This book had me all over the place in a good way. My sympathy for the main character ebbed and flowed, and I wasn’t quite sure whose story to believe at any given point. The action moved along at a good pace for most of the book. I thought the end felt rushed, as some of the plot points were explained away quickly and others seemed to not matter anymore. From the ending, I can’t tell if a sequel is coming, or if the author chose to just end on the note that she did. Either way, it was still entertaining. For a full review, please visit Fireflies and Free Kicks. Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin for a digital ARC of the book.

**3.5-stars rounded up**

As her beloved Dad lay in his death bed at a local hospice, Eleanor Hardwicke, overhears a family secret that challenges everything she thought she knew about her life.

It turns out that her Dad, the closest person to her in the world, isn't actually her biological father.

She can't believe it. She feels so betrayed, he has lied to her for her entire life.

She would expect something like that from her mother, who is an absolutely vile woman, but her Dad? It's a complete shock. One she doesn't take well.

In the days that follow, she's torn apart by how she behaved; kicking herself for her harsh reaction.

It's too late for her to make it up to her Dad, so there's nothing left to do but learn about her biological father, right?

When she discovers who he is, she can't believe it!

A influential real estate magnate who owns half of the city she lives in, Portland, Maine.

In fact, he lives in Portland as well, with his beautiful wife. The power couple have a grown daughter, Victoria, meaning Eleanor has a half-sister she has never known.

Upon further investigation, she discovers Victoria is everything she is not: stunning, successful and married to an extremely handsome man.

The narrative follows Eleanor as she slowly infiltrates Victoria's life.

The tension steadily builds, as you know this cannot end well!

Sister Dear is an intense Domestic Drama that kept me glued to the pages. I read this so quickly, I had to discover what would happen to Eleanor.

While definitely a quirky, slight unreliable narrator, I couldn't help but be drawn in by Eleanor. I found her character to be so interesting.

Far from perfect, there was a lot going on there. Her relationship with her mother, that made me feel for her right from the start.

There were times when I want to reach through the pages, grab her by the shoulders and shake her! Why are you making these choices, Eleanor!?!?

As you race towards the conclusion, everything gets flipped upside down. The plot twist was so fun. I didn't see it coming!

For me, the end was great. It definitely left me with an evil grin on my face, which is absolutely how I like to wrap-up my dramatic reads!

Thank you so much to the publisher, MIRA, for providing me with a copy of this to read and review, as well as including me in the Blog Tour for the release.

Hannah Mary McKinnon has a new fan in me. I look forward to reading more from her in the future!

This book was really boring. The main character was annoying and a "poor me". Maybe it is the current global situation, but I was just not in the right head space for a character like that. I did skim to the end. I'm glad I didn't finish it, because I would not have been happy had I invested time into a character only for it to end the way it did.

This is my first experience with McKinnon's writing - and I did enjoy this one. It's a family thriller with a lot of quite unsympathetic characters! Eleanor narrates this, and the book opens with her beloved father in hospice, while she is estranged from her cold mother and younger sister. When a family secret comes out, Eleanor reacts badly and eventually sets into motion a rather strange plot as she yearns to find a family that accepts her. Eleanor's choices sometimes cross the line far into cringeworthy territory but it soon becomes clear that she's not the only one with secrets and hidden agendas!

While the book is certainly engaging, the ending really felt unsatisfying to me. I just don't like books that end on this type of note... it detracts from the whole book for me. And Eleanor is really unsympathetic at times, and while I don't agree with her ultimate fate, I definitely didn't root for her the whole time. But, the book is certainly fast-paced and I can see this being a good diversion on a plane or vacation. And it certainly kept my attention from start to finish!

I don't even know how to describe this one. It was fulls of twists and turns and was intense. I really enjoyed it and couldn't put it down until I finished it because I couldn't wait to see what happened next.

This was another great thriller from McKinnon. I have really enjoyed her writing so far and Sister Dear is no exception. It had a great twist at the end. The characters were written well and you just didn't know who to trust!

Sister Dear was a miss for me. I felt like I saw the ultimate ending coming from far far away. I could almost see myself mentally highlighting the points where I saw it fit together. Sometimes this does not detract from enjoying the book. Sometimes it does. I think in this particular case, by the time I formed my assumptions about the ending, I was already annoyed with the story. The characters were unbelievable and the caustic relationship between Eleanor and her mother and sister was horrendous and intolerable! Combined with Eleanor's self-esteem problems made for a book I just wasn't enjoying.

#bookreview ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5 amazing stars!!!!
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WOW WOW WOW! I absolutely LOVED this book! From beginning to end, it was so gripping and I was completely hooked. It was fast paced and so addictive, I didn’t want to put it down. I loved the writing, the characters, the plot, the twists. I loved it all. I’m not sure why this is the first book I read by this author but it certainly won’t be my last. I highly recommend picking up this one ASAP (out now)!! ❤️
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Thank you to the publisher and @netgalley for providing a free advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
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I loved EVERYTHING about this book. I figured out a couple details prior to the ending just because I’m a psych thriller fanatic but the book was AMAZING.

A secret is revealed that sends our main character grieving Eleanor on a path of deception, revenge motivated by grief jealously and the need for a family connection.

The story starts slow as Hannah Mary McKinnon delves into Eleanor's mind, where we see her thoughts of self-loathing, paranoia, desperation and jealousy. This took on a depressing and sad mood to the story for me, and I didn't get the emotional response I was looking for.

The pace picks up near the end, and Hannah leaves those twists and reveals till that explosives ending that felt exciting. I was tapping my kindle faster than a line of tap dancers.

Some clues and actions by the characters are a little too convenient, and not as convincing as I would have liked them to be. However, that ending took me surprised and was thrilling and twisted, just like this twisted dark reader likes!

Eleanor Hardwicke’s father is in critical condition in the hospital. She does not have a close relationship with her mother or sister and has always wondered why. Well one night while walking into her father’s hospital room, she overhears a conversation that shatters her world and everything she has believed to be true.

Eleanor soon finds herself obsessed with finding out about the family she has been denied of. She starts off a relationship with her half sister, Victoria based on a lie and soon things become too good to be true. Eleanor now has a best friend, a boyfriend, and the life she has always wanted. That is until lies start becoming truths and Eleanor finds herself in an intricately tangled webs of deceit. Who will pay the ultimate price?

This was such a fabulous psychological thriller. I was not sure what to expect, but I certainly did not see the ending and the twist of fate that happened. It literally let me sitting there totally stunned. The author Hannah Mary McKinnon wrote this book brilliantly and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thank you so much to Harlequin, the author Ms McKinnon and NetGalley for an advanced copy to read and review.

Eleanor is down on her luck. She has a miserable relationship with her mother and only sister, and just as her doting father is dying she finds out a shocking truth: he isn't her father. She tracks down her biological father, but he wants nothing to do with her. Then she discovers that she has a half sister who seems to have it all: good looks, wealth, and a great husband. Eleanor becomes obsessed with her, eventually getting a job for her half sister's husband and befriending her. But not all is as it seems in her sister's life....

I found the first half of the book difficult to get through. Eleanor is so pathetic and whiney, with major (understandable) self esteem issues. I found her very hard to relate to. Her relationship with her mother and sister are pretty unbelievable and a little farfetched. Her mother and sister are too cold and callous to be real people, very two-dimensional (for example,
her sister doesn't come to her own father's funeral because she has auditions?! Her mother pretends to try to make amends with Eleanor in order to get money from her for her sister's acting classes.) I kept reading waiting for it to get twisty and good. There were definitely twists, but nothing THAT shocking. You can pretty much see it coming. All in all, I found this book mediocre. It was a quick read, but nothing new.

Eleanor Hardwicke is devastated. Her father is dying, her mother is unsympathetic, her sister can’t even be bothered to fly home and her world has just been completely rocked by the discovery he wasn’t even her biological father. When a mugging lands her in hospital and she loses her chance to say farewell, investigating her real father and his family seems to be a way to distract from her grief. Finding out her father is wealthy and she has a rich, beautiful sister with an apparently charmed life, Eleanor is like a kid with her nose pressed to the windowpane, staring in at the light and warmth of the life she never had.

Eleanor gets a bit obsessed and a bit too close, but honestly? If I’d been treated like that, I might well act in a similar way. Her intentions are good and even though she occasionally has thoughts about doing things that would clearly be over the line into wrong (selling her sister’s ring, messing up her business plans) she never actually acts on them. At the very beginning of the book, Eleanor (in whose first person perspective the whole story is told) TELLS the reader that she will be honest, and she absolutely is. She’s a completely reliable narrator.

The problem lies in that for almost all of the book, Eleanor had no idea what was actually going on, and that she was being played like a fiddle. I started to have my suspicions midway through that there were some deeper undercurrents, when a few things seemed a little out of place, but the sudden twist definitely caught me by surprise. I won’t spoil things, but suffice to say, there’s definitely a villain here, a true psychopath who turned Eleanor into nothing more than their unwitting tool. It’s clever and fascinating and the book ends in a dark place which is a bit of a gut punch and might be too much for some in these traumatic times - if you’re looking for a thriller where the Bad Folks get their comeuppance and the Good Folks get a happy ever after, this definitely isn’t it.

That said, I loved it, and I’m giving it five stars. I’ll definitely be looking for more books by this author in the future, too.

My thoughts

Would I recommend it? Yes

Would I read more by this author? Yes

Rating: 4

First of I want to thank Harlequin MIRA for inviting me to read and reviewing this book , because up till now I had never heard of this author and I'm so glad that I picked it up, because I was hooked right from the start and one of the reasons is because of how it starts out.Another was how well the author wrote her characters and how they actually seemed like they could be seen on a true crime show called Evil Kin, what can I say because after reading this I wouldn't want to be in a room with either one of them. This story is fast pace with twist and turns, dark secrets,murder,its also the type of story that you can't trust anyone in it because you might just end up with a knife in your back. With that said I also want to thank Netgalley for letting me read and review it as well.

Women’s fiction with a twisted thriller ending. Eleanor has never had a good relationship with her mother or her sister, thank goodness her father has always been there for her. But when she learns on her father’s deathbed that he is not her biological father she is devastated. When she reaches out to her biological father he also rejects her. Eleanor is now furious and ready to seek revenge. She masterminds a plan to befriend her half sister Victoria and ultimately destroy her. The thing is she likes Victoria and soon the girls form a strong friendship, but what will happen when Eleanor tells Victoria the truth? This part of the story was engaging and I liked that these girls had formed a friendship especially because technically they were half-sisters. Elinor also started a romance with her neighbor Louise who was such a good guy, but Elinor had a lot of insecurities that she still needed to work through that messed with the relationship. Sounds like a complicated domestic drama, doesn’t it? Well not so fast... at about 75% things start to hit the fan, and I started to second-guess everybody’s intentions. The end of this book was fraught with tension as everything started spinning out of control.

This was an entertaining story, but I think it would have been stronger had I been more sympathetic towards Eleanor. I did understand that she had suffered quite a bit from the way her mother had treated her. Her inner dialogues and self loathing were depressing. However she really thrived on playing the victim and didn’t necessarily want to take any responsibility for her own life. The audiobook is narrated by Lauren Ezzo Who did an incredible job. I do think I enjoyed this book even more because the narration was really well done as always by Lauren. This was a good book with a few issues just like its main character.

This book in emojis 👭 🧬 💍 👠 💻 💇🏻‍♀️ 🤳🏼

*** Big thank you to Harlequin and Harper Audio for my gifted copy of this book. All opinions are my own. ***

Sisters Locked in a Dark Psycho-Drama

Eleanor is not attractive, but she is employed. On his deathbed, her mother who favors her other daughter, Amy, berates her husband for leaving his money to Eleanor. Eleanor has a job. Amy needs the money. Eleanor happens to be listening outside and hears the dreadful truth. The man she has always thought of as her father is not her biological father. She’s the product of an affair her mother had years ago with the man she worked for.

With her new knowledge, Eleanor becomes obsessed with finding her real father. He turns out to be a wealthy developer. He also has a daughter just Eleanor’s age. Victoria is everything Eleanor wants to be: wealthy, beautiful, and married. Eleanor insinuates herself into Vicky’s life. At first it seems they’ll become best friends, but the story is filled with twists.

Most of the story reads like typical women’s fiction. Sisters seem to always have jealousy problems and these siblings are not an exception. At first, I felt sorry for Eleanor. She seemed to be trying so hard to better herself, but the further I read the more I could see her as manipulative and intent on revenge.

The end has a serious twist that it’s hard to see coming. The author drops hints, but you have to be very quick to catch them. I can’t say I loved the book, but it was an interesting read.

I received this book from Harlequin for this review.

SISTER DEAR by Hannah Mary McKinnon is a new psychological thriller that starts out more like a general women’s fiction story, but it is a slow burn that builds to a definite twisted thriller ending.

Eleanor Hardwick’s parents divorced when she was young. She was the apple of her father’s eye, but her mother constantly criticized her weight and looks which leads to extreme self-esteem issues and binge eating. Her father is dying of cancer and when she goes to visit her father in hospice, she overhears her mother and father arguing. She is shocked to learn the father who loved her is not her biological father.

Eleanor’s biological father is a multi-millionaire property mogul with a beautiful wife and beautiful daughter the same age as Eleanor. When her biological father rejects her, she is determined to become a part of her half-sister’s life. Victoria is not everything she appears to be and Eleanor is drawn into wanting to befriend her as much as wanting to take what she has.

I really felt for Eleanor. I felt Ms. McKinnon did a good job of portraying a woman with extremely low self-esteem and an eating disorder. The family dynamics in this story are dysfunctional and there are few likable characters, but they are all interesting. I especially felt for Eleanor when her father died and yet even as I empathized with her, she made some poor decisions that had me wondering about her overall character arc because she was more flawed than vindictive which was not what I was expecting. The plot is dark with some unexpected twists. The pace does not pick up speed until the last half of the book, but the shocking ending was worth the wait.

I can recommend this book as a different and dark women’s fiction story with a thriller’s ending.

What I Loved:
Well, this book was just fabulous! I absolutely loved that the story kept taking me in a different direction. I would think I knew what was happening, and then something would change, and I’d be blown away by the new information. It was absolutely wonderful!

My Synopsis:
Eleanor Hardwicke has just found out that her father, a man she wholly loves and respects is not actually her biological father. She has just the name of her actual father and begins to research who he is. What she finds is a half-sister she didn’t know she had living the life she feels was meant for her.

Victoria, Eleanor’s newly-found sister seems to have everything and as Eleanor learns more and more about Victoria, she wants nothing more than to be her.

How I Felt:
The characters in this book drew out such emotions in me. I would be infuriated by Eleanor’s actions, and then the next minute, I would totally understand her anger and resentment. She is a deeply flawed character, and I felt that this made her easier to connect to. Eleanor’s relationships with everyone, except her father, are terrible. She has trouble connecting with others, and I really enjoyed her character arc as she begins to explore who her real father and his family are, and what kind of relationship she could have with them.

The plot…holy cow the plot! Sister Dear starts out as an emotional read as Eleanor learns her father is not her father and then he dies within 24 hours. It was sad to read about her during this time, but then the story goes crazy as Eleanor tries to meet her biological father, and then her half-sister. I really don’t want to give too much information here because of *spoilers*. So, I will say that this plot twisted and turned in ways I didn’t see coming. I had one instance LATE in the story where something that happened made me guess at what was going on, but I would not say that I knew the ending before it happened at all. So, it was a fun book filled with lots of surprises!

Eleanor has a body image problem from a mother that was mentally abusive and constantly negative about Eleanor’s body. This plays a HUGE role in her character throughout the story. We see her struggle with eating and weight, and Hannah Mary McKinnon did an absolutely wonderful job of relaying Eleanor’s emotions about this disorder. This could be a trigger for someone, but I am so appreciative that this was added to Eleanor’s character and used so prominently in the story.

Overall, I absolutely loved this book! Sister Dear created an amazing experience for me from start to finish. I could not put this book down, and every time something new would be revealed, I was shocked all over again. I highly recommend reading this!

Content Warnings:
Pregnancy and loss, domestic abuse, stalking, eating disorder. There are also references to a mother that does not treat her child well. There isn’t abuse, but there is mental abuse that may be a trigger for some.

To Read or Not To Read:
I would recommend Sister Dear for readers that enjoy a domestic-feeling thriller with lots of twists.

I was provided an advanced reader's copy of this book for free. I am leaving my review voluntarily.

My full review of this book will post to my blog on 5/29/20.

Eleanor was visiting her ill father when she found out that he is not her biological father. After he passes, Eleanor decides to find out about her real father. Turns out that he is wealthy with a seemingly perfect family. Eleanor wants to experience the life that her newly discovered half sister has lived. Things aren't as they seem as she digs deeper into the dear family she wished that she had.

The last 10% of the story had me in shock. It wasn't as thrilling as I expected it to be until it got to that point. It was drama filled though. I felt like I was reading the storyline of a soap opera. I definitely had fun reading this book.

Eleanor is shattered when she discovers her dying father is not her real biological father. After his death, she goes in search of her father and discovers she has a half sister, Victoria. Unlike Eleanor, Victoria has it all - a great job, family, husband, money, friends, etc. Eleanor decides to get as close to Victoria as possible.

I thought for sure I knew the direction this book was headed in - I am happy to say I was wrong! I did not see the end coming at all. I finished the book a couple days ago and it is still in my head. I could not read this book fast enough.

Thank you to Harlequin/Mira Publishing and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book and give my thoughts. #SisterDear #NetGalley