From the very start, I thought it was an interesting, but yet a very familiar family dynamic. Mia and Finn are desperate to buy their first house together. Mia more so than Finn, so she can escape her overbearing Mother-in-law, who likes to demean her at every possible opportunity. Their dream house doesn’t turn out to be quite as they were hoping for, in fact, it is a deadly nightmare. The house has been keeping very disturbing secrets, within it’s run down walls. Told from multiple timelines and POV’s from Mia, Finn and his parents Dave and Debbie . Marrs cleverly wrote Debbie as the MIL we all love to hate, her manipulations were palpable, believable and brilliant, I was rooting for Mia throughout. Oh, there is also the POV from a creepy, and disturbing murderer, just to muddy the already unsettling narrative.

A dream house turns into a horror house for young couple, Mia & Finn, when they made a gruesome discovery in their home. Authors, if you are a member of the Goodreads Author Program, you can edit information about your own books. Find out how in this guide.Mia’s happiness is cut short when she uncovers a cryptic message on a skirting board in their new house.

The reveals start around 63%, which means a majority of the second half has a twist, reveal, twist, reveal, and so on. It got tiring when I could already see what the twist would be. I don’t usually mind guessing right, but here, it gets too much. Creative storyline. Characters that were kind of awful, but not in a way that made me dislike it, but more in a way that worked for the story to where the characters matched with what was taking place between this messy secretive family. Mia and Finn buy and old house, hoping to renovate it and move out from Finn's parents. All seems to be going well, the house is being renovated, Mia is pregnant. And then, they find the remains of children in the attic, which is clearly the work of a serial killer. Mia and Finn are turning a derelict house into their dream home when Mia finds a message carved into a baseboard: I WILL SAVE THEM FROM THE ATTIC. Following the clue, they discover the remains of seven children hidden away. When shards of dark truth begin to emerge, Mia realizes danger is still terrifyingly present. What will she do to protect her family... or is it already too late? During renovations they unearth what the home has kept hidden for decades and all of their lives begin to spiral out of control because of a connection to the old home.I am a huge John Marrs fan, I love that all his books have so many twists and turns in them, you never know what’s going to happen next and this absolutely did not disappoint!

The Author Resource Round Table on Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/group_folder/116489?group_id=26989 KEEP IT IN THE FAMILY is a twisted and delicious dark unnerving read that is chilling to the core. It makes you wonder what goes on in the author's mind to be able to conjure up such macabre plots! He did say in his note at the end that this story was the result of a dream and that you wouldn't want to be inside his head at the best of times let alone at night! John Marrs is without a doubt, my all-time favourite author and let me tell you, my excitement levels (insert excited shriek) when I was approved this eARC were through the roof. This was a deliciously dark, disturbing and unnerving psychological thriller, centred around a truly dysfunctional family.

Here is Complete Info About Keep It in the Family by John Marrs

Although I've said it once, it bears repeating: I had a hard time even believing this book was written by John Marrs. To start, things weren't so terrible, although they were a bit slow, with lots of set-up and drama involving the house buying and drama between Mia and Finn's parents. I won’t lie, this one had me having crazy dreams at night. It was a lot to take in and deal with. Many sensitive subjects dealing with children, abduction, and murder. Not for the faint of heart! The reason I gave it 4.5 stars (rounded down) was strictly due to the couple things that I felt were unbelievable. I mean the whole story is absolutely CRAZY but was so well written that you just wanted to keep reading, so for that alone it deserves the 4.5 stars!! This is the 3rd book I’ve read by John Marrs and he is a fantastic author!!!! I felt like I wanted to know a bit more of the history of this story, I feel there was a lot alluded to but not explicitly described.. my mind takes these things to the darkest corners! Kept me up at night thinking over what may have happened in those rooms...

Meanwhile Finn and Mia are still living in his parents annex with baby Sonny. Debbie is a Godsend if truth be told and suddenly Mia and Debbie’s relationship changes from very bad to good. Debbie is keen to help and is wonderful with Sonny. Mia cannot do much because of her injuries and sadly has trouble bonding with her baby. She has post-natal blues and becomes obsessed with the babes in the attic. The police investigation is ongoing and work on their new home is impossible. With time on her hands she starts an investigation of her own, looking at old newspaper articles. YouTube and even a crime writer’s take on what happened to the lost children. The story. What unfolds is pretty silly(and nasty). A ludicrous premise, we have twist and turns that add nothing to the story and don’t misdirect as it was obvious to me from very early on what was going on. Happy Pub Day to @johnmarrs and his newest novel “𝑲𝒆𝒆𝒑 𝑰𝒕 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑭𝒂𝒎𝒊𝒍𝒚”. Thank you, John, for gifting me the @netgalley E-ARC of your book to read. Readers, if you love a good story about a dysfunctional psychotic family read on for more. As ever with a John Marrs book, you don’t get just one twist you get quite a few which was just brilliant. One of them especially I absolutely didn’t see coming. It was such a brilliant turn. The ending was great. Again, I thought it would take a different turn but I’m glad it went where it did. The pace was really well done, I often think the end of thriller books are rushed but I didn’t with this one. This time we meet Mia and Finn who finally found a house to start their family. But there is a lot of work to put into before they could even move in. When they make a horrible discovery in the attic dark secrets start to uncover and Mia wonders what kind of family she married into.I’ve started a review on this at least three times now & I’m at a loss for words, or I have too many words & don’t know how to properly get my thoughts out on “paper”. As a whole I really dug this book, if I had a do-over I would still read it! This is also my first book by Marrs & certainly won’t be my last. This was a super easy read (in a good way) that made for an easy cruise through the book..I read it in over the course of roughly two days with many (many! haha) interruptions😜 The final section went on a little bit too long for me, and the inner-dialogue style can slow things down a little. This is a crafted and very detailed novel, with a lot of layers and history to be discovered. Thrillers tend to have unlikeable characters. Here, except for Mia (with exceptions again), the rest are pretty much unlikable. DC Mark is cool, though (he has very limited space in the book and is not explored at all). The house sat vacant for 40 years and needs a lot of updating, but Finn and Dave plan on doing the work themselves to save on costs. During this time, Mia who struggled to conceive finds herself unexpectedly pregnant, putting more financial constraints on the couple.