A Beautiful Family was a captivating, coming of age story taken from the point of view of Alix, a curious ten year old girl, while on holiday with her family. Alix’s family has always been that cookie-cutter family with seemingly no issues. However, her mom has the family break their typical routine and go to a different location for their holiday this year. Once there, things begin to crack at the surface. Alix meets a new friend, Kahu, and they make it their quest to solve a mysterious murder of a girl in the past. Alix’s older sister starts hanging out with the wrong crowd and getting in trouble- something Alix had never seen her sister do before. Also,, Alix’s mother is seen meeting with a man on the beach often.
doesn’t quite know how to process all this since it’s not how she has always known her family members to function.
I enjoyed the book and was hooked into the relationships between each character. I thought back to my childhood friendships as I was reading the point of view of Alix and her immersed in the “detective” work she performed with Kahu. You always saw the struggle of sibling/parents in the sisters’ loyalty to one another.
If anything to note, I would have enjoyed more from the ending. Thanks so much for allowing me an early copy!

I really wanted to love this more than I did, but it ended up being middle of the road for me. I did love the writing, however, especially for a debut, so I'd read from this author again. I don't mind an ambiguous ending but this one really left me feeling unsatisfied overall. I also think it suffered from some pacing issues throughout. But I thought the suspense and setting were well done.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC for review.

This novel is a slow character study. Narrated by a ten-year-old, this is set in Australia in the 1980s. As narrated by a child, you have to read between the lines to get a full picture of the drama in her family's lives. They are in a beach rental for a few weeks, dealing with family betrayals and a sketchy neighbor. It was fine, but the ambiguous ending didn't have a full explanation for some of the plot points so I just wish there had been more firm resolution.

I liked the characters and the progression was fine but there were too many holes left at the end. In fact most of the story you had to assume what was happening.

At times this book was a nice, easy read about a family summer vacation in the mid-1980’s, yet at other times it was fraught with mystery and suspense! Set in New Zealand, I even learned some new vocabulary. Great book!!

I picked this one because I really liked the cover, and I thought the plot sounded like a really good, easy to follow book I can read while I sunbathe.

The author did a great job with the narrative voice. However, the story lost its steam quickly and didn’t keep me pulled in the entire time. I found myself struggling early, and I sped read til the end to finish because I just wasn’t enjoying it.

Can two youngsters solve a mystery that no one else has? Great lessons of friendship and trusting your instincts!

This was a slow burn kind of book. I enjoyed the story and the nostalgic feel. Thank you for the opportunity to read!

A story told through the eyes of a child is an experience that adds a whole new layer of emotion to a story. Seeing the things they see and experience and what they think those mean adds so much emotional depth. This was a heavy read for that reason, and it was also a beautiful one. It was one that kept me reading and feeling as this kid tried to figure out what was going on both in their life and throughout the community and also where they fit in. Thanks to NetGalley for the look at this June 2025 release.

This may be my favorite book of 2025 so far! I loved the New Zealand setting. I felt like I was eating sausages right along with them. It did a great job of having a child narrator without it feeling childish or too all knowing. It really hit all the parts of childhood—family dynamics and friendship while also weaving in a mystery.

This book was everything I wanted at the time! It was a slower paced book not fast paced and sometimes that is just what I'm craving. I enjoyed the setting, story line and characters. I loved that we were set in a certain time period with all the nostalgia! This book is the absolute perfect summer read, so go grab a copy from your library or bookstore and carve out reading time. I promise you will not be disappointed!

**A Beautiful Family by Jennifer Trevelyan** is an engaging, emotional novel about a seemingly perfect family whose polished facade starts to crack after a shocking revelation. It’s a story full of secrets, shifting loyalties, and what it really means to protect the people you love. Trevelyan weaves the characters' perspectives beautifully, making you both root for and question them. It’s the kind of read that’s hard to put down—heartfelt, tense, and ultimately hopeful. Perfect if you love family dramas with a touch of suspense!

This was a well-written family/coming of age drama. I enjoyed it, but was a little disappointed in the ending, Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A Beautiful Family is an impressive coming of age debut novel. The 1980s nostalgia, the New Zealand beach setting and the story being told from the POV of a 10 year old girl, all come together beautifully.

There is so much our young protagonist is navigating during her family’s monthlong beach holiday. From her parent’s relationship, her older sister’s rebellious attitude, her new friend, Kahu, and the mysterious disappearance of a child two years prior to the creepy older neighbor, there’s a lot to process for a young girl.

I especially enjoyed that not everything is tied up with a neat bow. Just as in real life not every little thing receives a tidy explanation.

I really wasn't to sure what to expect going into this book and being gifted it means I didn't even know a description before hand. Once I started this book though it really drew me in and I felt myself waiting on baited breath as the intensity was amazing and continuosly growing even from the beginning. This was a fantastic mystery story unlike anything I have heard of before. There were two different time lines of this story, the first one being the disappearance of a young girl, Charlotte 9, and what happened and how the family reacted. Then we are fast forwarded years later to two young girls, Alexis 10, and Vanessa 15, who go vacationing on the same beach and soon make it their mission to figure out exactly what happened to the little Charlotte. While I normally don't like books with to many time jumps I do feel that this story was necessary and would have been able to be written any other way. This book so very intense however the dark subjects were written so beautifully that even though it was hard emotionally it was simply linguistically. I loved the characters but my favourite was watching the two children get involved in the missing girl. With the rest of their family going on their own ways trying to figure out their own stuff it really left the girls with lots of freedom to entertain their curiosity. This book will pull you in from the start desperate for answers and time will completely slip away while you are reading it. With so many secrets to discover this is the kind of book that will leave your mind going a hundred mulled an hour just desperate for answers Great read unlike anything I expected in so glad I got the chance to check it out

I loved this beautifully written debut! It’s a gripping family mystery set over one sweltering summer, with the younger daughter determined to untangle the secrets surrounding them. Tense, emotional, and full of suspense. I couldn’t put it down. Huge thanks to NetGalley for the chance to read this early!

A Beautiful Family by Jennifer Trevelyan was a wonderful and entertaining read that I finished in a few hours.
A well written story that kept me hooked from the very beginning.
The characters draw you in and keeps you flipping the pages.
The characters were all realistic and very well developed.
I really enjoyed the writing style. I found myself hooked, turning the pages.

Is 2025 the year of the amazing debut or what?

In 𝘈 𝘉𝘦𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘍𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘺, Jennifer Trevelyan takes us on a monthlong summer vacation (in December) to a beach town in New Zealand in the 1980s. The 5 year age difference between the 10 year old main character, Alix, and her older sister has them squarely set in two separate stages of their development: where one is solely focused on listening to her favorite cassette on repeat, the other is just as obsessed with sneaking out to participate in illicit teenage activities.

Just when it seems like a shoplifting incident will be the dramatic precedent of the summer, Alix and her new vacation bestie make it their daily mission to collect clues related to a missing 9 year old girl. Much of this investigation goes without notice as everyone else is preoccupied with their own selfish desires. Except for the creepy neighbor. He notices…and documents…

I bumped this book up to the top of my stack simply because I saw “summer” in the synopsis. My brain associates summer books with a light mood and breezy reading experience. This was not that. Every secondary character shows us a different side of humanity’s ugliness. My heart especially hurt at the damage infidelity can do to a family: 𝘐𝘵 𝘵𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘢 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘶𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘻𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘦 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘰𝘸𝘯. 𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦. 𝘕𝘰𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘴 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴. 𝘕𝘰𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘴 𝘔𝘶𝘮, 𝘋𝘢𝘥. 𝘕𝘰𝘵 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘣𝘢𝘯𝘥, 𝘸𝘪𝘧𝘦.

Thanks to NetGalley and Doubleday Books for an ARC in exchange for my honest review. I can’t wait to read more from this author!

A big thank you to Doubleday Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC! I had a great time reading this book! There was such a unique plot and character development. There were some pieces that could use a little cohesion, but overall, it was a great book!!!

Nostalgic and evocative, A Beautiful Family is a coming of age mystery set over summer vacation in the 80s. In the vein of The Last Summer of the Camperdowns, with a touch of Dirt Creek, A Beautiful Family tells the story of 10 year old Alix, who tries to solve the mystery of the death of a local girl.

There's a lot happening in this story, and I'm not totally convinced everything came fully together in the end but I really enjoyed the atmosphere it called to mind and I think it would be the perfect summer read for those who want a touch more substance and suspense in their vacations reads.