A Beautiful Family by Jennifer Trevelyan

I requested this e-ARC from NetGalley because it's set on Waikanae Beach in New Zealand, where my family is from. However, by the summer of 1985, when this book is set, we'd already moved away. Regardless, I have many memories of Waikanae Beach and the Kapiti Coast.

Up front, I loved it.

'A Beautiful Family' is told through the eyes of 10-year-old Alix, although we don't find her name until right near the end of the book in a tense scene that had me holding my breath. Alix and her family are on holiday at Waikanae Beach, and her days are full of BBQs, dolphin diving in the waves, listening to Split Enz on her Walkman, forming a friendship with Kahu and playing detective.

I enjoyed the 'kiwi-ness' of this book with the location and the unique use of language, with words like togs and jandals and the inclusion of Maori, like Kahu's pounamu, his family's hangi and the rāhui at the lagoon.

The ending of this book is ... undefined, leaving the reader to decide what the resolution is or even if there is a resolution.

If, like me, you enjoy gentle, slow-burn mysteries like Dirt Town by Hayley Scrivenor, Goodwood, Cedar Valley or Clarke by Holly Throsby or The Grapevine by Kate Kemp (some of my favourite books!), then I think you'll also enjoy A Beautiful Family by Jennifer Trevelyan.

A big thumbs up.

Body Count = 1 ('on screen', and although others are alluded to, I haven't counted those.)

Thank you to Allen and Unwin, and Netgalley for this ARC.

How was this a debut? This was so beautifully written and captured the time period and the mind of a ten year old girl perfectly.

Set in New Zealand in the 80's, A Beautiful Family is told from the pov of Alix, a ten year old girl. On the annual family holiday with her mum and dad and fifteen year old sister Vanessa, Alix is aware of a change in her family, her sister is growing up and pushing boundaries and something is going on with her parents.

After meeting Kahu, a young boy on holiday with his family, they form a lovely friendship and decide to set out to find the body of a young girl that went missing, presumed drowned, a few years earlier. Each day they set out and search a new area.

Alix also becomes uneasy after noticing their neighbour watching their house. When he rescues her sister from the surf one day, she wonders if he really is a good Samaritan or if she is right to be wary.

With a sense of unease that grows as this story progresses, I was engrossed in this book and read the last 150 pages in a few hours.

All the angst and innocence of a ten year old was so well portrayed. This gave the story such a beautiful voice as Alix tried to decipher what was happening. I was taken back to my own ten year old self and how I viewed the world - the almost understanding of conversations overhead, the almost knowing of what words meant, the feeling of being between a child and a teenager, the little things you think and do because you think they will affect the outcome of a situation.

While I was a teenager in the 80's, as opposed to a ten year old, the homage paid to the 80's, which was definitely my defining era, was so good to read - Dolly magazine, Walkmans, cassette tapes, sunbaking until you fried, first crushes......ahhh the memories 🥹

Such a fantastic book!

EXCERPT: We knelt by the bed, arranging our treasure in a wavy line across the blue-and-white striped bedspread. But the haul that had occupied our morning and made Kahu's pockets bulge didn't look like much, spread out on a double bed like that. I'd collected a lot of things that I'd thought were bones, down in the dirty sand. Now, in the soft light of the bedroom, I saw that they were just sticks, bleached white by the sun and polished over time.
'They're sticks,' I said, rocking back on my heels.
'We don't know that for sure,' Kahu replied, peering closely at one that was shaped like the letter "T". But I knew that they were sticks, and that Kahu was only trying to make me feel better. Among his finds were a scrap of blue fabric - 'It might be from something she was wearing that day' - and a fingernail we got very excited about, but quickly realised was false, and far too big for a little girl like Charlotte.
It was no good, I wanted to say to Kahu. We were just two dumb kids who knew nothing about anything. The little girl probably wasn't even dead. She'd probably washed up in Australia, alive, or been picked up by a ship far out to sea.

ABOUT ' A BEAUTIFUL FAMILY': Over the course of one sunbaked summer vacation, a family is pulled into a web of mysteries that the younger daughter sets out to solve. At ten years old, she catches more than her parents and older sister suspect. Over their summer break, her mother plans to finish her novel, her father wants to grill and watch cricket, and her fifteen-year-old sister hopes to catch the eye of a local lifeguard. With everyone around her distracted, she teams up with a new friend to solve a mystery that haunts this vacation they'll close the case of what happened to Charlotte, a child who was presumed drowned two years earlier.

But things aren't quite as they seem, and as the children look for clues, they inadvertently dislodge information they wish they'd never uncovered. Are her parents happy together? Is her sister putting her trust in the wrong people? Is their vacation rental as safe as it seems? And when someone else goes missing, the family find themselves at the center of an urgent police investigation.

MY THOUGHTS: A Beautiful Family is one of those quiet books that surprises.

I was instantly entranced, Alix's summer holiday with her parents and sister bringing back memories of similar west coast beach holidays in New Zealand. Black sand, big waves, bbqs and other kids . . . But we never had a mystery to solve, or not one of such magnitude!

It was interesting seeing the world through ten-year-old eyes again; particularly the family dynamics, the watchful next-door neighbor, and Alix's older sister Vanessa, a teenager, and her friends. Alix is a lot more switched on and sees far more than any of them realise. While she doesn't always understand what she sees, had her family known, things may have turned out very differently indeed.

Jennifer Trevelyan has written a blinder of a debut novel. The writing is exquisitely atmospheric and captures the 1980s vibe perfectly - the music, the social mores, the expectations. While Alix is the lynchpin to the novel, Vanessa is the icing on the cake. Her teenage shenanigans provide some memorable moments and open a few doors for Alix.

The characterisation is superb. I felt I knew this family, could have lived next door to them, want more of them . . .

Although I am left with a few questions, I am perfectly happy with that. A Beautiful Family isn't wrapped up neatly in a pretty bow at the end, instead it spills sand and secrets in a trail behind the car as the family head for home.

An author I will be watching with great interest.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

#ABeautifulFamily #NetGalley

MEET THE AUTHOR: The book that first made me want to be a writer was Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. I read it when I was about 14 and it was my introduction to psychological suspense – a pretty great introduction to have!

With a background in photography and children’s publishing, Jennifer is now a full-time writer living in Wellington, New Zealand, with her husband, son, daughter, dog and cat. When not at her writing desk Jennifer can be found in the garden.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Allen & Unwin via NetGalley for providing an e-ARC of A Beautiful Family by Jennifer Trevelyan for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

A slow-burning mystery debut novel, gripping and fast paced.
I thoroughly enjoyed the story from the perspective of a 10 year old Alix.

Thankful to Allen & Unwin and NetGalley for the beautiful ARC.

I had such high hopes with this one. The synopsis was what grabbed me. The writing style I found it hard to connect with, as well as the ending it was disappointing, and I wanted so much more from it.

From carefree holiday to a more disconcerting summer, there is an air of unease in A Beautiful family. Told from the point of view of Alix, a ten year old girl who has been left to find her own enjoyment while her mother walks and types, sister looks for boys and father watched TV with a beer. It is a book full of nostalgic summer adventures, and secrets that slowly are revealed, that sit at the base of your spine. Through Alix’s young eyes, we see more than an adult may, without the ability to thoroughly comprehend. We watch a sisterly bond be tested over and over again, how children make friends and almost lose them, how parents cover up their own secrets, and how to know what and who to tell about suspicions and things that don’t sit right.
Alix’s relationship with Kahu, her new found friend is sweet and fun. They become the solvers of a mystery in the local area, yet the clues they uncover point towards something more sinister, hiding in plain sight, and it is only closer to the end where the implications of Alix’s discovery in particular becomes much clearer and more menacing, especially in proximity to her family and herself. The relationship between Alix and her sister was perplexing. There were moments of closeness, and yet equally moments of distance and conflict drew a sharp divide between them. The level of cruelty in her sister’s biting words was exacerbated with Alix being very unsure where her own loyalties lay – with her sister or her parents.
It was hard not to be pacified by the sleepy sunshine and feel the warmth of the sand and water, and fearful of the darkness of the lagoon, and the eeriness of the backyards and loose paling fences. And in these darker spaces, the tension in Alix’s family simmered away transitioning into something more unsettling. A distinguished novel, with an innocent narration by Alix, quite a refreshing change from the multiple points of view that could have been elicited in this story.

A fabulously written debut novel offers a slow-burn mystery, about an eventful summer family holiday, that changes the entire family. The story is set in New Zealand during the 1980's and is told from the perspective of our perceptive ten-year-old protagonist, Alix.

This atmospheric story evoked nostalgia for lazy family holidays, before internet or smartphones, including shared barbecues, listening to the Walkman while relaxing in the sunshine, plenty of unsupervised time, reading Dolly magazine while listening to a cassette tape, relaxing with crosswords or jigsaw puzzles, wearing jandals to the beach, and making friends with other kids in the same situation.

Jennifer has also deftly captured the innocence, frustration and delight of childhood, as well as the awareness and confusion of observing the fallibility of the adults around them.

Alix wants to enjoy a sun-drenched holiday with her family, although her father prefers to watch the cricket, her mum is often distracted or trying to write a novel, and her fifteen-year-old sister would prefer to hang out with other teenagers. Alix befriends Kahu, and they are determined to uncover the mystery of Charlotte, a young girl who went missing from the area a couple of summers ago.

Despite the story being told from a ten-year old, there is plenty of psychological suspense as Alix is not necessarily aware of the implications of the secrets that she is uncovering throughout the story.

This story explores sibling relationships, family secrets, teenage rebellion, holiday friendships and suspicious neighbors. The writing offers a brilliant mixture of warmth and relatability, alongside the mysterious elements. The ending is rather open-ended, which actually works well for the story,

Beautifully written and very descriptive and detailed story about a family’s summer holiday. Two girls trying to enjoy their holidays with a few dramas along the way. At times the story seemed to drag and the ending happened very suddenly, but it was a good read.