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Betting Against the Master: A Review of "I Stole Your Family"

Betting Against the Master: A Review of "I Stole Your Family"

I Stole Your Family by Daniel Hurst

My rating: ★★★★★ (5 of 5 stars)

I’ve just finished Daniel Hurst's latest, and once again, I am blown away by his writing style. He plays his cards so well that I honestly wouldn’t ever want to play a game of poker against him!

This story is incredibly tense, largely because there are children involved. While they are physically safe, they are being emotionally torn apart, which is almost harder to read. If you’ve read book one, I Want Your Family, then you’ll know that Book Two is all about the "paving stones." It’s paving the way for the chaos to come, but the ground feels like it’s at a 15-degree tilt—that lingering sense of vertigo where you know things are about to slide.

The whole point of a series is to let the narrative unravel slowly, and Daniel is a master of the slow burn. Your heart is in your mouth, you’re holding your breath, or you’re yelling at a character for being so blatantly blind to what’s happening right under their nose.

Just when you think something truly terrible is about to happen to the characters, the tension breaks—you can stop holding your breath for a second—only to realize things aren't getting better; they’re actually getting much worse. By the end, you’re left shouting, "You have all the clues! Why aren't you doing something with them? Are you all so blindsided?"

I’ll be holding my breath until the final instalment, The Happy Family, drops on April 20th. I have enough faith in Daniel to know he will execute his cards (and his characters' lives) with his signature precision... but then again, he’s so clever I could be proved very wrong!

Check out more from the author or grab your copy here:

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