I was very much disappointed in this book. It starts out strong and tends to pull you right in. Then it gets into things that are just not necessary. A lot of pages that to me are just boring.

A family move from California to New York into a house where twenty five years earlier an entire family had been murdered. A local man sneaking around spying on them. He sounds very creepy... The mother has secrets. This family seems fairly typical. Mom, dad and two daughters. The younger daughter of course is beautiful just like her parents and the older looks nothing like them. They meet new friends and the secrets of the house come out. Someone in the family knows something but says nothing. Things are found.

This one just didn't do it for me. I sure was hoping it would. Nowhere near enough surprises or twists. It just didn't do it for me. I did finish it and it was ok. A few things held my interest or I would not have finished it.

Thank you #NetGalley, #WilliamMorrowandCustomHousepublishing for this ARC. This is my own true feelings about this book.

3/5 stars. Read it for yourself and decide what you think. You may love it. It just wasn't that great for me.

I have such mixed feelings about this book. It was an overall enjoyable thriller but not one I’ll ever read again nor one of my favorites. I loved the multiple narrators and the suspense this book had. However, I felt like this book dragged too much and was a bit wordy. There was also so much unnecessary details. It was an overall fun thriller, but it’s not one I would recommend to everyone.

I am just coming off a month’s hiatus from reading/reviewing, and I’m slightly disappointed that this was the book that I picked to start back up with. I found myself pretty underwhelmed by the whole thing, and the writing was very different … usually when stories flip between characters, it’s written in first-person, but these chapters about each character are written in third-person. I just felt like it was a strange way to lay the story out.

As for the story itself, I was totally confused until the ending. In fact, I’m rounding this up only because of the ending; if not for it, I’d have walked away from this book wondering what on earth it was and why I wasted my time on it. A haunted house story? A murder story? A story about families, friends and secrets? The whole book was slightly disjointed, written oddly, and it was so vague that I just couldn’t get invested in it.

Then we get to the ending … there are answers with a couple of the main characters, but it did end quite abruptly and with no answers about some other characters. This left the whole thing feeling incomplete. Why wrote a story and involve major plot lines with characters whose stories never get finished? Were they just filler? This probably would have made a better short story or novella.

I think the only reason this kept my attention was because I was waiting for it to make sense. Unfortunately, it doesn’t start to come together until around the 80% mark. Then, because of a few clues and hints dropped earlier in the book, it became slightly predictable, which led to a less-than-shocking ending. There was a slight twist, but certainly nothing that made my jaw drop.

Overall, this just wasn’t the book for me. The writing was dry, the story was strange, and it dragged all the way to the end. I’m giving this two stars, rounded up to 2.5 because I didn’t totally hate it, but I was slightly annoyed that it wasn’t the book I thought it would be. I’m not sure that I would read this author again, if this is the typical writing style. Reviews from my Goodreads friends vary widely, so I guess it’s a personal preference, but it definitely wasn’t something that I loved.

(Thank you to Wendi Corsi Staub, William Morrow/Custom House and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my review.)

Nora and Kevin and their teen daughters move from LA to Brooklyn, NY, where Kevin has been relocated for a year. They rent a house they later discover has been empty for almost 20 years, after the previous residents, a family of three, were shot and killed in their beds in the house. For some reason, the realtor did not advise them of the house's morbid history.

There are several red herrings in the mystery of the former family's murders, a story that somehow involves the new family as there is an unknown watcher and stalker who freaks out the teen Stacie. There are distractions from the main story as well, as Stacie and her boyfriend take center stage in parts of the book, and the neighbors who befriend the new family also take up enough space that it seems they are a filler for the novel, not adding to the main story. The first parts of the book could be edited toward that end. The last half of the book begins to pick up with events moving the story along.

Still a good read, if you are patient with the first sections of the book.

Best-selling author Wendy Corsi Staub has written nearly 90 novels, most of which are suspense novels. Nora, Keith and their two girls have moved from trendy Los Angeles to New York City for a year. They’ve moved into a Brooklyn row house and all are making friends. From Nora, we learn that all is not well, that she is hiding something from her past. When a weird man, Jacob, starts following their daughter and calling her Anne, the name of a young woman who was murdered in 1994, Nora realizes its time to come to terms with her past and save her daughter. The storyline is complex, but the story moves smoothly with readers easily transitioning all the different threads that are thrown out in the story.

Nora's family has relocated from Los Angeles to New York City area for a year. She hopes this will be a time of healing for her family, and that in an unfamiliar place with no friends they will draw closer to each other. This plan almost immediately goes awry when a very friendly neighbor decides to become their new best friend, and her son becomes a boyfriend to the oldest daughter.

It is obvious from the beginning that there is a mystery involved with the house they have moved into, and fairly quickly they find out it was the scene of a murder. We have a character who was involved somehow in this who is watching the house and the new family that has moved in. We hear from his POV from time to time.

This book started off slowly for me, but I was fairly quickly drawn in to finding out what the mysteries were behind this house and the murders that took place their. What I liked were short and easily digestible chapters that kept me moving through the book. Towards the end of the story I also felt there was a good message about how the daughter begin to realize she didn't want to be controlled by a man.

What I didn't enjoy so much was the story itself fell a bit flat for me. Not a lot happened, and I figured much of it out before it was revealed.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and William Morrow/Custom House for allowing me to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you for my ARC. I enjoyed this book even more than I expected! I finished this in 3 days and it is definitely a page turner. If you're looking for a quick read, this is a good one to pick up.

Overall, I enjoyed this thriller. It's the first book that I've read by Staub, and I enjoyed it enough to be interested in reading more of her novels. The pacing was good for a thriller, and it was unnerving in all the ways that I like from thrillers. I read enough thrillers to have been able to predict some of the plot, but I still enjoyed reading despite this. I'll be recommending this title to thriller readers.

Great read. I actually really enjoyed this story. I knew where is was kinda going all along, but I was still blown away by some revelations. I love when that happens. The writing was fantastic. This is not my first book by the author and will not be the last!

First off I wanted to thank William Morrow Books and the author Wendy Corsi Staub for allowing me early access to this book. I do love a good thriller/mystery book. I enjoyed the way it was written with multiple characters each having their own chapters and perspectives. While I did enjoy the read I felt it to be a little predictable and it didn't give me that heart pounding ending like many thriller mysteries do. Regardless it was a fun book to read and I enjoy the plot line even with the predictableness

Wendy Corsi Staub’s THE OTHER FAMILY was a twisting tale that kept me guessing until the end. Staub uses multiple narrators to tell the story of a family that moved from the West Coast to a house in New York, hoping for a new start and a chance to reconnect as a family… but is the house too good to be true? Of course, it is. Why else could they afford the house?
When strange things start to happen and one of their daughters insists someone is watching the house, things take a shocking turn, and you start to wonder who to believe and what the real story is. It’s a wild ride, and I enjoyed every minute of the journey as it unfolded.
Thanks to the Scene of Crime and the publisher for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of the book. All opinions are my own and freely given.
#TheOtherFamily #WendiCorsiStaub #WilliamMorrow #SceneoftheCrime

I had to read this book because i was dying to know who had a secret! It was super thick with suspense and was a must-read domestic thriller. Imagine your new home was the scene of a triple homicide. Hard pass. But it made for a great book!

The chapters alternate between a few of the characters. The story hooked me from the beginning as I wanted to learn the details of the unsolved triple homicide case. I did have some interest in finding out the secrets of the family member as well. The ending, however, didn't do it for me. It was abrupt and also left many questions still unanswered

This was a rough book to try to read. Even though the author is already an established best seller, the descriptions were cringe worthy and a struggle to read. I was unable to finish this book. I didn't care for the characters and the 'suspense' was very forced.
Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for a free and unbiased review.

This story is completely preposterous. The beginning of the book really dragged. I finally skimmed to the last couple of chapters. Not good. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

This is one of those books that falls into the category of I didn't love it and I didn't hate it. Although a bit predictable, it was an enjoyable read, but it probably won't be that memorable for me long term.

The plot was intriguing. Lots of tension and I was trying to figure out who the narrator was. Loved it except it was rushed at the end.

This book was slightly disappointing for me. I love a character driven story, but most of the characters in The Other Family just didn’t have depth. Overall, the story felt disconnected and was told from too many perspectives to really give a cohesive story. For example, I anticipated Jules to have a bigger role - she was more of a distracting character with potential, but never really did anything for the story except annoyingly defend her abusive son. Lennon was the worst character. He was annoying and toxic but lacked depth, i.e. I could not pick up on his motivation for his actions. Like his mother, I assumed he would have a more sinister role. (Perhaps that he and his mom knew something and we’re going to bring the Howell family down...) There were also some lines in Nora’s chapters that led me to believe Keith was somehow connected to Jules from his days in college based on how Nora says she can’t trust him. While I appreciate stories when you don’t know who to trust, these characters were just distracting and there was no closure on a lot of the conflict they created.

Nora was also confusing as a character because her shift back to Anna felt very sudden after so many years. I didn’t see enough of her internal struggle weighing if she should keep the past hidden vs. confront Jacob, especially since she comes home and Stacy has the photo album. Stacy was not my least favorite character, but so much of her role in the story depended on Lennon and their interactions, which ultimately did not have much influence on the final storyline. We lost the focus of her being a true crime fan, which could have been used in so many ways throughout the book but instead the focus was on her in an abusive first relationship (which was also never addressed for what it was).

Overall, this was entertaining and different from other thrillers I have read, but I was annoyed in most of the book by Lennon, and thus, not as enjoyable a read as I had anticipated.

FANTASTIC new thriller that won’t let you go until the very last few pages!! Great character development and many possible suspects!! Staub at her best.

A psychological thriller. Who is the other family that lived in the house before. Who can you trust? A page turner.