I loved this book! Following Charley’s story, while simultaneously learning about the Bishop sisters, kept me guessing the entire way. I loved the build up and character growth, especially.

I loved Jamie Day's "The Block Party" so I was excited to receive an advanced reader copy of One Big Happy Family!

The Bishop sisters are all in town at their family owned Maine hotel for the reading of their father's will, but there is a destructive hurricane on the way. Charley, the young maid, worries her job is in jeopardy, but decides to ride the hurricane out with the Bishop family. As secrets are uncovered and information comes to light Charley starts to realize losing her job is the least of her concerns.

I was craving a thriller, and this one just didn’t do it for me. The setting was ABSOLUTELY there- I love a locked door thriller, especially at a hotel during a hurricane. However, the plot seemed to just entirely drag on for me. I don’t know if it was because of like unnecessary plot lines, or how the book was broken down into 4 different parts but it just felt really slow and predictable.

My first book by this author. I enjoyed the story like but I like my thriller fast paced & twisty. This did not meet those expectations, but the story is still good!

❤️thanks to NetGalley & the publisher for approving me for this arch

a very well done and unique closed door murder mystery
lots of chaos and family drama with shocking secrets revealed up until the very last page!
enjoyable and suspenseful!

A slow starter, this quickly picks up the pace and it becomes difficult to tell the truth from fiction. Charley, a strong, independent woman, is supporting her Nana at a nursing facility and works a low paying maid job for a 'handsy' older, wealthy man at his business, The Precipice Hotel. The story becomes more involved after the owner dies and the daughters arrive to discuss the will and the future of the hotel. Just enough characters that they are easily tracked; they have well developed personalities with all of the normal human flaws and foibles. Perhaps Charley is the most honest and likable of the crew, but no one in this book is what they appear to be. And what an interesting twist at the end! Great story with enough suspense to keep me reading well into the night.

My ARC was provided by the publisher and NetGalley, the opinions expressed herein are strictly my own.

This book was so much fun. It felt fast paced from the start. I was constantly torn on which character I thought was worse and the bad guy. There were twists throughout. The ending was fast and kept me hooked.

Jamie Day DID IT with this one!! I couldn't put it down, I was so enthralled. I even bought her debut after reading this!

Ebook/Mystery: I really didn't like this book, mostly because the main character was a complete idiot. I looked up the laws for foster children in Maine, and it was easy to find out huge problems. Either Charley is an unreliable narrator or an idiot. After being orphaned, Charley somehow gets to live with her Nana with early Alzheimer's. She is dead broke and does collect SSI for herself as an orphan or her disabled nana. If Nana when into a home, as she should in her advanced condition, Charley should have went into foster care, where she would have gotten a free education until she was 23. Instead she steals. Didn't the author ever watch Bones. That's how Brennan gets an education.
She also leaves her Nana alone, a lot. When Bree needs a place to stay, Charley hides her in the hotel, during a hurricane instead of a) asking management to comp her a room for her Nana or b) tell Bree to stay with her Nana during the storm. I just couldn't finish the book at that point. I figured Charley would get part ownership of the hotel and that why the sister want to kill her.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ .5

Read if you like:
🏬 short chapters
🏬 dual POV
🏬 dual timelines
🏬 hotel maid mystery
🏬 family inheritance drama
🏬 “who-dun-it” murder mystery ❤️❤️

I absolutely loved Jamie Day’s debut novel, so I have been very excited to dive into this one! This was definitely a slowwwww burn, but for whatever reason I was hooked on the story right from the start ❗️❕
I very much enjoy when books use different formats to tell this story. This one was obviously regular story telling, but also included texts back and forth between the characters. I really enjoy this because even though the first part is only single POV, it allows us to see a little tiny bit into other character’s perspectives.
I absolutely love dual timelines!! Especially when the story jumps back and forth… it’s like giving us little tiny pieces of the puzzle slowwwwwly, and then in the end everything comes together and makes sense 😁
I really really enjoy “who-dun-it” style murder mysteries… when you have a cast of characters and then you have to figure out who was the murderer. I barely ever get it right, but I really love trying 🤪
For the first halfish of this book, I was thinking it was just a single POV, mostly single timeline; BUT THEN part 2 started, and I got to learn muchhhhhh more to the story 💕💕
I reeeeeeeeeally loved how everything came together in the end!!! 4.5 ⭐️!!! I cannot wait to read more and more from Jamie Day!!

Here is your summer beach read. Set at the Precipice hotel, the three Bishop sisters come home after their father passes away. Add in the chambermaid who also lives at the hotel, Charley Kelley and an unexpected hidden guest in the hotel during a hurricane. What could really go wrong?

There are lots of unexpected twists and turns in this one.

Thank you to Jamie Day and St. Martin's Press for an ARC of this book.

This book had all the elements of a great thriller. For me it was less than suspenseful. The twists and turns weren't all that paramount. The characters were well written aan interesting. However, some of the things they did did not make sense to me. It felt as it followed a formula of writing to me. It was a fine book but not up to the quality of her previous book.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for this arc. I didn't like this one as much as I hoped I would.

In a market saturated with thrillers, it’s a challenge to write one that stands out among the rest. That isn’t a carbon copy of the same formula with different motivations and names. Jamie Day succeeds in writing a fresh, engaging thriller in her upcoming release, One Big Happy Family.

This was very Clue-esque with a whole host of possible suspects and motives. I am a huge fan of locked room thrillers where anyone could be the killer. What made this story unique, was the added history and background of the Bishop sisters. I really enjoyed learning more about them and what had happened to them during the twenty years after leaving The Precipice.

Charley is a great MC, and unlike other thrillers, is was immediately clear she was a reliable narrator. In many ways she’s both the heroine and the victim of the story. The side characters were all phenomenal as well, especially Rodrigo. Overall, this was a fun story that kept me on my toes with all the twists and turns!

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

One Big Happy Family is slow to start but by the middle of the book, it had me sucked in. The story revolves around the Bishop sisters as they return to their childhood home, a hotel on the coast of Maine, for the reading of their father's will. Additionally, we meet Charley, the chambermaid, who has a complicated back story of her own. As the story goes along, it becomes clear everyone has dark secrets and no one can be trusted. The first 30 percent of the book is all character development and left me waiting for something to happen. However, by the end, there were several twists I never saw coming. Overall, a good read!
This review was also posted on Goodreads.

Thank you for the advanced copy. I really liked this book. The characters were likable and interesting. I couldn’t put this one down. I had to find out what was going to happen. The flow of the book was well-done. It motivated me to read her other book The Block Party. Again, thank you!

I, like other reviewers, feel that this one falls flat. I liked her previous work, The Block Party, more. This one is the story of a historic hotel and the family that owns it, coming together after the death of the patriarch. The family is disjointed and the twists are somewhat hard to follow. I found myself clicking through just to see how it all ended.

Old lies and new ones join together to form more than a murder mystery. The characters are well written and the story is twisted. You never know what is going to happen and throw in a hurricane and suspicions compound. Very engaging.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This has all the elements of a locked room mystery. The cast is in a creepy hotel. A raging hurricane has them trapped. The family members are extremely dysfunctional. And the heroine is desperate. But it's not a boilerplate story. There are plenty of surprises and twists to keep you reading.

A family owned hotel in the coast of Maine. The Bishop sisters come together for the weekend to claim the home. There is a hurricane heading their way. Adding a chambermaid who is ion a bad spot and some secrets and you have a fun time. I found the characters to be interesting and found myself drawn into this quaint hotel where mysteries abound!