Posted in Books, Reviews

Book Review – The Happy Family (Daniel Hurst)

Hey Dearies!

This is the last book of the thriller series that has caught me on the edge of my seat. The way the last one ended, I had to know if Luna is actually getting away with all this. I will be recapping the second book.

If you haven’t read that one, a spoiler alert is needed!

So, the second book starts off with Sadie trying to figure out who had done all this, and the only reason she could think of was Reid. He was the closest to her who would make the most sense to cause all of this.

She meets Gemma in prison, and they decide that they both agree that Reid had to be the one to falsely put her in prison and cause Sadie to get a DUI. They start working together to see if Reid will slip up and reveal he did this it all.

However, they are looking at the wrong person.

Luna is living her best life as she got what she wanted, but the man who saw her start the fire, she’s still sleeping with him, and comes up with the idea to murder him. In her first attempt, she tries to give him sleeping pills so that once he is out, she can pour alcohol down his throat to make it seem like he has drunk himself to death.

When that fails, she tries again by giving him these sex pills that will supposedly help with making sex more “pleasurable”, but she makes him take 4 dosages in one pill that she crushes up. He gets a heart attack while in the middle of having sex, and he dies right there.

Luna then finds his phone and erases all his contacts with her so it won’t be traced back to her when they find him dead. She thought all was well, but someone saw her leave his apartment. Reid’s son, Arthur, did, and he ended up telling his mom.

Sadie found it strange that she was leaving a man’s apartment and thought that Luna might be cheating on Reid, but she started to think something else had happened when it came out in the news that he was found dead in his apartment. She ends up telling the same detective who helped with the fire at her parents’ house.

Luna was able to talk out of it by saying she was a friend of his and that they used to go to AA meetings, and before he died, he checked in on him, saying he was heavily drinking again. Of course, she walks away from that scot-free, but she was pissed when she realized that Sadie was the one who told the detective to check her out.

What do you think this crazy woman ends up thinking she needs to do next? If you guessed murdering her, you are right on the money.

While Luna is planning on coming up with a way to get rid of Sadie, Reid caves and visits Gemma in prison. Gemma also tells Reid that she and Sadie are onto him about everything he’s done lately. Of course, Reid is too stupid to believe Gemma since he still thinks she is the one who started the fire.

Then he tells her she needs to leave him alone for the sake of his family and new girlfriend. Gemma is shocked by this information and tries to question if Luna had anything to do with this all, but he leaves before she can get any more information.

Meanwhile, Luna tries to lure Sadie into the forest in the middle of the night, claiming Reid and the kids wanted to go looking for foxes. Sadie doesn’t come alone and ends up leaving because of the bad feeling she has about this whole situation, but she wants to make sure Reid is telling the truth, so she decides to stop by and see the kids.

However, Luna gets there as soon as she pulls up and asks her how the trip with the kids and Reid was in the forest, before Sadie can knock on the door, since Reid and the kids are all inside and it would’ve blown up in her face if Sadie saw them all inside.

That’s not even the craziest part! Reid finds a positive pregnancy test in the bathroom trash. You read that right, Luna is pregnant! Reid gets all excited to have another baby, which shocks me because little did he know that the mother of his new unborn son is a complete and crazy monster!

That same night, Sadie gets a message from Gemma saying why didn’t she tell her about Reid dating someone new so quicky and then everything starts to make sense to Sadie that Reid wasn’t the one to do this, but Luna.

Sadie goes to confront Luna and get both her kids and her ex-husband out of the house. Little did she know that Luna was up, and they got into this fight, which ended with Luna being stabbed in the arm and Sadie falling down the stairs and hitting her head.

The way the second book ends, Luna gets stitched up at the hospital, and Sadie had a bad head trauma, so she ended up in a coma so her brain could heal.

So, the third book starts out after Luna has had the baby, a son. Sadie is still in a coma, and Ruby, Reid, and Sadie’s daughter, isn’t handling it well. I felt so heartbroken for those kids because they have been through so much stuff in the past 2 years.

Anyway, Luna thinks she is in the clear until a month after she had her baby, the doctors let Reid and Sadie’s parents know that she has started to show brain activity and might wake up any day now. This puts Luna in a panic because she’s afraid Sadie will tell everyone about what she has done.

Gemma finds out that Sadie’s been in a coma and knows that Luna did it. She gets help from one of the prison guards to try and tell Reid that this was all Luna’s doing, but of course, Reid doesn’t believe them because Luna has him wrapped around her finger.

Not only does Luna have to worry about Sadie, but she also finds out Gemma is onto her. Luna is willing to do anything and everything to protect what she’s gotten so far. I mean, anything, she’s already gotten away with killing one person, so fair.

She tries to kill Sadie when she gets admitted to the hospital, but when she unplugs everything that is attached to Sadie, Sadie wakes up. Of course, the nurses rush in; they question why Luna is in there, but they are attending to Sadie. So far, Sadie doesn’t remember anything that happened before she went into the coma.

Of course, Reid, the kids, and Sadie’s parents come to the hospital when they find she’s awake. Luna also sees that her luck hasn’t quite run out yet, as she sees Gemma visiting one of the patients with a guard. Turns out Gemma’s mother is dying from cancer and was released so she could say her goodbyes.

The amount of luck Luna gets at that happens is ridiculous. Nurses don’t really question her about Sadie or the fact that she had a pillow in her hand that she was going to smother Sadie with. Then, to be in the same place as the other person who suspects you, it was like she was handed this golden opportunity.

I won’t say anything else because I really don’t want to ruin it, but the way the story ends, it’s just shocking how dumb Reid is about all this. It’s like he doesn’t believe that Luna would do what she did just to get him and his kids. Karma is a bitch, and boy, she delivers at the end of it.

Overall, this series kept me on my toes, waiting to see what the next crazy thing she is going to do next. It just blows my mind how unhinged she gets, even towards the end. This series was also a quick read for me; I pretty much read the last two books in less than a day.

I also honestly didn’t think I would be able to get into a thriller, but it was more enjoyable than I thought! Plus, with books like these being page-turners, I will no doubt be on my way to completing my reading goal for the year!

What did you think of this unhinged character? Were you just as shocked as I was with some of the stuff she did? Let me know in the comments down below!

Posted in Books, Reviews

Book Review – I Stole Your Family (Daniel Hurst)

Hey Dearies!

After finishing the first book, I Want Your Family, I just had to know how much more this crazy chick would get away with. If you haven’t read the first one, I would highly recommend doing so since I will be spoiling some of the parts of the last book to catch up with what the second book is about.

So, a spoiler alert, for those who haven’t read the first one.

In the first book, Luna is a delivery driver who delivers packages and has been stalking a family. She wants to take over Sadie’s role as the mother/husband and become her. Well, if you were just as shocked as I was, you’ll find that she did get away with doing so at the end of the first book.

Which is crazy, I honestly thought she’d be caught by now, but nope, not yet! Anyway, how did she manage to do so?

First, Reid, the husband, and Sadie were already having problems in their relationship, with Reid sexting one of his co-workers, Gemma. They decided to take a weekend to go off and try to see if there was a relationship left to save. However, little did they know that there was a third party listening in on this conversation they were having. Luna.

Luna ends up using this to her advantage and decides to ruin their little mini vacation to make sure they will get divorced. Well, she did just that. When they were at the spa retreat, Luna paid off one of the bartenders to say he recognized Reid and asked if he was with the infamous “Gemma” to his wife, Sadie.

Sadie didn’t end up taking that well and told him she wanted a divorce because, as far as she was told by Reid, he never slept with Gemma. So, she cuts the trip early and takes a taxi to her parents’ house to get their kids. Little did she know, Luna had SET THE HOUSE ON FIRE.

I’m not kidding, she set the house on fire with both the kids and Sadie’s parents inside. Luna thought they weren’t home, and once she realized they were, she banged on the glass window to get them to get out of the house. Thankfully, all of them were able to get out.

Of course, Sadie is pulling up to watch her parents’ house on fire and is freaking out, which I don’t blame her for; I would be too. That’s a sight you would never want to see as a parent. Coming back from a trip away with the kids and coming home to find that, I couldn’t imagine how I would feel other than I was going in there to get my family out.

Now, do you think Luna got away with this? The answer is YES, but someone caught her leaving the scene of the crime, holding all the evidence of her starting the fire in her hands. She ends up SLEEPING with this man to keep him quiet. You heard that right. Then she pins the entire fire on Gemma, Reid’s mistress.

Not only does she have to deal with this man, but she ends up getting Reid to sleep with her while he is undergoing his divorce from Sadie. Since she wants both the kids and the house they grew up in, she comes up with a plan to make sure custody is taken from Sadie.

She switches Sadie’s multivitamins for alcohol powder. Then, after making sure Sadie has already taken them, she calls the cops on Sadie, saying she’s drunk-driving with kids in the back, when Sadie is trying to take the kids to school. Of course, the cops pull her over, and because she ends up failing the breathalyzer test, she ultimately ends up losing full custody of her kids.

At the end of the book, you find out that she and Reid have a full-blown relationship now, and she is currently living in the house, raising Sadie’s kids. You’d never think she would actually get away with all this, right?

Sadie is the only one who starts to realize that she had to be targeted by someone to not only lose her husband, but her kids, too. The one thing she knows isn’t true is how she managed to get a DUI when she was completely sober.

So, the start of the book happens about a year after they had been officially divorced. Luna and Reid are living together. Sadie is shocked that Reid moved on as fast as he did and that she is being replaced by the same person who delivered packages to her.

If you think the first book she was crazy, just wait to find out what she does in this second book.

She is living her dream; however, there is one thing that is in the way of her happiness. The man who saw her leaving Sadie’s parents’ the night she started the fire. She is still sleeping with him WHILE dating Reid. Of course, she has to get rid of him, and the first thing that comes to her mind is murder.

So, while she is trying to come up with a plan to end him, Sadie thinks that the only person who could’ve made her lose everything was Reid, so she visits Gemma in prison, and they start to try to figure out why this was all happening to both of them.

Meanwhile, the kids are not taking a liking to Luna, and she is pissed because of this and is trying so hard to get them on her side. They are also 5 and 9, just watched their parents go through not only a divorce, but finding out their father’s mistress tried to kill them, and their mother only gets to see them once or twice a week.

Plus, their father already has a new girlfriend living with them all at the same time. That’s a huge adjustment for the kids to have to go through in a short amount of time. Of course, they start acting out because of it. The oldest, Arthur, is causing more of the issues, but he also catches Luna leaving another man’s house when he skipped school.

The same man who caught her starting the fire.

Of course, he tells Sadie, and she starts questioning if Luna is cheating on Reid. However, she starts to suspect Luna when the news comes out that this man had “suddenly” passed away. While that is happening, Gemma finally gets Reid to visit her in prison, and she tells him that she and Sadie suspect him of everything that has happened.

Reid, this idiot, refuses to believe her and thinks that she has lost it, but he lets it slip out that he has a girlfriend. Which Gemma had no idea of, and immediately emailed Sadie asking why she didn’t tell her that Reid was seeing someone right around the same time as all the bad luck started happening to them.

Wait til you find out what happens in the end, it’s just so crazy what Luna does to keep this fantasy of hers a reality. After I finished the second book, I had to know what happened in the last one. It leaves you on a cliffhanger for sure!

Overall, it keeps you on your toes and wanting to find out what happens next. I really didn’t believe I could get into a thriller series like this, but I had to know if this crazy Luna really gets what she wants.

What do you think of this mini-series? Are you just as shocked as I am that she is getting away with this all? Let me know down in the comments!