Such a Lovely Family

De: Aggie Blum Thompson

Narrado por: Whitney Dykhouse

The cherry blossoms are in full bloom in Washington, D.C., and the Calhouns are in the midst of hosting their annual party to celebrate the best of the spring season. With a house full of friends, neighbors, and their beloved three adult children, the Calhouns are expecting another picture-perfect event. But a brutal murder in the middle of the celebration transforms the yearly gathering into a homicide scene, and all the guests into suspects.

Behind their façade of perfection, the Calhoun family has been keeping some very dark secrets. Parents who use money and emotional manipulation to control their children. Two sons, one the black sheep who is desperate to outrun mistakes he's made, and the other a new father, willing to risk everything to protect his child. And a daughter: an Instagram influencer who refuses to face the truth about the man she married.

As the investigation heats up, family tensions build, and alliances shift. Long-buried resentments surface, forcing the Calhouns to face their darkest secrets before it's too late.

©2024 Aggie Blum Thompson (P)2024 Tantor

so good

Excellent written characters, great story line. The characters are what kept it interesting. Finished nicely.

Never ending plot twists!

Such a great listen, finished in two days. Characters development, twists and turns, scandal, murder… has a bit of everything!

Complex Characters and Easter Egg Details!

I’ve read several books where the cast of characters were one too many killing the story. NOT THE CASE HERE! Each character offers such a rich and complex picture for developing the story, motivations? And the interactions between each other. I also enjoyed all the tidbits or Easter egg details that are used to tie up the ending of a perfectly horrific criminal plot!!

Stellar narration

3.5 STARS

SUCH A LOVELY FAMILY is the opposite of a lovely family in Aggie Blum Thompson’s debut novel. In fact, most of the characters were down right horrible and seemed capable of homicide.

Narrator Whitney Dykehouse did a phenomenal job adding enough campiness to her performance that elevated the otherwise intentionally ridiculous storyline.

B+/A- rating Loved all the diff family members

Lots of unique characters, easy listening, good narrative, fairly predictable but I def recommend it! Kept my attention & finished it in 36 hours.

Narrator Ruined It

Dear Narrator,

When you read the dialogue sections, you’re great! The characters come alive and you give very distinct, believable personalities to each character, which isn’t easy to do.

The problem lies in all of the non-dialogue parts. You seem to be deliberately inserting micro pauses in between each word. The cadence is awkward and really hard to listen to. I could see inserting them on occasion, to emphasize certain phrases. But it’s nonstop.

These micro pauses are NOT present in the dialogue portions, which tells me it’s a conscious decision. I’m not sure if you think it’s needed to differentiate between dialogue and non-dialogue? Or characters inner thoughts?

whatever the reason, it ruined the book for me. I’ve only listened to the first 40 minutes, and am returning the Audible book and will be downloading it to read on my Kindle app instead.

You truly have talent. Your dialogue is phenomenal. But might consider re-evaluating how you’re reading non-dialogue sections. Maybe it’s just me, it’s totally possible. But I couldn’t take it.

Boring

The story was slow, mostly wining and complaining. It similar to other stories, rich entitled adult children that hate their parents and no one character has a redeeming quality.