He Started It

By: Samantha Downing

Narrated by: Karissa Vacker

Length: 9 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's summary

An instant international best seller

"Wholly original. Scarily clever. Completely mesmerizing. You will never look at family road trips the same way again." (Lisa Gardner, number one New York Times best-selling author)

A most anticipated book by Hello Sunshine ∙ Cosmo ∙ Entertainment Weekly ∙ Betches ∙ Hollywood Reporter ∙ Parade ∙ PopSugar ∙ OK! Magazine ∙ Hello Giggles ∙ Bustle ∙ Yahoo! ∙ She Reads ∙ Book Page ∙ CrimeReads ∙ New York Post Best Book of the Week ∙ Goodreads

From the twisted mind behind mega hit My Lovely Wife comes the story of a family - not unlike your own - just with a few more violent tendencies thrown in....

Beth, Portia, and Eddie Morgan haven't all been together in years. And for very good reasons - we'll get to those later. But when their wealthy grandfather dies and leaves a cryptic final message in his wake, the siblings and their respective partners must come together for a cross-country road trip to fulfill his final wish and - more importantly - secure their inheritance.

But time with your family can be tough. It is for everyone.

It's even harder when you're all keeping secrets and trying to forget a memory, a missing person, an act of revenge, the man in the black truck who won't stop following your car - and especially when at least one of you is a killer and there's a body in the trunk. Just to name a few reasons.

But money is a powerful motivator. It is for everyone.

©2020 Samantha Downing (P)2020 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"A twisty, sneaking tale of greed, lies and betrayal, with each character as conniving as the next and an ending that will make your heart stop. This one needs to be on the top of everyone's to-read list!" (Mary Kubica, New York Times best-selling author of The Good Girl and The Other Mrs.)

"A thrill ride through the darkest parts of the American landscape - funny, scary and twisted until the explosive final page." (Michele Campbell, internationally best-selling author of A Stranger on the Beach)

“A tour de force in voice and structure. The brilliant Samantha Downing takes a glorious risk in this superbly captivating and endlessly surprising road trip from hell. It’s sibling rivalry pushed to the max - dark and crazy and twisted - and I could not put it down.” (Hank Phillippi Ryan, USA Today best-selling author of The First to Lie)

Cop out of an Ending. Ridiculous .

The narration of this tale is top -notch. Karissa Vacker joins the ranks of Scott Brick and Xi Sands and David Pittu. Can't say enough about how much I enjoyed her voices.

The story is an interesting tale that takes us across the country with a vehicle full of siblings . The story gets more exciting as secrets are revealed; I could not wait to witness the conclusion.

Now I wish that I had stopped on the last few pages. This powerful piece of work is denigrated with the sophomoric ending.
No, it did t end with "and then she woke up from her dream". That would have been a more satisfying conclusion.

I don't know where her editor was on this one. I was left feeling quite used.

what in the world actually just happened??

Out main character is super annoying and weird and cruel and so is everyone else in this story. She can't see her own hypocrisy and seems to never grow throughout the story, even if she grows for the worst. She's super weird in how she sees her husband, who is literally the only character in the story I actually like. I am really confused about motives and it's a lot happening in such a small book and not fleshed out. And what about Beth's husband? is he just going to be in a lake? How did no one ask why he left without his things? why did no one wonder why she was being so cruel to him through the whole book?? what is actually going on?

So disappointing

I loved Downing’s first book. I was so looking forward to this one. She is, undeniably, a good writer; but the story fell flat for me. The plot was different than any I’ve read and I think it could have been done really well. But fore me in the end, it just never came together in that way that good books do.

horrible ending

I wish I would have read the reviews before I purchased this
I hate books that have a "its up to you" ending. made the whole story not worth it

Disappointing ending

🄰🅄🄳🄸🄾🄱🄾🄾🄺 🅁🄴🅅🄸🄴🅆

𝑯𝒆 𝑺𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝑰𝒕
𝙱𝚢: Samantha Downing / @smariedowning
𝙽𝚊𝚛𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚘𝚛: Karissa Vacker / @karissavacker
𝙶𝚎𝚗𝚛𝚎: Thriller, Mystery, Fiction
𝙿𝚞𝚋𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚑𝚎𝚛: (audio) @penguinaudio / (book) @penguinrandomhouse
𝙿𝚞𝚋𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚑𝚎𝚍 𝙾𝚗: July 21st 2020
@goodreads 𝚂𝚌𝚘𝚛𝚎: 3.53
𝙼𝚢 𝚂𝚌𝚘𝚛𝚎: 🚐🚐🚐 / Vans

𝑺𝒚𝒏𝒐𝒑𝒔𝒊𝒔:

Beth, Portia, and Eddie Morgan haven't all been together in years. And for very good reasons—we'll get to those later. But when their wealthy grandfather dies and leaves a cryptic final message in his wake, the siblings and their respective partners must come together for a cross-country road trip to fulfill his final wish and—more importantly—secure their inheritance.
But time with your family can be tough. It is for everyone.
It's even harder when you're all keeping secrets and trying to forget a memory—a missing person, an act of revenge, the man in the black truck who won't stop following your car—and especially when at least one of you is a killer and there's a body in the trunk. Just to name a few reasons.
But money is a powerful motivator. It is for everyone.

𝑴𝒚 𝑻𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒔:

This was a difficult book for me to rate. For much of the book the story was just okay for me. You have your usual family drama with some sinister background. You have estranged siblings who have to take a road trip after their grandfather dies. It is the same trip they took with him as kids. Things happened on that trip when they were kids.

Now for his last will in testament, their grandfather wants them to complete it again and it's the only way they can get their inheritance. But these siblings are no longer children, they are adults and some of them have been keeping secrets. And there is a feeling in the air that this road trip might become just like the last one.

I was curious about a lot of things with this book. I was wondering which characters were lying, what kind of secrets each of them held and I was curious about the people that were following them. But also, all of the characters were very unlikeable that I literally didn't know who to root for.

I was kinda disappointed in the ending. It was a little far-fetched & unimaginative. Each character had something to surprise you with and believe me it wasn't very clever.

3 Vans / 5 Vans is my rating and I guess I'm good with that. On to the next I always say 😉

Quickly becoming a favorite author

Family road trips are gonna be weird from now on. This book peeled like an onion, revealing layer after layer. It moved quickly and kept me wanting to listen to a little bit more. I ended up listening to it all in under 24 hours!!

Excell narration, deeply unsatisfying ending.

I really liked the story but the end was rushed and deeply unsatisfying. narration is wonderful.

Great book and amazing narrator

Loved the story and the narrator kept me even more interested and made the story even better. Definitely recommend Samantha Downings books!

FANTASTIC

I loved this book. It was clever and very "out of the box". I thought the characters were relatable. Not everyone is either a Cinderella or Step-Mother. Some of us are in between just like all the characters in this book. If you want a mystery with a hell of a twist with REAL people, have a listen. If you want a Disney story, probably pass.

Just WTF!?

I read this book in one sitting and all I can think of is WHAT THE HECK!? I cannot I cannot… that ending was everything; yet nothing. My mouth is open and i just can’t stop thinking if i missed something important about Krista ughhhh excellent book!!