What a nerve-wracking read! Based around a serial killer who is partly identified through a DNA site, the story follows psychologist Fallon Hurley as she ties to identify who it is. She herself is victim of a trauma which is going to trial and we get to see her inner thoughts and insecurities develop throughout the book. The characters are great- interesting and believable and quite different from other psychological thrillers I've read recently. A great book- I really couldn't put it down.

A twisty thriller. Fallon is a psychologist and as the book starts, she is spending christmas with her mother and brother. Her brother has given her an ancestry DNA test as a present. That sets the cat among the pigeons as she is unrelated to her own family.
Via the dna site, she finds out that she is related to a serial killer. As she makes contact with her blood family, she is trying to wirk out who the killer is. She has also been involved in an attack on a building site where others were murdered and where the trial takes place during the period of some of the killings and getting to know her other family.
Plenty of action, but also psychological reasoning and investigation in this book, it grabbed and kept my interest throughout.
Tganks to Net Galley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review

This book was right up my alley… a serial killer in the family, a family she didn’t know she was a part of! I was hooked. This is a very intense and fast paced thriller that had me turning pages to find out what happened next.

Fallon is a psychologist, dealing with PTSD after being involved in a brutal crime some months ago. She has moved away and lives in a remote cabin and works from home. For Christmas she is gifted the results of a DNA test that he brother sneakily had done. Reading the results, she is not related to her brother!! After getting the truth from her mother, she finds that she has a whole other family of 4 brothers. And one of those brothers is a serial killer according to a police officer who tracks her down. Fallon works with this policewoman to try and figure out which one.

This was a fun read. Although some things were a little too much of a stretch, I was entertained.

Thanks to Hera Books and NetGalley for my advanced copy of this book to read. Published on July 13th

This story begins with a bang. A young child pushes another child to their death . . . intentionally and delightfully. Next we meet Fallon, a psychologist, daughter, sister, and survivor of a crime she's about to testify about. Her brother buys her a DNA test that shows her ancestral heritage. She quickly realizes she isn't related to her brother biologically and forces their mother to spill the beans. We also meet a character only referred to ad "The Brother." He's a dastardly character, presumably, the same character who murdered his classmate as a child.

This was a strong, interesting thriller, at first. it's quite long, and a lot if that is stuff that doesn't forward the plot, stuff that never gets resolved. This story had a lit going for it back t but t just missed the mark.

The Brother
by N V Peacock
This was an excellent read. I loved the tense, and who is the serial killer. The Brother was very intense and creepy, and I plowed through it. The best I read in a long time.
I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a gripping Mystery Thriller. GET THIS ONE!!

Thank you N.V. Peacock, Net Galley, and Hera for providing me with an ARC of this novel.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC in return for an honest review.

Overview:
Fallon is a psychologist recovering from a traumatic event and has recently discovered, via a gifted ancestry DNA test, that she doesn’t biologically belong to her current family. Through the same ancestry database she is linked to DNA being left at multiple crime scenes. Fallon comes to learn that this DNA belongs to one of her four biological brothers. But which brother is the serial killer and can Fallon solve the crimes before her brother wins at his deadly game of murder?

My Review:
This is very much a cat and mouse type story which we hear from the POV of Fallon and her brother. I really liked the idea behind the story, particularly how the brother chooses his victims which I thought was quite unique. However it all seemed to fall a little flat in places and some parts I just found too unbelievable to fully buy into the story. I won’t give too much detail as want to avoid spoilers but a couple of worthy mentions are, throughout the brother’s killing spree the police don’t seem to be involved or bothered at all. Even to the point where they have a theory brought to them but they very quickly shrug it off as implausible. We never really understand why Fallon’s biological mother gave her away so easily and even after being reunited she didn’t seem particularly bothered by any of it. Then there is the previous traumatic event which Fallon is preparing to be witness for in court. The way that turns out doesn’t seem realistic at all to me.

All in all this was just an ok read for me. There was enough intrigue to keep me reading but I wasn’t overly excited or blown away by it.

My Rating: 1⭐️ utterly disappointing and completely BORING!!!

Synopsis: Is murder in her DNA? My mother lied to me. My family is not my own. If it wasn’t for the genealogy test, I would never have known I was the child of another woman. Now I’m learning that I have four brothers I have never met. And one of them is a serial killer. My brother is taunting me to play his vicious game - solving his clues before he spills more blood. Who can I trust? How can I find and stop him before it is too late? And what if it is me he really wants?

Ok first up… talk about the lie of all lies telling us if we are fans of Chris Carter and M.W Craven to read this book… absolutely incorrect!! Chris Carters books are edge of your seat bite your nails off gruesome and M.W Craven’s books are engaging and funny and also thrilling… this was anything but… ANYTHING BUT!!!

Secondly, that synopsis sounds like something I would read in one sitting. Well let me say this I was lucky to get through a couple of chapters before I LITERALLY FELL ASLEEP…. Every single time I picked it up I fell asleep… this is a terrible sign of something that is supposed to be thrilling. I was bored… I didn’t care about the MC she was stupid and she behaved in a way that was too stupid for words. The author decided that to make those stupid actions ok she would inner monologue how stupid she was behaving so she could go ahead and be a big dumb dumb!! Sorry but that is lazy.

The writing was really basic and I could have overlooked it if stuff that I cared about happened. Every other page you are held in suspense that someone kills or hurts her dog… I will put you out of your misery… they don’t. The dog is fine… BUT it is supposed to be a guard dog and every single person that comes to the house is able to win this “guard dog” over in seconds. Sorry but I want my money back if this giant dog is not eating people’s faces off that are breaking into my home multiple times.

While we are on the writing it was a hand holding festival… almost every scene was play by play. And just in case the reader wasn’t able to work out stuff… well we will make sure you do by playing every play that can be played over and over again… repetitive and boring… here is a little section…

After a lovely dinner, I relax in my favourite armchair and think back over my latest victory against my sister….
Grant was a wriggly fucker. It took several attempts to wrap the scarf around his neck.
“Stop! Who are you?” He spluttered as I dragged him across the carpet towards his back door. Too many questions then spilled from his lips; all I could have answered, yet chose not to. Once we were in the garage, I sat him on a chair. Pushing a piece of paper and pen in front of him, I said, “Write what I tell you’. He nodded. With my silky noose tight around his trembling throat, he wrote his own suicide note. The proverbial Monopoly Get Out of Jail Free card for me, and the cunning clue, slash punishment for Fallon. I’d win this round. Steal her hope of a future with this idiot.

UGHHHH for real… that just all comes across pretentious and boring… honestly I probably fell asleep in the middle of that monologue. BUT don’t get me started on Fallon. She is a woman who has suffered from a traumatic event… one that is drip fed to us from the start now… granted this sometimes works but honestly it would have been better to just know about what happened from the start. AND when we do find out what happened, yes its bad, but this is fictional thriller AND coupled with comparing it to Chris Carter… I was expecting it to be horrific… I was expecting descriptions of horror, and blood and abuse and all the things that we get from Carters books… well you will not get that here… and thats FINE if you don’t compare it to Chris Carter. I am sorry but if you like his books then you are looking for absolute an absolute horror show… so this fell flat in so many ways.

Our MC though is a psychologist but she is just about the dumbest person around… it was really hard to empathise with her… and by the end I was actually hoping she was killed… did she get killed… well if you can make it to the end then find out for yourself… honestly this took me a week to read I fell asleep that many times and to add insult to injury I was almost finished… like one page from the end AND I FELL ASLEEP AGAIN!!! I absolutely shit you not!!! My brain had some aversion to this book big time. Anyway… sorry was I repeating myself… well I am just setting you up for some repetition that you will find in this book… over and over and over Fallon’s inner, whiny monologue goes on and on about everything. ALSO there are crimes being committed but there are no police in sight… an actual member of the forensic police squad was killed… the murder made to look like a suicide okey dokey… that will be fine… signed sealed and delivered!!! Omg this was so lame.

Another lookie at the writing for you… this is our baddie he sounds scary…

While she starred down at her phone screen, I lunged forward. Her neck fit perfectly between my hands. Dropping her mobile, she struggled, but I was too strong. I always am, even again tigers and bears.

WHAT IN THE ACTUAL F*CK!!!! TIGERS AND BEARS… .WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD YOU WRITE THAT!!!

Look I could go on and on and I feel like I already have but quite simply… we have a dumb boring MC, we have a killer that is a jackass but apparently stronger than bears and tigers sooo cool, we have a complete lack of police, the MC’s house keeps getting broken into… definitely no security cameras…. Awesome choice. We have tooooo many twists on twists that aren’t doing anything for anyone except confusing the issue. AND the kicker… apparently Fallon painted the front of her house and everyone felt the need to mention it looked like a giant dick wrapped around her deck… honestly … was it necessary… I guess you could say the author was going for humour but nahhhh it didn’t land sorry.

Overall… come on… you know what I am going to say… I am not going to recommend this to anyone. I don’t really care who you are… if you like this then awesome I am so happy for you and I really am glad that people will like this… but no one in my reading circle needs to be subjected to it.

Thank you to NetGalley, Hera Publishing and the author for an advanced copy for my brutally honest review. I wish I liked it more and I really really tried.

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

This book was really good from start to finish. I never knew what was going on until it was actually happening. I had several times where I thought I knew what was happening only to find out what I thought was happening was completely wrong. Every time I thought I had the ending figured out, I found out I was wrong. I definitely recommend this book to thriller lovers. It was very exciting all the way through.

The main downside I found was that after finishing this and going on amazon intending to download every single other book that author had ever written, it turns out this was just her 2nd book! Which absolutely amazed me since it was near perfection in every way

This is one of those top teir murder mysteries that keeps you guessing. There are so many twists and turns and just when you think you've cracked it, everything changes again

The characters are well written and realistic. Fallen was such a great main character and she was an intelligent, independat woman who made really sensible decisions and wasn't just a bunch of clichés and stereotypes.

I'm in bed with a migraine but still couldn't do the sensible thing and stop myself from reading this through til the end! I was so captivated and couldnt wait to find out exactly what was going on.

I loved the cat and mouse and that ominous cliff hanger at the end. Its just an amazing murder mystery, serial killer, thriller, police procedural type that will appeal to all

If you're looking for a intense and twisted page-turner you're going to want to pick up a copy of "The Brother". This book had me on the edge of my seat from start to finish, I couldn't put it down. The plotline is filled with hidden secrets, suspense, mystery and murder making for truly thrilling read.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a gripping Mystery Thriller.

Thank you N.V. Peacock, Net Galley and Hera for providing me an ARC of this novel.

Oh. Whoa. This book. The story begins with a cat mouse interaction between two little boys. The tension is immediate and slowly ratchets up with each chapter. The chapters almost all end with a cliffhanger making it impossible to put down. Fallon was a sympathetic and fascinating character. A psychologist with a recent trauma in her past. She is gifted a genealogy test from her younger brother. She has a lot going on. A court case coming up, PTSD issues. And an ex boyfriend who is turning stalkerish. What would you do if you found out you were supposed to have died in infancy? That you have four brothers you never knew about? It's a lot. Oh, and one of them is a serial killer......... Soon Fallon is hunting a killer who shares her blood. He draws her deeper and deeper into his twisted game. The ending left me literally reeling. The world will go away as you read this. You will feel like you just stepped off an out of control merry go round. And that last line? GAH. Clever, diabolical and completely delicious. Big thanks to Hera Books and NetGalley for my Arc. Biggest thanks to N.V. Peacock for brilliant storytelling. You had me with your previous book Little Bones. Color me a lifetime fan with The Brother.

Geez! What a book! This book had it all! It had suspense, intrigue, action, murder, a crazy serial killer, a great who done it, great sleuthing and great police work! The storyline was very interesting and had a few crazy twists and turns! I definitely recommend reading this book as it was well worth reading! Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for sharing this book with me!