Review: The Family Inside by Katie Garner

The Family Inside

by Katie Garner

Release Date: January 28, 2025

2025 MIRA

Ebook ARC; 384 Pages

ISBN: 978-0778334460

ASIN: B0D1F7W12N

Audiobook: B0D3RVF8RM

Genre: Fiction / Suspense

Source: Review copy from publisher

2.5 / 5 Stars

Summary

Since her husband’s unsolved murder three years ago, Iris Blodgett’s life has unraveled. Awash in grief and buried in debt, she can’t pay her mortgage.

Facing eviction, Iris turns to her new beau, prominent architect Hugh Smoll, for a shoulder to cry on. But the seemingly perfect Hugh offers her something more in an invitation to move into his mother’s centuries-old mansion while he renovates the property.

With repairs underway, the house gives up its dark secrets one by one. Before long, Iris unearths a chilling family history—and the terrifying reason she and Ellory were invited in the first place…

 

My Thoughts

The Family Inside actually had an intriguing premise and contained a lot of things that I like in a suspense novel. However, the author tried to include way too much and as a result, the overall story was a mishmash of concepts and ideas which didn't flow very well. When you try to throw too many red herrings in a pot, the pot overboils and you end up with a hot mess everywhere.

 

The plot itself moved along rather quickly, but while it had an interesting start, it quickly degenerated into one that was a bit of a mess as the author tried to incorporate too many things.  I really wish the focus had been on one or two themes rather than a bunch of them as this could have been quite fascinating. I also can't stand it when you are in the middle of chapter and realize the POV you thought you were reading was someone completely different and not even from the present time period. This kind of mind f&%$ doesn't sit well with me and I was swearing at the book quite a bit on top of raising my eyebrows. To be honest, I almost DNF it at that point.  I get that it was done on purpose to play with your mind, but it definitely didn't work for me, all it did was piss me off. And while I don't mind a lot of twists and turns, they do need to be believable and I just didn't find a lot of them plausible; personally, I thought a lot of them were just there to have twists and turns in the book. There is a case for fewer twists and more development in a book.

 

With all of those twists and turns, there was little time for character development and it showed. I just couldn't develop empathy for the main characters and wondered how many terrible decisions a person could make in one book.  Apparently, it's a lot.  I don't necessarily have to like a character, but I do have to believe in their motives, in the reasons for what they do. This one didn't convince me at all.  And I don't know about you, but if my kid goes missing, I would tear every wall down I could looking for her. Iris' behaviour just didn't make sense, and it was these types of things that lessened my enjoyment of this book.

Verdict

The Family Inside had a lot of interesting ideas and honestly, with more focus on character development and less focus on shock value through the sheer number of twists and turns, this book would have been so much more intriguing. Unfortunately, I just couldn't connect with the characters and the plot inconsistencies were too much.