After a rock solid start, this eerily creepy tale kids of drones on, like the road trip from Hell, which I guess it was! I do have to say, that finish was almost worth the journey! Priceless!

Samantha Downing’s HE STARTED IT has a title that fits perfectly with what is between the pages, but maybe not in the way I thought it would as three siblings must fulfill their twisted grandfather’s last wishes and journey across the country together on the same trip he took them on decades before. It’s that or lose out on an inheritance fortune.

Ahh, greed, a powerful motivator, but will they find it worth spending time together after avoiding each other for so long? Is there some dark purpose behind his wishes? Perhaps dark family secrets?

Welcome to sibling rivalry at its ugliest and characters you love to hate, mile after mile after grueling mile. These three siblings make being an only child look pretty good…and grandpa? Ewwwww. Samantha Downing has a devious and dastardly dark side to her writing and never misses the opportunity to slather on some dark humor while she is busy twisting the perfect noose to hang her characters. She even manages to make those long road trips I remember as a child seem downright pleasant! I just wish the trip wasn’t so looooooong.

I received a complimentary ARC edition from Berkley Books! This is my honest and voluntary review.

Imagine being stuck on a road trip with your siblings? What if you are not close, can you trust them? They must complete a series of visits during their road trip in order to be able to claim a substantial inheritance This is the second novel that I read by Samantha Downing. Normally, when the first book is amazing, the sophomore novel will lack. However, I devoured this one, too! Ms. Downing has such a great writing styles that manages to captivate me as a reader. This was a page turner and again, the last sentence made me examine what I had just read. I look forward to reading more books by this author. This was such a crazy ride and even outlandish at times in the most fantastical way.

4+ stars

Surprise, surprise, surprise. Samantha Downing kept me guessing throughout the entirety of He Started It. Great follow up to her first book, My Lovely Wife.

Three estranged, siblings are forced into recreating a cross country trip they took with their grandfather 20 years ago in order to claim their inheritance. Lots of secrets, lies, and twists that will keep the reader guessing.

Thank you NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group for my advanced reader copy in return for a honest review.

What did I just read?!
This book is completely bonkers but you'll enjoy being along for the ride.
I loved that Beth, the narrator of the story knows she's an unreliable narrator, right from the get-go, but there's not only her secrets and lies to contend with as we join the Morgan family on their trip across the country, but her sibling's secrets as well.

As I read on I definitely wondered if there can be poison in a family, if it's in the blood or in the spaces we grow up in. Bit by bit you learn that everyone in Beth's family has the capacity for violence, to a degree that it feels normalized enough for Beth to find certain situations almost mundane and necessary.

And then the ending. It left me so much to sit with and puzzle over- I don't want to ruin anything, but I'm looking forward to when I can discuss it with other people.

A really fun book of twists and turns that will keep you guessing until the shocking ending. Great for those readers who want something that will keep them up all night reading.

I’ll begin by saying I was - still am - a big fan of “My Lovely Wife”.
Samantha Downing raised the bar with psychological thrillers with her outstanding debut.

I’m still enthralled with Samantha’s talents, in “He Started It”.... and plan to keep reading her books as long as she keeps writing them.
However....where “My Lovely Wife” rocked my page-turning world ....from its fabulous beginning and fabulous ending....
“He Started It”....( started out exciting), eventually wore me down. I felt the book lost its edge for the entire last thirty percent, becoming first tedious, then boring, then finally ridiculously silly.

I felt much like one of the characters in the book when Eddie said....
“Nothing is here—no marching band, no welcome banner, nothing to mark our arrival”.

You’ll meet the Morgan Siblings > Beth, Eddie, and Portia. While on a car trip together. Beth brings her husband, Felix. Eddie brings his wife, Krista. Portia is not married.
These adult siblings ( and the two spouses), don’t want to be together.
They have no interest in spending hours upon hours together for fourteen days sleeping in crappy motels and eating crappy foods in dinners or from gas station food stores...visiting museums and attractions they don’t want to visit (again), but in order to collect a beefy inheritance from their deceased Grandpa.....that’s the deal.
Grandpa took the siblings on this same car trip when they were kids.

The premises had great potential- but it couldn’t sustain the magic. There was too much dangly pendulous suspicion—vacillating a little too much between visiting museums & attractions in different states, the mystery of Grandpa’s conditions to receive their money bundle, the cars that followed, ( both trips), the mystery of a forth sibling, ‘Nikki’, and a travelogue journey.

Character development, ( rather the lack of mature adult development), and interactive-dialogue between the characters was fun, fresh, and sassy. It was always easy to dislike at least one of the characters at any given moment.
There were enough lies, secrets, jealousy, selfishness, manipulation, patronizing, opposition, abuse, sick games, betrayals, and violence, to create a bomb explosion.

Beth... middle sibling, was a great narrator telling this story. Her devious inner thoughts and scheme plotting was a kick.
Her voice and inner voice was one of the books strength.

I enjoyed visiting some of the tour-attractions—but not all. That part was just personal taste - I had no interest in the UFO’s....but I did have interest in The Helen Keller House, The Bonnie and Clyde Ambush, The Henry Humphrey memorial, and The Codger Pole ( cedar logs with the head of the Golden players carved into them)....

But the plot and subplots - storytelling itself - began to have a monotone feeling ( around 70%), rather than an elevated momentum of exciting

Lots of sibling bickering, between the strategizing-RISK- ( yep, board game), playing family.....antibacterial wipes for those motel room, unreliable memories, a night of camping in the woods, Fried bologna sandwiches, booze, cigarettes, candy stealing and other thievery, (yep, it’s great to have a kleptomaniac for one of the characters), even an Etch-a-Sketch made its way into this story.

So....yes..this book was mostly fun...glad I read it ....enjoyed more than 50% very much....
I would have loved to have been able to view other ending possibilities....
However... I still like Samantha Downing’s creative thought process.....and spunky writing.....
I admit being glad when that last section of this book was over - more than ending with a ‘wow’ feeling....
I still believe Samantha raises the bar on the psychological thriller genres.

3.7ish ....rating up to 4 stars.

He Started It was one of my most anticipated reads of the year after binging My Lovely Wife and recommending it to everyone I know! This is a much different read than Samantha Downing's first, it's a family drama where everyone has secrets. Beth is on a road trip with her brother Eddie, his wife Krista, her sister Portia, and her husband Felix. The group is on the specific road trip because their grandfather died and part of the rules to inheriting the money is to follow this same road trip that the family took decades earlier.

This is a slower paced novel that blows up by the end. I had a lot of questions and was intrigued to figure out just how crazy each person really was and what they were hiding. I did think there were a few loose ends that would have liked to see wrapped up. And in case you were wondering - no mayo 😝

WOW WOW WOW is all I can say! This was SUCH a great book. It's about three siblings who are on a road trip that mirrors one they took with their grandfather years ago, prior to his death. They now have to go on the same road trip and dispose of his ashes at the end, otherwise they won't get their inheritances from him. There are SO many shocking twists in this book. It is also thoroughly creepy at times and I was constantly looking over my shoulder while reading at night! This will literally shock you and blow your mind until the very last sentence. Samantha Downing is brilliant - she has become an auto-buy author for me after this book, I can't wait for her to write more!!

I had no idea what was going to happen within the pages of He Started It. It was tense, atmospheric, and suspenseful alternating between past and present. He Started It was a portrait of family dynamics and dark secrets that live within all families culminating in an end that shocks.

I loved the continuous build up and suspense as the pages went from a lower to higher number. I could not put this book down !

This was a wild ride right from the beginning. When siblings are forced onto a road trip that they first went on as kids, things start going wrong almost immediately. Are they being followed? Is someone messing with them? They each have brought their own secrets with them on the trip but who will reveal theirs first?

I’m still gathering my thoughts but I can safely say this is a much different thriller than I’ve ever read. You’re constantly wondering what’s going on and who you can trust in the story. It was definitely a quick read and I flew through it. If you’re looking for a completely different take on a twisty thriller, this is the book for you.

As a big fan of My Lovely Wife, I couldn't wait to read Samantha Downing's latest book, He Started It. While I didn't love it as much as My Lovely Wife, I found it thoroughly engaging. With alternating time frames, well developed characters and suspenseful twists and turns, I couldn't put it down. Nothing is as it seems, no one is really who they seem, and the plot doesn't fully resolve itself at the end. An enjoyable character driven thriller. Strongly recommended

He Started It involves siblings about to inherit millions of dollars, with a catch; they have to reenact a childhood road trip they took with their late Grandpa in order to be given the money. Weird stipulations, am I right? Well, it just gets stranger from there.

The true motives of the characters are not made clear right away, but the main character repeatedly teases the reader with little words here and there to create a foreboding quality to the narrative. Mystery drips like honey from the pages, and not too far into the story, things start to take a sinister turn, and the thrills begin.

This is one of those books that I wanted to finish in one sitting. Any time I had to stop reading, I was thinking about the plot and what was going on and couldn’t wait to resume.

I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Wow! This novel centers around a dysfunctional family and a reenactment of a disastrous road trip taken in order to earn an inheritance. The characters are initially loveable, but their true characters emerge shockingly throughout the story.

I love this novel. It is a fun read

I don’t usually finish books in one sitting, but when Samantha Downing writes them, I do. The wickedly appealing protagonist, the short chapters and the writing style were all conspirators in making He Started It an unputdownable read.

Grandpa’s rules are clear: go on “the” road trip, scatter his ashes at the end, and only then will his estate be divided between the Morgan siblings. The story is in the form of a dark family drama, moving at a slow pace, keeping us intrigued with dysfunctional family dynamics and suspicions happenings, while steering our attention away from what’s really going before it COMPLETELY skyrockets towards the most unpredictable, badass ending - which I think the author absolutely nailed.

What to expect from the characters: Beth is not your typical protagonist (she’s not here to please the reader, she has a story to tell and a plan to follow, and by the end, it’s up to you to decide whether she’s someone worth rooting for), and the remaining characters are unlikable, despicable, but they’re deliciously crafted in a persuasive way that it’s such a pleasure to follow their journeys and get the urge to know what happens to them next.

He Started It builds and builds until the gasp-worthy ending, one I don’t think I’ll be able to get over anytime soon. Is it too early to ask for another Samantha Downing thriller? How will she blow our minds away next?

Twists and turns and unreliable characters are everywhere in this book about siblings retracing a road trip from 20 years before to lay their grandfather's ashes to rest. Beth is the narrator and the middle child. She and her siblings (and two spouses) are on a cross-country road trip - the same journey they took as children with their Grandpa. If they can get his ashes to their final resting place, they stand to inherit millions of dollars.

Money isn't the only thing fueling this trip. Their eldest sister, Nikki, went missing at the end of their childhood trip. Beth has never stopped looking for her. Between the stresses of the road, the desire for money, and the loss they still feel for their sister, you know it can't end well.

This was a page-turner, to be sure. It ends ambiguously, so if that isn't your idea of good ending, be prepared.

My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the advanced reader's copy in exchange for an honest review.

He Started It is a fast-paced family road trip that you will not see coming! Fans of Netflix's hit show Bloodline will want to check this one out. Three siblings that haven't seen each other in years are brought back together when their very wealthy grandfather dies and leaves a mysterious message in his will that forces the siblings to go on a cross-country road trip in order to secure their inheritance. The trip is a repeat of a trip they took with their grandfather many years ago as children. Each of the siblings has secrets they are keeping from each other. Plus, is that black truck following them? Plenty of obstacles ensue and what results is an engaging thriller that will keep readers guessing. There is even a nice layer of humor throughout the dark story. Highly recommended to readers who enjoy a family drama mixed with a fast-paced thriller.

This is a twisted family road trip to claim an inheritance. Full of secrets, lies and clues to a previous road trip that changed the family forever. It keeps you reading and wondering who is telling the truth and who is lying?

A definite page turner that had me on the edge of my seat. The ending was a big surprise although I was really hoping for a different outcome. You will never look at family stories the same way after reading this!

I did not like this!!!!!! I loved The Lovely Wife. It was one of my favorite thrillers of last year. And this was so lackluster compared to that one. It was an interesting premise and the plot had promise. But this fell so flat - the writing felt different, the ending felt off. Overall I’d recommend people stick with The Lovely Wife and skip this.