The Stepfamily by Bonnie Traymore is a typical who did it story. You spend the whole book trying to figure out who is trying to murder the main character, Laura, and why. The story revolves around Laura and her husband Peter and his children who are her stepchildren. Laura has always felt like an outsider due to Peter’s first wife dying in a mysterious way and the children taking a hard time with it. One day Laura walks out to her car and finds her brakes are cut on her car. The police don’t take it seriously but Laura and Peter do. Peter is very concerned about her as he has flashbacks to his first wife’s death. However you find out that Peter has his own secrets involving his past that he doesn’t share with his wife of seven years prior to the attempt on Laura’s life. The story continues on where there are multiple attempts on her life and she is forced to delve more into her friends, coworkers and her husband’s past. Eventually the attempted murder is found and the story resolves for the most part. There is a cliffhanger at the end leading to the next book in the series.
One thing I really liked about this book was the visualization into a stepfamily’s dynamic. Coming from a stepfamily, it’s a hard thing to understand if you aren’t a part of it. Bonnie describes how the children had a hard time accepting Laura due to the loss of their mom. The dynamic of the daughter wanting to be the “woman of the family” and then having to “fight” for her dad’s affections when Laura comes into the picture was well described. I also enjoyed the character growth of Lydia to want to be closer to Laura and have a mother-daughter relationship. I also enjoyed the brother-sister dynamic where it had the sister always in the spotlight and the brother in the shadows. I liked that it showed that Laura recognized that Carson was always left behind or forgotten and that she is trying to change that.
I gave this book 2 stars out of 5 stars and there’s several reasons. I gave it two instead of one because I was engaged in the plot to find out who was attempting the murder. It had enough twists that kept me interested in finding out who it was.
It seemed like Bonnie wanted to make this story a multiple POV between Laura, Peter, and the PI detective, Shep. I love multiple POV stories but I didn’t think book wasn’t done well. Only Laura was ever written in first person. Peter and Shep are written in third person and like the reader is supposed to be omnipotent. If it’s a changed perspective I would expect it to be all in the first person. There was also no indication when it changed perspectives except page breaks. However, you wouldn’t know which person it was until you read part of the passage and figured it out. Plus Bonnie would also use page breaks to indicate a change in time so it made it difficult to know if it was a change in time or a change in perspective.
I also found that Laura was a very meek woman. She develops some of a backbone but by the end of the book it was gone again. She states that “she wouldn’t pry” into her husband’s past even though it had 7 years of their relationship together. I personally don’t understand how you would rather have all of these secrets and unknowns with your husband. Especially regarding his past wife that died mysteriously and she doesn’t believe it was an accident.
I also disliked that every time we read from Peter’s POV it was another secret. He was portrayed as this loving amazing husband and yet he intentionally kept all of these secrets and manipulated everyone. Whether it was for their safety or his own, it’s still shady. He even manipulated the PI so that Shep couldn’t say anything to the authorities about Peter under the law.

This book centered around a family with a stepmother MC who seems to have someone targeting her. Her husband has a shady past including the death of his first wife, and secrets are being kept.

I enjoyed this book it was a quick fast-paced read. It was a bit difficult at times to follow what POV it was because it seemed to change in the middle of chapters with no delineation that a new character was narrating. The character's POVs were also in different narrative styles (the female MC was first-person and the male characters were third-person) which threw me off a bit. Good thriller overall to get you out of a reading slump with the short chapters, but probably wouldn't re-read it.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I was very excited to read this because the synopsis sounded so good. I liked the plot and the way the twists were worked into the story, but I found the narration to be super confusing. The narrator seemed to change mid-chapter and there wasn't any spacing or anything to tell you it was switching, so you read along and all of a sudden, you realize that you're reading from the other character's perspective. I really enjoyed the short chapters and I found that at one point or another, I was suspicious of every single character, and I enjoy that when I'm reading a thriller.

This was different. Great writing but so many stories….possibilities. It’s immersive & absorbing but after a while I wondered how many more loops I’d be thrown🤷🏼‍♀️. Again, great writing, only wish the story had been narrowed or scaled down. I love a book that has lots of questions. I just want them to be inside a relative parameter that easily solves the problem. That could just be me & wanting plenty things simplified.

For some reason this is not working on my kindle. It pulls up just the table of contents and then it won’t move past it. I’m hoping since it’s the unedited version, that it will be better. I did pull it up on my phone and boy howdy was it everything I expected. So much detail to put into this book and definitely has all the twists and turns. Take from an avid thriller reader, it’s GOOD!

I received this ARC thanks to NetGalley for a review. The storyline and character development was good. However, the changes in POV was awfully confusing. It was change within a chapter and there was no indication beforehand, There were some good plot twists to keep you intrigued. I'd give it 3.5 stars.

The Stepfamily could have been trite, but it’s not. Not quite trite. Close, though. The book is saved by its excellent writing. And, the changing voices of the narration, first person for Laura, the stepmother only, and third person for everyone else (although it’s definitely the relevant character’s thoughts and observations), is an interesting literary device.

The story - well, it’s kind of corny. Laura, Peter’s wife and stepmother to his children, experiences a number of mysterious, frightening, and life threatening events, all revolving around the swirling shadows of the woman with whom Peter was having an affair when his wife apparently, and very strangely, hurls herself off a cliff to her death. She loses her job. Details of Peter’s past unfold at a snail’s pace, which I actually found quite amusing. The length to which Peter goes to obfuscate his whole story are tantalizing, and there’s a hint that a drug his company developed might not be completely on the up and up.

Still, it’s a good read. I would not call it a thriller or a psychological unraveling. Without giving away spoilers, I really can say no more and you will just have to read it yourself if you want to know the whole story. I would certainly be intrigued by other books by this author.

I received this as an ARC from the publisher and NetGalley.

Brilliant, one of my favourite books of the year so far, I can’t wait to see what’s next in the future

Good book! This book had a bit of everything! It had suspense, intrigue, murder, mystery, and a few crazy twists and turns! The storyline was very interesting and kept me glued to my Kindle! I definitely recommend reading this book as it was well worth reading! Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for sharing this book with me!

My first Bonnie Traymore novel. The stepfamily. I devoured this in a few short hours. Very easy to read and the story keeps you coming back for one more chapter. I felt the characters could have been sharper, but honestly that wasn’t a deal breaker for me. Definitely will look out for more books by this author. 3.5/5