True crime podcaster Ryan Gracey is stunned when her seemingly perfect older sister Wendy needs her help: There's been a murder for which Wendy fears she will be wrongfully accused, and she needs Ryan's sleuthing skills as well as her assistance in caring for her young daughters while she lies low.
Emilie Richards is well known for...in-depth characterization including subplots filled with mystery and suspense and descriptive detail sure to captivate her readers. A Family of Strangers falls into this category ... This highly engaging tale delves into mysteries as well as kept confidentialities, heartaches, and deep emotions that turn Ryan's whole upside down. Why do loved ones withhold things? Is it because of fear of hurting one or guilt over past misdeeds? Those we should be closest to are not always the ones we are most intimate with as this aptly novel demonstrates.
It’s a beautifully executed mystery with a lovely second-chance romance subplot ... A Family of Strangers was pretty much the perfect book for me. It gave me a really compelling mystery that I was able to solve along with the heroine, a nuanced and engaging romance subplot, and a hero whose pain I could relate it. It’s only June, but I suspect this might be book of the summer for me.
Richards...deftly shifts from women’s fiction into domestic suspense, but she doesn’t sacrifice the emotional acuity that her fans expect. Ryan’s relationships are at the heart of the story, and the few shocking reveals are sensitively handled and presented as part of the difficult process of coming to terms with longstanding family secrets. Readers of relationship-focused domestic-suspense authors such as Lisa Jewell will enjoy Richards’ pivot into the genre.