellent page turner, I couldn’t put it down. The twists and turns and the suspense throughout keeps you on the edge of your seat. The characters were great, the story was exciting and the style of writing was perfect. I always read this authors books and throughly enjoy them all.. I can’t wait for the next one to come out.
I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys this genre.
Thank you netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this in exchange for a honest review.

Imagine this...
A secret daughter who was abandoned as an infant now seeks your presence at an invited party.
However, lets not over exaggerate because it seems everything isn't coming up roses.
In fact, the two children of Mary arent' keen on this Cathy (aka Hope in her mind) is the real deal.
Lets backtrack a bit...
It turns out that Mary and Paul were happily married till he had a sudden medical condition. That led to a situation in which Mary sought family.
She began to have some interesting flashbacks to her past including her time with her first love Robbie - a hardcore type of fella.
Robbie we are led to believe was a bad dude with a shady past and so in her mind he was all but dead himself.
As the years went on nobody knew of this past life of Mary's not even her two children Joanne and Jason. They're both grown so what harm would it be to inform them of this past life and a step sibling?
Until the DNA proved that Cathy really was her long lost daughter.
Talk about opening up Pandora's box.
Everything went downhill literally from that moment of the reunion with Cathy. Was Cathy to blame or was there so much more to this story.
Strange things began happening to Mary who was possibly suffering from dementia...or was she?
Look, not everything is as it seems.
Money we all know is the root of all evil. Speaking of which these siblings seems to have plenty to discuss behind closed doors.
Why so many secrets? Will the truth ever be exposed? Will anyone be caught and brought to justice?
The storyline by Karen was a chock full of nuts. Broken people who hurt people is the best way to describe some of these characters. Everyone seeking love but in all the wrong places. Everyone wanting that attention, craving that adulation, yet starving themselves in the process.
If only we all knew how it would end....Would they be happy? Would this family become whole?
Karen King has found that soft spot that everyone could relate too and open it up to the world by exposing the fact that we all have secrets to tell.
A great read that I highly recommend!! The epilogue was pure gold!
Thank you Karen King, Bookouture, and Netgalley for this advanced reader's copy.
This thriller will be due out January 23rd! Don't miss out!

What a family reunion! Just when you think you have it the storyline al figured, the author pulls the rug out from underneath you to leave you guessing. Such an enjoyable read!

I would like to thank Bookouture and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read ‘The Family Reunion’ by Karen King in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.
Mary is fifteen when she falls pregnant and gives birth alone leaving the baby she names Hope wrapped in a blanket in a phone box. Forty-five years later Mary starts to look for her daughter and when they meet they form a relationship. It’s only when her daughter, now named Cathy, becomes part of her family that strange events happen and Mary’s other children, Jason and Joanne, begin to wonder whether Cathy can be trusted.
‘The Family Reunion’ is what I would describe as a family drama with a well thought out story that’s slow at times but a decent read nonetheless. Although I found it hard to like the characters and Mary was annoyingly naïve, it wasn‘t until I got to the final chapters that the plot became ridiculous. Too much was said about Mary being old and forgetful when she was only sixty which isn’t old these days. I like a drama with a twist at the end but this was so far-fetched it was almost difficult to believe I was reading the same book as it didn’t fit with the rest of the story. I’m sorry I couldn’t be more positive but this is my own opinion and I’m sure other readers will love it.

When Mary was just 16, she gave birth to a baby girl and abandoned her in a telephone box. Now, over 40 years later, right after the death of her husband, she decides it's time to confront her secret and find her long-lost daughter.

The baby she named Hope now goes by Cathy, and while her daughter seems standoffish at first, the two women reconnect and Mary decides it's finally time for all her children to meet.

But the family doesn't live happily ever after - Mary's other two children don't trust their older sister, their spouses think she's only after their mother's money and strange things keep happening.

Mary finally revealed her secret, but it turns out she's not the only one hiding things...

While it's billed as a psychological suspense novel, Karen King's 'The Family Reunion' is a contemporary family drama that's heavy on the... you guessed it, drama and secrets, and after about the third twist, things become hard to believe.

I found the author's writing clunky and amateurish in places, and while the plot helped me get over that by the time I was about 50% in, overall, I found the characters hard to like and the ending unsatisfactory.

There are just too many 'secrets' stuffed into one family that it begins to border on the ridiculous; Mary's character remains frustratingly naïve almost all throughout, and while it kept me interested until the end, the storyline never really took off for me.

It was just OK.

Firstly, thank you to Netgallery, Bookatoure and Karen King for the ARC of this book in return for an honest review.

Karen King is the queen of thrillers! I’ve read her books so I was ecstatic about getting my hands on her latest one! Wow what can I say this book was amazing, it gripped me from the very first page! This is one of the best thrillers I’ve read in a long time!

It was a fast paced and kept me guessing throughout a perfect book for psychological thrillers fans alike! The ending wow and I did not see it coming!
Overall, I throughly enjoyed this book and all the plot twists that it presented!
Karen King definitely should be on everyones shelf!

I so wanted to love this book but the ending just didn’t do it for me.

It’s a brilliant exciting read, mostly, but it all seems to go 100miles per hour at the end where the story is brought together to a not so exciting end. Then it picks up again and has the potential to be really great again but flops. Like literally “is that it” flops!

Definitely worth a read but put it to the bottom of the TBR pile.

Great concept for the story and the story line was intriguing and kept me guessing. I just feel like I never connected with any of the characters and the narrative fell a little flat for me and felt forced. I would like to thank netgalley and the publishers for an ARC of The Family Reunion in exchange for my honest opinion.

#TheFamilyReunion #NetGalley
Voila!!! Karen King has done it again. She's written a compelling psychological thriller with an ongoing family drama, loved it.
Mary was raised by a strict father. She fell in love with Robbie and got pregnant at 16. When Robbie ends up in jail, she gives birth and leaves her newborn daughter, Hope, in a phone booth. Flash forward to the future where Mary is recently widowed and is still feeling guilty for this act of abandonment (she never told her husband of decades about Hope), she sends a message out onto the internet hoping to find her long lost daughter. Miracles upon miracles, Hope (now called Cathy) responds.
Thanks to NetGalley and Bookouture for giving me an advance copy.

The Family Reunion was a somewhat slow burn but so worth it. There is an underlying knowledge that something “horrific” has occurred both in the past and at present but throughout the whole book I was unable to completely accurately identify anything.
All the characters except the MC Mary are suspicious and quite insufferable. Her children all seem to be greedy and selfish. I kept wanting to scream “Wake up! See what is right in front of you!” at Mary through most of the book.
While I was able to identify one of the antagonists, I didn’t foresee many of the other little twists. Then when I was ready to rate this book 4 stars, the epilogue knocked it into a 5 star read.

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC of The Family Reunion!
Mary grew up with a single father who was very strict. At 15 years old, she meets an 18 year old bad boy, which doesn't go over well with her father. Mary ended up getting pregnant a year after meeting the boy and charges are pressed against him that lands him in jail. She gives the baby girl up, but she stays on Mary's mind for years.
This is a tale of finding her child and the reunion.

Thank you for NetGalley for providing me with this book for review. What a read, I was totally absorbed with the characters, what a family and what a twist at the end.

⭐️⭐️⭐️
Family drama & secrets are exposed in Karen King’s new book. When Mary was really young she had a baby and gave it up for adoption…however no one in her family knows about this secret from her past. When she finds and reconnects with her daughter (Cathy) strange situations begin happening to Mary and her family, which causes everyone to wonder if Cathy really is the person she says she is. This book carried on for way too long and the ending was just ‘ok.’

Thanks to NetGalley & the publisher for the ARC for my honest review.

Mary is newly widowed, has two grown children and a BIG secret. She has burdened herself with this skeleton and now has decided it’s time total it out of the closet:  Mary had a baby when she was 16 and abandoned her in a telephone booth. Now, alone and free from hurting her husband, she is asking all the questions: was her baby happy, is she married, live nearby?  Thanks to all the search appson the internet, Mary sent out to do just that: and then she got the “ping”.
   As a reader I saw Mary so desperate to believe this girl and make up all those years to her…there were so many red flags. But I didn’t have to wave them, her children were right our there in the disbelief I felt.
   But throughout the story there were little lies that would pop up, withheld information that suddenly they remembered, distrust in the ranks….and that wasn’t just the new daughter…this is the ALL the children. All the while, Mary is so enthralled is having this girl back in her life she is walking around with blinders on.
   It was an interesting look at how this “interloper” wended her way into Mary’s world and family. The siblings' reactions to it all and most of all the epilogue which will really knock you over.

As a fifteen year old, Mary abandons her newborn daughter in a telephone booth in a mall. 45 years later Mary decides to search for her long lost daughter and surprisingly finds out her daughter is also searching for her. Mary has kept her first born daughter a secret from her late husband and two children in fear of being rejected for her past actions. Once mother and daughter reunite, Mary spends all her time trying to make up for lost time. But suddenly things are not always what they seem. Mary starts to feel as though her mind is slipping. Money is missing, she can’t find her special charms to her bracelet, and she seems to have erased the only remaining voice mail message on her phone with her husband’s voice. Mary also is terrified to keep living in her home after strange events surround her. Mary’s life seems to have gotten worse since her daughter entered her life or is something else causing all the. Chaos?

This psychological suspense novel has readers guessing until the end who is creating havoc in Mary's life.

There is a lot going on in this book. Mary was raised by a strict father. She fell in love with Robbie and got pregnant at 16. When Robbie ends up in jail, she gives birth and leaves her newborn daughter, Hope, in a phone booth. Flash forward to the future where Mary is recently widowed and is still feeling guilty for this act of abandonment (she never told her husband of decades about Hope), she sends a message out onto the internet hoping to find her long lost daughter. Miracles upon miracles, Hope (now called Cathy) responds.

This novel follows the direct months after Mary and Cathy reconnect. We get to watch the two get to know each other, or so they think. Cathy is rather suspicious, the readers knows she is lying and keeping secrets from Mary. Mary is also now strangely now losing things, becoming forgetful and worrying for her safety. Is Cathy to blame? I thought this was a great set up and was suspicious of Cathy from the beginning. The dark secretive vague information available about her father, Robbie, was also very intriguing.

However, Cathy is not the only suspicious character. Mary has two grown children from her happy marriage: Joanne and Jason, who are both married (neither happily) with two children each. Joanne resents Jason (and now Cathy) and she seems to have a drinking problem. Jason's wife is cheating on him and he seems to be constantly pushing his mum to downsize her home to get money from her (he has past money issues - and maybe current ones).

My main issue with this book was that I didn't like a single character. All of Mary's kids were really annoying and I felt like every single one clearly just wanted money from her. I think the vulnerable forgetful older woman role was a little too played upon, I would have liked this to have been more subtle. The push from all three kids to make Mary move into a smaller home started to feel repetitive. The intrigue and dark past of Robbie also fell a little flat for me when the truth came to light.

The epilogue was a total curveball and kind of random, but the best "wtf" moment of the book.

Paul was the great love of her life but now he is gone and she is all alone. A deep buired secret filteres out as she decides its time to find her secret daughter.
This is a compelling well written novel. Full of many twists and turns and well written misdirection. Good character development makes you care and keeps you hooked till the end. A real pleasure to read. A solid 5 stars.

When Mary reconnects with her long lost daughter, her life is turned upside down. I found this book to be a page turning thriller just waiting to see what would happen next to Mary. I wanted to reach out and save her many times while reading! I felt that the book was well done until the last few chapters of the book. The story took an unrealistic turn that didn’t seem to fit with the rest of the story. I found The Family Reunion to be a unique read with a decent ending.

The Family Reunion is a slow-burn read about a family with lots of secrets.

How much can one family take?

I felt like this book was a little slow at the beginning up to about the 50% mark. The ending seemed rushed and unoriginal for the most part, but some of it surprised me. Overall, a decent read, but I wouldn’t read it again.

Overall, the storyline is good but some parts of it are completely unnecessary and do not add to the story at all. Just minor details that made it a little bit tedious to get through. But like I said, the overall plot is good and kept me reading.