Her Perfect Family

I was thrilled to be offered an advance copy of Her Perfect Family by the author. Like all Teresa Driscoll’s books, the writing style is easy to read, fast-paced and with enough description to drop you right into the action. You can’t help relishing such an addictive read, a brilliantly sustained psychological suspense.

From a well-chosen pink dress in the prologue to blood-red spatters in Chapter 1, this was a frightening opening for me. And at such a public occasion where families and children were present. Pomp and pageantry turned to mayhem and unspeakable horror—a parent’s worst nightmare. This is an injury that will require enormous strength to tell a patient and if that’s not enough, a heartrending mystery to unravel.

The book is written from several points of view — the mother, the private investigator (PI Matthew Hill is my personal favourite and DI Melanie Sanders), the father, the daughter, all with their own stories to tell. Yet everybody has something to hide and, as more secrets come to light, you can’t help feeling you’ve been deceived somewhere along the line, and not necessarily by the character you thought. About 78% through the book I thought I’d guessed the shooter, but I was wrong.

This is a highly accomplished thriller, a very frightening one with a backdrop of evil you hope never to encounter. Driscoll expertly weaves her stories together in unexpected and clever ways. This book has every thriller’s trifecta: love, marriage and murder.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author Teresa Driscoll for the privilege of reading this book.

Gripping and tense with lots of suspense!

Teresa has done it again and has written another corker of a book! All of her thrillers are fantastic and this one is no exception; in fact, I think it may be my favourite so far.

This fast-paced thriller has an action-packed start, when uni student, Gemma gets shot in the middle of her graduation ceremony! Her poor parents witness the horrific event and are left distraught and utterly confused by what has happened. Could it have been terrorists? A random attack? Or was it personal? Rachel and Ed now sit by their daughter’s hospital bed, willing her to wake up from the coma she is in, and praying the police catch whoever committed this heinous crime! With some secrets of their own about to surface, could there be more to this than meets the eye? Maybe they are not such a perfect family after all?

Out for the day with his wife and daughter, PI Matthew Hill is not far from Maidstead cathedral when he hears that there is a gunman on the loose! After a quick call to his close friend DI Melanie Sanders, he realises armed support is still a good ten minutes away. Being ex-police himself, Matthew decides to head to the cathedral to try and control the situation until help arrives!

Mathew is soon involved in helping the police and Gemma’s parents with the investigation, what he doesn’t realise though is that he could be endangering himself and his own family by getting so heavily involved! As secrets and lies are revealed we edge closer to finding out who shot Gemma and why. I honestly thought I had this one sussed and felt smug that I had finally worked out the ending to one of Teresa’s books, but alas no! I was wrong again! 🤣

The whole story was compelling from start to finish, this book ticks all the boxes of what makes a great read. The whodunnit of a mystery, the police investigation of a crime thriller and the suspenseful twists and turns of a psychological thriller! Teresa is also brilliant at writing stories that make you feel! To create a heart-warming or slightly emotional side to a psychological thriller is an incredible talent. The ending was simply beautiful.

I can’t finish my review without talking about my favourite character Matthew Hill. I love that he is in all of Teresa’s books and I am fully invested in following his life story and the crazy cases he gets himself involved in. In my head I imagine him as the actor John Simm, I think it’s time these books made it to the screen!

It is an honour to be on the blog tour for this book. Thank you so much to FMcM, Thomas & Mercer and Teresa Driscoll for my copy of Her Perfect Family and for including me on the tour.