📚 Keep It in the Family by John Marrs – Full Review
⭐ 2.5 out of 5 stars | Thriller / Psychological Mystery
🚨 Spoiler Warning!
If you want to read this book without knowing the twists (even if I saw them coming from a mile away), stop now! This review spills everything.
🤷♀️ Not My Favorite Marrs
This was my first John Marrs book, and while it wasn’t awful, I just couldn’t get into it. The timeline jumping between decades, the rotating narrators, the secret voices — it felt like the only reason the story kept me turning pages was because I was trying to untangle who was talking and when. The twists? I spotted them early, so they didn’t pack much punch.
📝 The Plot (Spoilers Galore!)
The story centers around the twisted Hunter family, where generational trauma really takes on a whole new meaning.
👉 Decades ago, siblings Debbie and George Hunter lived in a house of horrors. Their parents lured children to the house... and murdered them. But when Dad thought Mom might kill little George next, he secretly shipped him off to some remote town in Norway for safety. Debbie thought George was dead all this time.
👉 Debbie married at 16 (with the support of her lovely grandparents) to Dave, another 16-year-old with a traumatic past. Meanwhile, those grandparents took matters into their own hands and killed Debbie’s parents once they learned what they’d been up to. Debbie and Dave became partners in crime — literally. As the years went on, Debbie’s thirst for killing grew, and Dave became her enabler, helping cover up her crimes.
👉 Fast-forward: Their son Finn (or so he thinks!) and ex-daughter-in-law Mia start poking around. Dave senses it’s all about to unravel. So what does he do? Suicide, leaving behind a note trying to take the fall for everything to protect Debbie.
👉 But of course, a sharp detective starts noticing things that don’t add up. Finn and Mia dig deeper and discover the real shocker — Finn isn’t Debbie and Dave’s biological son at all. He was just another abducted child whose life Debbie spared.
👉 Enter George, who sees Debbie on TV and reaches out. Debbie feeds him a sob story about how it was all Dave’s fault, and George buys it, hook, line, and sinker.
👉 Debbie, now desperate as everything closes in, kidnaps Sonny (Finn and Mia’s son) to use as leverage. She sends Sonny to George, who thinks he’s helping. Eventually, Debbie gets caught and shipped off to a psychiatric hospital.
👉 Finn, not done with the family’s dark legacy, hires a private investigator, tracks Sonny down, and reunites with him. But then — surprise! — Finn kills George, even though poor George had no bad intentions.
👉 And here’s the final creepy cherry on top: Finn and Mia are back together... but Mia has no idea that Finn is now secretly grooming Sonny and continuing the murderous cycle, just like Debbie did to him.
😬 What Didn’t Work For Me
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Too many timelines, too many narrators — felt like a jigsaw puzzle missing a few pieces.
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The twists weren’t shocking — I saw them coming.
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The entire structure felt designed to confuse rather than thrill.
✅ Read This If You Like:
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Twisty, multi-POV family thrillers
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Serial killer origin stories
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Generational secrets and dark legacies
💡 My Final Take
While Keep It in the Family wasn’t terrible, it didn’t blow me away either. 2.5 stars — an okay read, but not one I’d rush to recommend.
📌 Want to check it out?
👉 Buy Keep It in the Family on Amazon
📚 Other books you might like better:
✅ The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell
✅ The Push by Ashley Audrain
✅ Behind Closed Doors by B.A. Paris
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