This is a good book. It does take a while and can be confusing at times.. I enjoyed and would recommend it

I kept persisting with this book because of the reviews promising an exciting and surprising ending, but after I picked it up and put it down about three times, I decided it just wasn't gripping me. The characters irritated me, and I struggled to follow what was going on when and with who. It was disappointing because I read The Nurse a few weeks ago and really enjoyed it, but this was nowhere near as good.

I really struggled to get into this book due to the different characters and timelines, but stuck with it and I’m glad I did.
It’s a dark psychological thriller that is very well written with a good plot.
Overall, it’s a 3 star rating for me, but would recommend to anyone who likes this author.

This is a dark and twisty thriller that will have you turning the pages to find out what really happened.

It took me a little bit longer to get into this thriller than it usually does due to the back and forth between different timelines and characters, but once I did I couldn't wait out to find out what had really happened. The twists in this is good and a lot of unexpected things happen as things began to unravel.

There are trigger warnings for this book so check those out before reading it anything triggers you.

Thank you to Netgalley and Canelo for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

*Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for my honest review*

I loved this book - suspenseful family drama with plenty of mystery and twists. And what an ending!!!

First book by J.A. Corrigan - getting ready to purchase "The Nurse"

Admittedly, this book did take me a minute to get into and to recognize the main characters, but once it started rolling, I was hooked!

The Keane sisters all have secrets - some shared, some unique to each individual sister. While the beginning was more about figuring out who was who and trying to process prior events, the second half takes hold of you and keeps you on a wild ride until the final page!

Perfect for readers who enjoy solid character development and a slow burn!

Thank you to NetGalley for my advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review!

This is a well written very dark and disturbing book. It has a lot of triggers that are discussed very vividly: rape (child and spousal,) infidelity, marital physical abuse, miscarriage, and infertility. This makes for a very heavy read.

This is a psychological thriller, but I really think it is more of a general fiction/drama. I typically do not enjoy these type of books, but this book kept me engaged and the character development was spot on. I was not disappointed, but the book did seem a bit long.

Thanks Netgalley and publisher for the digital copy in exchange for my honest review.

The Keane sisters grew up together at Raven House, a luxurious riverside home that their mother inherited. On the day of a party at the house, tension fills the air as Jess, Natalie and Teresa all fear the exposure of things they’re desperate to hide. The beautiful evening is marred by tragedy, and a celebration turns into a nightmare when a young life is lost. It is a haunting reminder of a shocking event five years earlier.As guests eye their companions with suspicion, it’s the family who have the most to hide. They turn on one another, with breathtaking malice and irrevocable consequences. Years later, the sisters are barely hanging on to the scraps of their relationship. As another family celebration looms, long-held secrets come rushing to the surface. But someone is determined that the past will stay dead and buried, and will stop at nothing to prevent their mistakes being uncovered.

'The Bad Sister' was a book of two halves for me. In the first half, there was a lot going on, and a lot of characters introduced, and Corrigan did not take the time to explain connections. I was extremely confused and lost as to what was going on. This also flits between different times and it is not always made clear if we are in the present or the past, again, unnecessary confusion. However, in the second half, it all became a lot clearer. Suddenly I understood who was who a bit more and was invested in what happened. The second half is a lot more intense and dangerous as well and made for gripping reading.

Character wise, I think it is clear I am going to say they were not developed enough. I did enjoy the individual characters and learning about them and secrets was enjoyable. However, more time needed to be given to introducing them at the beginning as I could not grasp who was who, especially when it came to the sisters.

Stick with this read, it does get a lot better in the second half and transforms into a slick, exhilarating thriller.

Thank you to NetGalley and Canelo for an advance copy.

Whoa! What a ride. It was very fast-paced. The writing style kept me hooked and I didn't find myself losing any interest. I enjoyed getting to know each of the characters and how real the story felt. The author did a great job painting the setting, so it was easy for me to visualize the scene played out before me. I recommend giving this one a chance!

This is a twisty, turny, thriller….a web of tangled lies and deceits in a family that has been divided since a terrible tragedy. Its hard to know who is truly looking out for these girls….

Quite dark, I got right into it, only took me a few days to finish it. A good psychological thriller of a book! Recommend it – be good to take on holidays.

I was super excited to get accepted for this one as I’d been eyeing it up for a while!

I’ll be honest, for me the beginning was a slow start. There was a lot of people involved, lots of names to remember and working out who was who. There was a lot of back and forth between characters and timelines which took me a while to get into.

Once I’d gotten my head around it all and fell into the rhythm of things, I was totally sucked in. The mystery and intrigue surrounding everything had me hooked and needing to know more.

The secrets revealed throughout, with all the twists along the way, though dark and disturbing in parts - were thrilling and exciting. The tension and build up surrounding the sisters and their relationships made for a really interesting read.

Although slow in parts, this was a clever and interesting book and would definitely recommend giving it a try.

I can’t wait to read more by J.A Corrigan. This was intriguing, engaging and thrilling. The plot was cleverly unravelled as the story progressed.

I really enjoyed J. A. Corrigan's previous title The Nurse, and so was keen to read The Bad Sister and it didn't disappoint. The storyline was very much a domestic mystery with hints of a thriller. The first third of the story was a real page turner, the pace did lull a little for me as I moved into the middle of the story, but it then really ramped up again in the final chapters. Overall I really enjoyed reading this title and would definitely recommend.

I really enjoyed this book. It was a little different with some original ideas. It did lag a bit in the middle where I felt there was some repetition, and could have been cut, but overall it was well done and kept me guessing all the way through. I would definitely read another by this author

this is my first book buy this author and I very much enjoyed very gripping and very twisty. there where four sisters. Natalie Jess Teresa and Hope who where twins. but Hope died on Raven Island she was found died they think from climbing a tree. there mother Eva is a hopeless Mum there dad left as she was having an affair with his brother and they have a stepdad Dom. they hit the drugs a lot Eva is very rich .the girl can't wait to leave home Teresa is the 1st to leave at university wants to be a lawyer. each one of them is damaged. on Teresa graduation she gets engaged to Luke and Eva wants to do a party for her at there home on Raven Island but something happens and the girls get divided they all have secrets its so so good

3.5⭐Psychological mystery. A dysfunctional family where everyone's coping with problems strategies are different. Generally I liked the book, but reading it, I was feeling that initially I was given not enough information about at least one of deaths to understand the motivation of the girls. The girls who experienced very traumatising events living in their family, grow up into successful professional women, but unsolved childhood experiences doesn't let them to fully enjoy their life.

I really enjoyed The Bad Sister and found it a real struggle to put it down at times!
The book is told from the perspective of sisters Natalie, Teresa and Jessica and flits back and forth at different times of their lives.
The girls have a tragic upbringing with their emotionally unavailable drug-addled mother and their stepfather. And when the eldest sister Hope dies in a tragic accident, it further divides the already fractured family.
The girls unable to talk to each other or anyone else, never fully disclose their own truths and when another tragic accident happens at the family home, it shatters the sisters' relationship completely.
The writing and development of the story is brilliantly well-paced and cleverly done and ramps up to a shocking ending.
Really enjoyable and will keep you guessing right until the end.
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Thank you to NetGalley, J.A. Corrigan and the publisher for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 stars for this engrossing, traumatic, different thriller~

TW: sexual assault, trauma, violence, domestic abuse

This was a pretty good thriller overall. It was a bit different from that which I usually read, which is refreshing. Parts of this were very complex and traumatic. It read almost like a past/present/future tense kind of thriller, where the reader reads through different periods of time during the saga of the Keane sisters. Some of it was very difficult to read, hence the TW above.*

I felt that this thriller started out very strong, tampered out during the middle, and then ramped up again at the end. The middle was quite traumatic and included much of the aforementioned TW categories above. Instead of feeling on the edge of my seat, I was very much thinking "I hope they get the bad guy/guys".

Thanks to NetGalley and Canelo for getting to read this ARC!

Tense, Dark, Disturbing..
Secrets and lies, deceit and tragedy. An intriguing suspense with a deep familial drama at its’ core. Who exactly is lying, what do they need to protect and how far will they go? Exactly which sister has the most to hide and would they be prepared to kill to keep their secrets close? Well crafted characters and a slow burn narrative combine to create a tense, dark and often disturbing read.

OK, so I'm in the minority here in that I really couldn't get into this book. I wanted to...I liked the premise and I really wanted to find out what the mysterious secrets were surrounding the sisters...but not enough to keep reading a book I was quite simply bored with. THE BAD SISTER began with an intriguing premise and so therefore, it had promise. But that's where it ended...because the story took so long to build any kind of picture that I simply lost interest.

In a nutshell, I hate slow burns. They take too long to build the story and the tension that I could be on an adrenaline-fueled ride with another thriller that has captured my interest from the first page. I have, on occasion, enjoyed a slow burn but it has to be done in a way that keeps me engaged otherwise I'll go looking for something sparkling and shiny elsewhere. Because honestly, I found the entire tale dull. Admittedly, I only got as far as about 25% before I pulled the plug...and to be honest, that is well and truly enough time to have built any kind of tension and drawn the reader in and keep them there.

What I did glean from the story is that we have three sisters - Teresa, the oldest; Natalie, the middle sister; and Jessica, the youngest and most fragile of the three sisters. There is also a mother who perish the thought you would actually call "mum". Instead she had her daughters call her by her given name, Eva. And then there was Dom, the girls' stepfather. This dysfunctional family, because they really are, lived in a a beautiful luxurious riverside mansion called Raven House. Eva is a habitual drug user and I suspect Dom is too, either that or he simply facilitates Eva's drug use. The woman is the worst kind of mother blaming her daughters for the death of Teresa's twin, Hope, five years before on the now embargoed Raven Island. Never mind the fact that the sisters all feel the loss of their other sister. And so as soon as each girl reaches university age, they escape the prison that is their home with Teresa being the first to leave. When she comes home to visit she brings along her new boyfriend Luke, despite warning him about her very strange and eccentric family. Nobody gets along, it's a wonder they even bothered.

Then Natalie's best friend Juno is murdered and Jessica's convinced she knows who did it. But could she be wrong?

Fast forward to the present day and each of the sisters are married but none of them have much at all to do with each other. Teresa is estranged from both her sisters whilst Natalie would rather not speak to her eldest sister at all, if not for her own daughter Hope (named after their lost sister). Jessica still seems to be a walking and, at least now talking, mess. She married a man fifteen years her senior and I'm not sure why because they don't even seem to like each other. Ironically she is a psychiatrist and she has so many issues she is in need of a therapist...which she does in fact have but stops the session whenever it gets too uncomfortable. A bit hypocritical when that's the whole point of therapy. Teresa is a successful barrister and I don't know what Natalie is, besides a mother.

Honestly, I stuck it out for as long as I could before I gave up and tossed it aside. I wanted to know what happened and why they were all a dysfunctional mess but not enough to force myself to read it. For me, the book is slow and boring and uneventful.

I'm sorry to leave a negative review but I honestly couldn't get into this story at all. I liked none of the characters and didn't much care what happened to them. I'd rather someone tell me what happened rather than me having to drag myself through 360 pages. Why leave all the thrilling parts of the story for the last half or last quarter even? That is just too long and too slooooow to drag it out. And that is my biggest issue here...it is far too slooooow. If by 20% nothing is happening, I ditch it. Life is too short for books we don't enjoy.

I would like to thank #JACorrigan, #Netgalley, #Canelo for an ARC of #TheBadSister in exchange for an honest review.

This review appears on my blog at https://stinathebookaholic.blogspot.com/.