Michele Packard has done it again—but not in the way you’d expect. I’ve read everything she’s written, and Family Ties is not even remotely in the same wheelhouse…and I am absolutely here for it. This book is a barn burner, the perfect genre mashup of psychological thriller and horror, with a tension that grips you by the throat and refuses to let go.
The patient’s journal entries are chilling and disorienting, and the fact that the book is split into two parts only heightens the madness—you’re constantly questioning whether you’re reading the truth, the dangerous unraveling of lies, or if you’re the one losing it. Packard leans hard into the unreliable narrator trope, and she nails it. The ambiguous, unpredictable ending left me reeling and clutching the book with a million questions—will there be more? Can there please be more? Family Ties is the kind of story that makes you want to text your bookish friends at 2 a.m. just to scream, “you are NOT ready for this ending.”
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Purchase Family Ties
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Barrington Books
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