One Big Happy Family - by Jamie Day

At the Precipice Hotel in a small town on the coast of Maine, 19 year old Charley has been working as the housekeeper for owner George Bishop. When he recruited her for the job, it seemed perfect….for a high school dropout who is the sole support for her one living relative, the grandmother who raised her and has Alzheimer’s, having her lodging and meals included for free on top of her salary and tips sounded too good to be true. And it was, because George Bishop turned out to be a nasty man who regularly hit on his pretty employee. With the ever increasing fees at the facility where her grandmother lives and limited employment opportunities from which to choose, Charley is pretty much stuck in a job she hates. When George dies of a heart attack, Charley hopes that his three daughters, the apparent heirs to the property, will be an improvement and sets out to impress them with her usefulness. But Vicki, Iris and Faith prove to be many shades of difficult, with long simmering resentments ready to boil over and some seriously dangerous secrets that need keeping. When they arrive, ultra-organized businesswoman VIcki with her unpleasant husband Todd and handsome son Quinn, recovering addict Iris with a prison record, and glamorous former model Faith with her wife Hope and odd son Oliver, Charley and her friend and front desk manager Rodrigo have their hands full, especially given predictions that a major hurricane is going to hit that same weekend. Add in Olga, the longtime hotel cook who walks off the job when Todd refuses to let her leave to ready her home for the storm, lawyer Brenda Black who comes with bombshell news for the already tension-filled family reunion, and Bree Bradford, the mysterious young woman whom Charley has agreed to let stay for free at the hotel for a few days in order to evade her violent and abusive boyfriend, there is a limited group of suspects when one of those staying in the hotel turns up dead. Was it natural causes, or is there a murderer on the loose? A second person soon goes missing, and it seems clear that it is the latter. Cut off from the world by the weather and unable to contact the authorities for help, Charley and Bree team up to identify the killer and (hopefully) avoid becoming victims themselves. The Bishops are poster children for dysfunctional families. Old secrets, bad life choices, and a healthy dose of toxicity are just the start of their problems. Charley was struggling to make ends meet even before this tumultuous weekend, and quickly finds herself in trouble for offering shelter to Bree. That decision may cost her her job, which will result in her grandmother having neither a place to live nor the care she needs and Charley will be out on the street. Rodrigo wasn’t in favor of letting Bree stay, and is now in a foul mood due to his previous (negative) interactions with the lawyer who just arrived. The three sisters.have some serious issues both with themselves and with one another, and its hard to know whether they will turn against one another or decide that blood is indeed thicker than water. It’s a locked room type of mystery wrapped up in a thriller, with plenty of suspects, red herrings and plot twists. Fans of the movie “Knives Out” and of authors like Frieda McFadden, Lisa Unger and Sally Hepworth should pick up this summer read perfect for taking to the beach or pool. Many thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for allowing me access to an early copy of this fast-paced and suspenseful tale.

Set on a cliff’s edge during a severe storm, with a cast of characters with questionable motivations, sets this story up. I thought I knew what was more than likely going to happen. Other than one small guess, I was wrong with everything else. From the beginning there was nothing but one unexpected twist after another. The characters took me by surprise just as much as the storyline. When I wasn’t reading this, I was thinking about it and angsty to get back into it. This author is quickly making their way onto my favorites list.