"Secrets make them A Family of Strangers"
Reviewed by Kim Roller
Posted September 26, 2019
Women's Fiction Contemporary
Ryan Gracey receives a call that will change her and her family's lives. A murder, her older sister on the run, guardian to two little girls, and a past that she must face along with the man she loves. Family secrets are revealed, lives are forever changed when A FAMILY OF STRANGERS' secrets are revealed.
Ryan Gracey and her staff are celebrating a recent award win for her podcast Out in the Cold. A call from her older sister puts Ryan on the road to her hometown to look after her two nieces while her sister is on the run from a potential murder charge. She has no idea how to deal with the ten and twelve-year-old girls, and learns how to copy on the fly. While she's in town, Ryan must also work up the courage to apologize to her former boyfriend, Teo Santiago.
With the help of her podcast staff and her best friend, Ryan works to investigate the murder her sister is accused of being involved in, hoping to bring her home. Cryptic phone calls with little information from her sister doesn't do much to move the investigation along. But while she and her best friend are working on a new idea for the podcast they slowly unravel clues to Ryan's sister's past that comes as a huge surprise, and she decides to keep the real reason why her sister hasn't come home from her parents.
Meanwhile, Ryan finds herself falling in love with her nieces and doesn't want to give them up. She's also growing closer to Teo. But as she discovers more and more about her own past as well as her sister's, the whole Gracey family's world is turned upside down. Will they be able to survive this?
I'm not a big fan of the first-person books, but Emilie Richards was able to keep my interest while reading A FAMILY OF STRANGERS. I think it was the surprises coming around the corners, which I kept trying to figure out how everyone and everything was involved together. A FAMILY OF STRANGERS has a few twists and turns that I didn't see coming, which will keep you wondering what problem would crop up next.
SUMMARY
Could a lifetime of memories…be a lifetime of
lies? All her life Ryan Gracey watched her perfect older sister
from afar. Knowing she could never top Wendy’s achievements,
she didn’t even try. Instead Ryan forged her own path while
her family barely seemed to notice. Now Wendy shares two little girls with her perfect husband
while Ryan mourns the man she lost after a nearly fatal
mistake in judgment. The sisters’ choices have taken them in
different directions, which is why Ryan is stunned when
Wendy calls, begging for her help. There’s been a murder—and
Wendy believes she’ll be wrongfully accused. While Wendy lies low, Ryan moves back to their hometown to
care for the nieces she hardly knows. The sleuthing skills
she’s refined as a true-crime podcaster quickly rise to the
surface as she digs for answers with the help of an
unexpected ally. Yet the trail of clues Wendy’s left behind
lead to nothing but questions. Blood may be thicker than
water, but what does Ryan owe a sister who, with every
revelation, becomes more and more a stranger? Is Wendy, who always seemed so perfect, just a perfect
liar—or worse?
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