This book had me gripped from the start the author has done a fantastic job of drawing you in keeping you hooked keeping you guessing and then wow a massive twist and your gasping like a fish on a hook amazing loved

This is a well written story about Hallie who is desperate to find her father via Family Ties DNA, a website that matches you with relatives. I adored Hallie, the wannabe chef, who is desperate to be loved and wants that sense of belonging.

The story is brilliantly crafted, it has characters each with complex backgrounds, a storyline that is well planned and interlinks through the characters lives. The way the author plotted the book is brilliant and I loved how their lives wove together.

By the time I’d finished I was disappointed the end had come as I’d really enjoyed this thriller. I have other books by this author which I will certainly be reading.

I really loved the fact that DNA plays a role in this story. Thats what grabbed me in the first place. Unfortunately it was a bit over the top at times. What I did like was the ending - unpredictable.

Thanks to Bookouture and NetGalley for the ARC. My first book by this author and I don't think it will be my last. Fast paced domestic thriller that was an easy read that kept me turning the pages to find out what happened.

The Wrong Family was an exciting thriller with plenty of twists and turns throughout. I really enjoyed that the protagonist, Hallie, wasn't squeaky clean herself and though her new found family had some secrets, we came to learn Hallie's own dark past as the story progressed. This was a good read and kept me guessing throughout. Would recommend!

Hallie is searching for her father, she never met, after losing her mother. Hallie was homeless and in a juvenile detention center for years. She has nothing to lose when she gets an email from a man who says is her father. Robert Thompson invites Hallie to stay for a vacation and things start to go downhill from there. Accusations among other things and Hallie is thought to be the culprit.
The story dragged a bit but there was a story there. The end wrapped up kind of fast but what was missed was explained.
Thanks NetGalley and the publisher for the advance ecopy.

It took me a little while to get into this book but once I did it kept me gripped with several twists and turns. Thankyou to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Hallie Sherman is on a mission to find her father, and when she receives an email from DNA testing site Family Ties alerting her that she has a match, she is shocked to think she’s finally found him. When her father reaches out and invites her to spend the summer with his family in Lake Tahoe, she is excited and nervous to meet the family she never had. But her excitement soon turns to trepidation as she starts to uncover secrets this family had hoped would stay buried. In turn, her own secrets are threatening to spill, the longer she sticks around.

I initially noticed this book because I am a Sacramento native who spent her summers in Tahoe. It is always fun to see familiar locations mentioned!

The first half or so of the book was very slow and it was hard for me to decide if I cared what happened to any of the characters. Even Hallie is not always likable so I couldn’t decide if I was rooting for her.

The story eventually picked up and I really wanted to unwrap the mystery. I’ll give it credit for keeping me up late one night! Some of the reveals were predictable, and the way the author set up the exposition portion of the book, where everyone revealed their secrets, was a bit contrived to me.

Overall, it’s decent. It’s not a thriller, but it is a mystery that will have you curious. You might be a little disappointed by the destination, but the journey may at least be fun!

WOW! Wow, Wow. Absolutely unexpected ending. I had this book on my TBR for several months and put it off. It is the first book I read written by this author and I can honestly say i’m impressed. The book kept me locked in and I would’ve never guessed the ending! I do have to say, I absolutely loathe Natalie’s character 😂. If you have not read this yet please do ASAP!

Hallie has grown up in foster care after the death of her mother. Now an adult, she tracks down her father via a DNA testing website. Robert is thrilled to meet her and immediately invites her to stay in his luxurious home with his family and work in their restaurant. But Hallie is keeping secrets, and she's not the only one...
The Wrong Family is a psychological thriller set in America.
Hallie has had a tough past and is used to living on her wits. But with no family, no boyfriend, no job and no home, she has hit rock bottom. Her biological father offers her a fabulous opportunity to join his family and business but it is too good to be true. Hallie hasn't been honest about the successful life she portrays but a number of sinister events prove to her that the Thompsons have their own dangerous secrets.
I liked the spark in Hallie. She is brave and goes for what she wants, yet also has a softer and vulnerable side. There is A LOT of build up in this book as clues and events pile on top of each other to create an uncomfortable atmosphere. It is interesting that Hallie isn't to be trusted but she could also be in danger at the same time. I did want the pace to speed up a little although I thought the tension was created and maintained effectively.
One additional element that I enjoyed were the letters and emails from other Robert Thompsons that are interspersed through the main narrative. This was an interesting extra and added some light relief.
The Wrong Family is an intriguing and tense psychological thriller.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC. This was a little slow but still kept my interest. I liked the characters and twists.

This is an author who’s on my ‘immediate click’ list, and her latest offering did not disappoint!

Hallie Sherman never seems to catch a break. After losing her mother at a young age, she’s moved from one foster home to another, until she was old enough to live on her own. But even that isn’t proving to be successful as Hallie loses one job after another, and no job equals no money to pay rent. But she’s decided that the time has come to find the father that she’s never known. The only information she has is that his name is Robert Thompson.

She sends off her DNA to a matching establishment called Family Ties and hopes for the best. And sure enough, just as her life hits rock bottom, she gets a match and literally goes from rags to ritches overnight! It’s quite the adjustment: from living in her car, she’s whisked away to a life of wealth and comfort in Lake Tahoe! And although her new-found father Robert and his wife Shelly are warm and welcoming, her new siblings, Natalie and Logan, are not as charmed by the sudden appearance of an unknown sister in their pampered world.

Spoilt, bratty ‘influencer’ Natalie (I was picturing Schitts Creek’s Alexis Rose here) seems especially unimpressed to have Hallie around, disrupting her life and bumping her out of her prime position as ‘Daddy’s Girl’.

While Hallie struggles to find her feet in her unfamiliar surroundings, some very odd things start to happen around the Thompson home. Is it a coincidence that these strange events only began after Hallie arrived? Some people don’t seem to think so, and Hallie begins to wonder if the paradise she’s found herself in, is the answer to her problems after all, or perhaps the start of a whole lot of new complications. Whatever it is, she wonders if someone could be targeting her, but can’t imagine why.

Ellery Kane builds her plot with perfect pace and timing, together with excellent character development that leaves the reader questioning just about every single person’s motive! The twists and red herrings abound!

The chapters are interspersed with letters from numerous ‘also-ran’ Robert Thompsons, giving their reasons as to why they weren’t candidates to be Hallie’s father. I thought this was particularly clever and the mark of a true author, displaying incredible creativity!

Apart from being a great read and a really good thriller, the underlying theme is that of ‘belonging’ and the innate need we all have of wanting to know where we come from and where we fit in. Each character reacts as we’d expect them to when they hear the news of a potential new member of the family: excitement, apprehension, jealousy, fear, happiness, rage, and at times a combination of all of these. It’s a lot to process.

It also needs to be noted that as we advance technologically, DNA plays an increasingly pivotal role in the field of crime and forensics. We are continually taking further steps into what this can help us to discover when it comes to crime-solving, particularly with older, previously unsolved cases. It’s fascinating stuff!

I read this way later into the night than I should have! It’s highly recommended.

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are of my own and are unbiased.

5 Bjg stars from me. Held my attention and kept me guessing the whole time. I did not have a clue how this would end, it sure was gripping and suspense packed. I will recommend this to anyone who enjoys a nerve jumping, nail biting book.

A very good read with a interesting cast of characters. Well plotted, not a fast novel but an easy read that will keep you guessing. Thanks to Bookoutre and Netgalley for a review copy.

A girl searching for her biological father is invited to his house for a visit, getting embroiled in murder, fire, theft, and complications. Not a bad read, some terrible dialogue.

This book was filled with thrills, easter eggs and suspense. I liked this read and thought the plot was refreshing and original. I would recommend it to others, but I’m unsure if I’d personally read it again. It was interesting, but it’s one of those books that once you know the whole picture, it’s hard to read again knowing it all.

"They welcomed you in. And now you're trapped"

...

My recent reading seems to have been almost exclusively made up of this style of domestic psychological thriller, where the many strands of the story don't dovetail together until almost the very final page of the book. They also almost always feature a cast of characters I can't fail to dislike and distrust. 'The Wrong Family' caters for both of those scenarios in spades and if this is my first Ellery Kane novel, then it most definitely won't be my last!

Even in beginning to give a taster of this twisted storyline, it is going to be difficult to avoid spoilers, so here goes nothing...

...

Hallie Sherman, is a twenty-eight-year-old waitress, living hand to mouth in a rundown apartment in Sacramento. Her life so far hasn't been easy, as she never knew her birth father, only his name and the fact that her mother told her he was no good and didn't want them. Her mother had suffered with various addictions, making her an unreliable parent. So, following a horrific car accident in which she had been killed and Hallie herself had faced life changing injuries, a nine-year-old Hallie had spent the remainder of her childhood in the care system, pushed from foster home to foster home, where she lied, cheated and stole in a desperate attempt to fit in. Her dream to become a chef was shattered when her meagre reserves of cash ran out before her training had really begun, so waiting on table in a two-bit diner, with the occasional cover for kitchen staff absences, looked set to be her life. That is until Hallie, determined not to have her boss bullied and frightened by an irate customer, loses her cool, her job and probably her freedom should she be captured!

An insecure Hallie has, however, been trying to trace her father through a company called Family Ties who have been DNA matching for potential candidates, with Hallie herself having written over one hundred letters to every Robert Thompson she could find listed, who fitted her father's description. She is therefore amazed and elated when one email from a particular Robert Thompson reaches her when she is at her lowest ebb, with him purporting to be her father and inviting her to visit himself and his family at their home on the shores of the lovely Lake Tahoe, where they own and manage an upmarket lakeside restaurant. Hallie uses much of her ill-gotten gains to buy some designer clothes and accessories, which she hopes, together with the elaborate tissue of lies she has prepared, will help her fit in to the lofty circles the Thompson family seem to circulate in.

From the time Hallie arrives on the outskirts of Incline Village, it is not clear where truth and lies meet and overlap, from both Hallie's perspective and that of her new found family, who seem all too keen to accept that she is their long-lost daughter, step-daughter and step-sister, without question. Then, little by little, things begin to unravel spectacularly, as everyone begins to reveal themselves in their true colours and Hallie fast comes to realise that she is not the only one who is hiding huge secrets, telling lies of cringeworthy proportions and might well find themselves on the wrong side of a prison cell door, if the truth ever came out!

Bad, dangerous and potentially deadly things begin to happen, which at first appear to be coincidental random accidents, escalating out of proportion into terrible acts of familial jealousy, but which eventually the family, with the exception of her father, are all too quick to blame on Hallie, doing little to ease the underlying latent tension with which their false aura of domestic bliss is imbued. Hallie can't work out who, if anyone, she can trust, especially when Family Ties contact her with news she hadn't ever expected to receive. She believes she has an ally in Nick, the chef at the family restaurant, however he is the only person who knows just about all of her secrets (well, almost all!), so how much can she really rely on his silence and his professed belief in her? And what about Jay, the homeless youth who is hiding in the wooded area behind the restaurant, whom Hallie, recognising him as a kindred spirit, has befriended, perhaps too quickly, too trustingly and too deeply?

...

How multi-layered, intense and claustrophobic can one storyline become and still appear credible? Author Ellery Kane pushes things right to the very limit, where I was beginning to wonder just how many more incidents could happen to, and be instigated by, one family, without reaching and passing the limits of incredulity. Her timing however, is perfection and the way in which the many twisted strands of the storyline are drawn together, yet little is truly revealed until the last couple of chapters, is tantalisingly frustrating.

The many chapters of this well constructed, multi-layered storyline are short and well-signposted, narrated in the third person and interspersed with several email communications from Hallie's contact at Family Ties, together with a few of the rejection replies she had received in response to the several dozen letters she had written to the many Robert Thompsons she had tracked down. The narrative is punchy, although there is throughout, a tense atmosphere which threatens to overwhelm and suffocate just about anyone Hallie, or her new found family, come into contact with.

There are also many social mores and their potentially life-changing consequences, which come into play and are held up for scrutiny during the course of this story and which I felt author Ellery Kane dealt with sympathetically and with well considered empathy, whilst still laying things on the line truthfully, never sugar-coated, and always in the cold light of day. Perhaps I might have felt some keen sympathy with Hallie's plight during her formative years, when addiction leading to the death of a parent, a childhood spent in the care system and the lack of any moral support when that system was abruptly removed on attaining perceived adulthood, all contributed to the brash, fearless, but obviously vulnerable person she had become; added to which, how deeply she had become caught up in the DNA process to track down a father she desperately hopes is going to welcome her into his life with open arms. Or even that Nick found himself, through lack of funded social care, single-handedly trying to care for a parent with dementia, whilst holding down a demanding job with long and unsociable hours. However, that was where my interest in everyone's ills and woes, rather waned. The perceived tragedies of the Thompson family themselves, whilst many and sad, were of a much more self-induced and selfish nature, which bordered on the criminal, never really moved me and did not deserve my sympathy, although perhaps son Logan's desperate need to earn and receive his father's love and respect was to be pitied.

This quite large and disparate cast of characters really didn't endear themselves to me in any way, shape or form, so there was never a burning need for me to know what became of them going forward, as I'm sure they would have moved on and re-invented themselves, almost unscathed, leaving behind in their wake a trail of despair and sadness. The last time I met Robert, he came across as contrite and broken, sincere and penitent about the fate which had befallen Hallie, but how much of that was simply paying lip service to her situation, whilst milking his own self-pity, I still couldn't be certain.

Despite its real dual locations of Sacramento, California and Lake Tahoe, Nevada, the true distance covered in this story was actually quite limited. Although, as an avid armchair traveller, both were new to me places, so I enjoyed my trip and the visions which were conjured up for me. Particularly around the area of Incline Village on the beautifully picturesque shores of Lake Tahoe, where author Ellery Kane definitely took full advantage of the palette of words at her disposal to paint then bring to life, the essence of a place I could almost imagine myself stepping into, so much so that I even found myself checking out homes for sale in the area - as you do!

All Hallie wants is to find her father so she can finally know where she belongs. When she receives the DNA confirmation email, its timing couldn’t be better. She’s ready to meet her family and start a new life! But things are never that simple, are they? The Thompson family has lots of skeletons in their closets and Hallie is in for an interesting ride!

Wow what a book! I loved loved loved this one. Could not put it down. Five well deserved stars from me.

The Wrong Family started off slowly but picked up quite a bit. and ended up being a fairly entertaining read. It does not, however, have anything to do with being trapped as it states on the cover.

For the life of me I cannot understand why people do that, it is misleading and sets up expectations that are never met, leaving the reader a little confused. Not at any stage is Hallie trapped, indeed quite the opposite. Some of the characters in this story were really silly (looking at you, Nat), but for the most part well-drawn, and the plot was plausible although unlikely.

It is one of the more enjoyable thrillers I have read lately (although definitely not a psychological thriller as advertised). That's not to say it was my favorite or even close, but I enjoy Ellery Kane's books in general, albeit on the lighter side. I find that these days the same old tropes are being rehashed, and many thrillers are rather middle-of-the-road.