Welcome back to another episode of Natteringwithpride reads tawdry domestic thrillers! Today’s candidate is called The Wrong Family. The book cover has a white picket fence on it, so you know we’re about to get some suburbia dysfunctional goodness.
Have you ever been wrong about someone?
Juno was wrong about Winnie Crouch.
Before moving in with the Crouch family, Juno thought Winnie and her husband, Nigel, had the perfect marriage, the perfect son — the perfect life. Only now that she’s living in their beautiful house, she sees the cracks in the crumbling facade are too deep to ignore.
Still, she isn’t one to judge. After her grim diagnosis, the retired therapist simply wants a place to live out the rest of her days in peace. But that peace is shattered the day Juno overhears a chilling conversation between Winnie and Nigel…
She shouldn’t get involved.
She really shouldn’t.
But this could be her chance to make a few things right.
Because if you thought Juno doesn’t have a secret of her own, then you were wrong about her too.
Now doesn’t that just sound juicy?
Juno is secretly living in the walls of the Crouch family home, watching them, stealing things that won’t be missed, and forming very set opinions on their family dynamics. The novel bounces between the viewpoints of Juno and Winnie (who is unaware that she has a squatter). In an effort to keep you guessing, the book introduces a number of flawed characters and plot points- a destructive brother, a disaffected husband, a dark secret from the past (for both Juno and Winnie), and a potentially disturbed son.
While I was entertained throughout the novel, it didn’t quite stick the landing. The author tried to pull all of those plot threads together in one big twist, but it felt pretty far fetched- even for a domestic thriller. It feels like the author introduced a bunch of different plot threads and then realized she needed to pull them all together and panicked.