I was invited to review this book and am leaving an honest review.
This book had a lot of potential. The author is skilled at creating intriguing characters with their own backstories and agendas.
I felt the story was very predictable and essentially centred on the characters merely confirming their suspicions, rather than revealing anything new. There was no twist at the end or a moment that surprised me and, as a result, I felt quite disappointed.
The author's writing is engaging and smooth, so it wasn't a hardship to read. It did, however, feel like not a lot happened.
That being said, there was a lot to like about the book and I'm sure someone who enjoys light sleuthing stories will enjoy this.
Thank you for the chance to read and review this book.

This book started a little slow in my opinion, but soon started speeding up as the plot unfolded. I had partially guessed part of the secret quite early on as it seemed obvious (garden is all I will say about that). I didn't guess all the rest, especially who was responsible for a murder until it was about to be revealed. The characters were well written and there were enough twists that I didn't guess everything. A good book

This book was such a thrilling read! It had my goosebumps having goosebumps! What goes on behind closed doors....You will never know!

The intriguing cast of characters added so much depth and complexity to the plot, it made for a truly gripping read.
It felt like I was immersed in the plot of a TV Crime Drama. Nothing is as it seems.

The Family Home by L H Stacey is a recommended mystery.

Nine years ago Hattie Gilby's father was killed and her mother, Imogen, was seriously injured and has been under constant care ever since. At that time Hattie left her home and hasn't been back since. Now she has received calls from her brothers Adam and Luke, and her cousin Louisa, telling her that her mother is in hospice care and has something she wants to say to her children while they are all there. Imogen hasn't talked for years as it was a struggle so it has to be important. Hattie returns home to face her brothers and hear what her mother has to say.

After an attention grabbing opening, the pace evens out until the end. The narrative alternates between events from nine years ago and the present day and are mainly from Hattie's point-of-view with a few chapters from Sophie, the wife of a former boyfriend/neighbor, and an ending chapter from another character. The alternating timeline serves a purpose, but wasn't entirely successful as the information and background could have covered the events it needed to with fewer chapters.

None of the characters are fully realized as unique individuals and they are all unlikable. Actually, Hattie became more disagreeable as the novel continued. It would have been nice to actually care about one of the characters as the ending approached.

While the plot did keep me reading, I predicted the direction the story was taking early on and was disappointed that I was correct. There are several times you need to suspend disbelief while reading. Thanks to Boldwood Books for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

The review will be published on Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

The Family Home by L. H. Stacey crackles with atmosphere, chills, tension, and mystery. One family has an unusually high number of secrets and skeletons in their closets. Some avoid the past, others dig to find answers.

Hattie has a history and both painful and wonderful memories. When the call comes to visit her mom on her deathbed, she freezes in fear. But she decides to return home to face her brothers and lurking shadows. Imogen tells her children truths which are difficult to process, changing their lives. And then there are Finn, Sophie and Lottie...and a code of sorts.

The ending yanked me by the collar which I appreciate. Though the characters are unlikeable, the plot and writing trumped negative characteristics. Besides. Sometimes such characters drive the story.

The Family Home caused me to think about the layers of deceit amongst the family members. They thought they knew each other...but did they truly?

My sincere thank you to Boldwood Books and NetGalley for providing me with an early digital copy of this engrossing novel.

The Family Home-
A suspenseful & thrilling psychological mystery!
Hattie Gilby returns to her family home to face her brothers and to hear her mother’s dying words. It’s time to find out the truth about what really happened that night. So many secrets and lies!
This captivating book will keep your heart racing!
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this advanced copy.

I was looking forward to reading this novel as it’s one of my favourite genres and a bonus as it was set locally to me. However I found the plot to be just ok. Yes there were some twists and turns but it just didn’t grab me sad pull me in as I expected. I did want to finish it though so would rate it 3 stars. Thank you to NetGalley, Boldwood Books and the author for the chance to review.

The Family Home by L.H. Stacey.
Release date set for 27th of November 2024.
This book is chilling. There's murder, lies and decite. It had some twists and turns although I'd say it was more a mystery than a psychological thriller.
some likeable characters and i didn't like some others at all.
I enjoyed the story line and predicted how it was going to end.

The Family Home by L H Stacey is a story about family and the secrets that they hide. Hattiesburg has returned home to join her two brothers and to see her dying mother. She has not returned home since the death of her father and the night her mother was also left for dead. She hasn’t spoken since, and now on her death bed wants to talk to all of her children.
A sinister story of death and baby smuggling and babies being adopted, that ends for a second time with deaths for the truth to come out.
Recommended

“The Family Home" is a gripping story of a family’s history laced with dark secrets. L.H. Stacey masterfully writes a story that is both thrilling and suspenseful, and kept me on edge with every twist and turn. As the deception unfolds, the tension builds, revealing the lengths to which a family will go to protect their past. This compelling read explores deep into the complexities of loyalty and betrayal, making it a must-read for fans of psychological thrillers.

I've just finished the last page of this book & have been left in shock! What a brilliant ending. Kept me page turning & looking for the answers all the way through.
I'll definitely read more from this author!

Firstly thank you for my early access in exchange for a review.
This was a new author for me I think and would definitely read more .
It’s an intriguing , chilling and mysterious psychological thriller .
At times it felt like a slow burn and a bit of confusion as there was a lot of characters and events happening .
However it had me wanting to know the truth .
Unpredictable and lots of twists and turns .

If I could summarise this book in just a few words, I would choose chilling, suspenseful, and atmospheric. Told across the present day and dates from the past, we first meet Imogen as she crawls through her garden, hoping to escape with her life. We then fast forward to the nearly present day and discover that Imogen's daughter, Hattie, has moved away and distanced herself from the horrors of that night.
My heart was genuinely pounding as I tried to figure out who I should be worried about as Hattie returned home to hear the final words from her mother, who hadn’t spoken since that fateful night. Slowly, we discover that Hattie has two brothers, Adam and Luke, and a cousin, Louisa. As these characters are introduced, we learn more about them, and their characters begin to develop. However, LH Stacey keeps a tight rein on what she reveals, so a slow drip-feed of information adds to the ongoing tension.
I can’t say that I particularly liked Hattie, but I certainly felt her pain as she revisited the horrors of her youth. My dad was a clergyman, so parts of the story felt somewhat familiar. However, the similarities between mine and Hattie’s dad thankfully ended at the vicarage. I did like the dynamic of Hattie and former flame Griffin. There was undoubtedly some unfinished business between them, and their slow dance around their shared past again added to the building tension.
Having read almost all the books this author has written, this is up there as one of her best. The pace was relentless, and I didn’t feel as though I had time to properly collect my thoughts as the spectre of discovering who had killed her father and left her and her mother for dead loomed heavily on the edges of the story.
I loved this story and couldn’t go to sleep until it finished. Bravo!

The Family Home
BY L.H. Stacey
Pub Date: Nov. 27, 2024
Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.
Another chilling read from bestselling author L H Stacey guaranteed to keep you up all night! Perfect for fans of Valerie Keogh, J.A. Baker and Diana Wilkinson.
My first time reading British author L.H. Stacey. Overall, The Family Home wasn't a bad story. This was middle of the road for me. Not horrible, not a blockbuster. I would call this more of a mystery than a thriller although it did have some thrills with twists and turns. All of the characters were unlikable.
3

This book took me much longer than I care to admit to finish because I could not stay engaged with it. To begin with none of the characters were particularly likable which made it hard to feel a connection to any of them, much less care about their fate. Luke came across as a petulant child most of the time, picking a fight with his sister for every little thing. I get it, he's mad that she left, but he could have too. They already had caregivers coming to their mother's house when she wasn't in the hospital and Adam had moved out, there was no reason Luke couldn't have as well. It seemed like he just wanted someone to blame and his sister was a handy target. And then there is Adam, who despite seeming to be the most sensible of the bunch, learns the cold hard truth and decides that not only can he not handle it, but the solution is to burn everything having to do with his parents. Things that could potentially hold more information than when they already knew; information that the police needed to know regardless of how it would make their parents look.

And while at first I held some sympathy for Hattie understanding what a difficult place she was in having to come back to the house her father was murdered in while harboring fears that she may have been inadvertently responsible, the more I got to know about her and the events the happened in the past, the more I started to dislike her. Yes, by all accounts she had lived a somewhat sheltered and privileged life (especially compared to some people), but there is no reason that she should have been just that naive at the age of nineteen. I also kept waiting for her to grow a backbone and stand up to her cousin instead of capitulating to every little thing that she wanted.

In fact, out of everyone in the novel, the one I felt the most sorry for was Sophie as even now, I cannot figure out what her purpose was in the book other than for what happened at the end to happen, and I can think of a much better way that things could have come to light without Sophie never being involved.

Sadly, the characters weren't the only problem I had with this book however. I felt like there was a lot of instances where there was just too much detail coming at me at once. I don't need to know about the inch thick layer of dust on every inch of the house (although why was there that much dust in rooms like the kitchen if Luke was still living there), or about the bookcases filled with encyclopedias (and more dust). Sometimes, less is really more and I think this story would benefit by cutting some of those details out. I also hope that because I read an advanced copy of this book, that the duplicate sentences were edited out before the official publication. One of these instances sticks out even after I finished the book because I thought my kindle was having issues. The passage in its entirety reads:

"Sophie impatiently pulled a small plastic bag out of her pocket, and ran her hand down the front of her jeans. 'Come on, Jasper, at least you could hurry up and do what you need to do for me...' Sophie said as she rolled her eyes and impatiently pulled a small plastic bag out of her pocket, running her hand down the front of her jeans."

Not to mention when Imogen's laptop is discovered, they put it on charge before Hattie leaves, making plans to look at it together when she gets back, only to have her return and Adam has destroyed everything (I'm surprised the laptop even still works considering he damaged the screen) to which he tells her that he put it on charge after she left and then decided to look through it. If it hadn't been charged/used in nine years it would have taken a long time to get enough juice in the battery to power on.

And finally, the ending. By the time we arrived at the "big reveal" I had already pretty much figured out not only what had been going on, but also who murdered Hattie's father. I'm having a little trouble believing the fact that given their current circumstances they were able to over power anyone much less enough to cause harm. But what really got under my skin was the cliff-hanger ending this one had. Not only do I hate cliff-hangers, but do they really expect to get away with it? When the truth of the past has been revealed, and the world is a much different place than it was nine years ago? It just didn't make sense.

That being said, I'm sure there are other people who will read this story and have a much different opinion than I did. So if this sounds like something you would enjoy, I encourage you to take what I've written as my own experience and read it for yourself.

DISCLAIMER: I received a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher. This has not affected my review in any way. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are 100% my own.

L H Stacey at her best. Dark, emotional tale of grief, heartbreak and secrets galore.
When you think you know your parents and family and life seems perfectly normal, all it takes is one small slip up for everything to come undone. When you realise that maybe your siblings are not really related at all but have been taken from young mothers and given to desperate couples.
Just do not have a dog that likes digging if you use your back garden as a graveyard!!

Many thanks to netgalley, the author and the publisher for approving my request to read this book.

I really enjoyed this book and found it fast paced throughout. I quickly became absorbed by the story and found myself really invested in the characters.

This book also has twists aplenty which definitely kept me on my toes! I just had to keep reading as I was so intrigued by how it was going to end.

I'll definitely be keeping my eyes open for more books by this particular author.

Such a great read!! Fast paced, compelling! One of the best thrillers I have read in a long time.

The twists through out the book I did not see coming, therefore, I rated this book a 5 star read

This was a dark thriller with a gripping storyline that had me hooked from start to finish. I kept trying to work out how it would end but wow what an ending it was. It had a bit of everything murder, mystery, lies and deceit. I felt the characters were very well developed and I loved the writing style. The setting definitely built up the suspense which was throughout. I really enjoyed this and will definitely recommend it. Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to review this thriller.