How To Kill Your Family: THE #1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER (Colour may vary) Paperback – 14 April 2022

Funny, exciting, with an excellent twist!Well written and engaging. It was difficult not to relate to the main character, even though you know you shouldn’t.

The underlying revenge theme of this thriller is intriguing, if not massively original, but with a couple of nice wrinkles. It's decently well written, albeit you could pick holes in some of the plot events if you were so inclined - but that goes for most thrillers to be fair.The anti-heroine of the piece is the highlight, well drawn and credible in her motivations, with some good exploration of the internal conflicts she has about being a merciless serial killer (!). The nominal bad guys are in some cases cardboard cut-outs, but one or two are more believable and provide the lead with some thinking about her activities and objectives.I was a shade cynical as I worked my through, wondering if the screamingly obvious twist was coming. But it didn't - instead, the author came up with a genuinely surprising and completely fiendish surprise which I very definitely didn't see coming, and on that basis this is a worth a light and entertaining read.

Having not read a book for years I thought it would be difficult for me to get started but Bella has you from the first page.Absolutely brilliant, great plot and characters and a must read.Now to buy the second one!

I feel is a great deal of the author in the narrator’s voice, by which I do not mean she has serial killer tendencies, but rather that there is sarcasm, wit and highly entertaining dark humour represented in the main character. Since the author has a journalistic background, it is unsurprising that the first-person narrative of the story succeeds in being accessible, interesting, gossipy and still very intelligent. In short, I felt I wanted to be friends with this cynical, cold fish of a serial killer as she is drawn as being fantastic but reluctant company and a deliverer of great one-liners. Who wouldn’t love such a psychopath?Two stars however must be dropped due to the ridiculous let down of the deus ex machina ending. Ending is lazy and totally implausible and does a disservice to the rest of the book, and to a fascinating fictional murdress whom the reader becomes invested in and whose grumpy charisma succeeds in winning us over in spite of her deeds. I’m not sure what compelled this competent writer to try to wrap things up with an entirely new character arriving in THE LAST CHAPTER. It’s impossible to give a beep about that new character since they conveniently drop out of the sky and magically know everything whilst the reader has zero relationship with this person, and the resultant baffling ending short changes our main character so inexplicably. Ridiculously, the reader is expected to believe that this new arrival has been present in the story the entire time. I also groaned out loud at the dopey mistakes that the main character is stated as making within the last 2 chapters to enable the stupid ending with the brand new clichéd character to appear- simply not believable or consistent with her obsessive tendencies to painstakingly cover her tracks or the fact she has been planning these murders since her early years which is referenced repeatedly through the rest of the book.I loved the conversational tone of the story which rolls along so well, right up until the last few chapters. Perhaps the author just got bored and wanted to call it a day… what a shame the last part of the book wasn’t given the same loving care in how it was crafted as the earlier section.

I'd been recommended this novel by a few people and it had been very widely publicised on social media. I'd not read any detailed reviews though so didn't know what it was about.The book is 354 pages and 18 chapters.The story is written as first person narrative from the perspective of a woman in prison. She claims to be inside for killing someone who she didn't, whereas she has got away with the several people she has actually killed. The book takes the form of a sort of confessional memoir.There is a chatty style which speaks directly to the reader - promising of further revelations and suggesting how the reader should react as information is shared.This is an easy book to read which is full of dark humour.I had suspected that the title would be ironic so was surprised the narrator intends to literally kill her family members. The characters that the author creates and the protagonist kills are all extreme - most of them being beasts of people although whether they deserve to die is another matter.Bella Mackie is having fun with this idea and the result works for me. The book is full of clever and funny writing which I enjoyed tremendously. It is a unique premise which is quite remarkable in a huge world of novels and such a strong story that carries right through to the end.Grace is a psychopath and I enjoyed her company (not sure what that says about me), to the point that I wanted her to succeed even though I knew I shouldn't. I loved her many layers of personality that are explored as her life story is revealed.Delightfully there are many surprises along the way which make the book captivating but it is the consistent darkness of the humour used in a way that gives this book a unique feel. I loved every page of this book.

An entertaining black comedy of a book, reminiscent in parts of the old British film, Kind Hearts and Coronets. At times the story when not about one of the murders, or the planning of it was a bit too padded out, but an enjoyable read for sure.