Title: Last Christmas
Author: Maria Frankland
Publisher: Autonomy Press
Expected publication date: November 10, 2023
The last place that Neil wants to spend Christmas is at his in-laws new house, especially since the whole family seems to be aware that he's a depressed, out of work, alcoholic with a strained marriage. A miserable few days is what he expects. What he didn't expect is that the miserable few days at this in laws house would end up being his last days alive. Now his wife is left to figure out the circumstances of his death. What happened? Who is responsible? Nobody in her family really liked him, but who could hate him enough to want him dead?
I want to state first that I feel a little bit mislead by this being classified as a thriller. To me, it is more of just a family drama. It's an extremely dysfunctional family with a mysterious death looming in the middle of it, but mostly the plot is focused on all of the members of the family taking turns being awful to each other.
I feel that it lacked the suspense and anticipation that drive most thrillers, and I also found that even with all the drama that all the characters brought around, it still fell flat for me. I would have preferred if the characters were developed a little deeper emotionally, so I would have felt more moved by each characters distress.
My lack of strong connection to any of the characters aside, I did enjoy the occasional switch in POV. It was really nice to have a peek into a few of the characters lives, I just wish that it could have been fleshed out more.
Overall, I didn't love this book as a thriller, but it was alight as a family drama. If you're looking for a quick read about an extremely dysfunctional family with a bit of mysterious circumstances around the edges, you might enjoy this one.
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