Home Is Where the Bodies Are
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4.2 • 844 Ratings
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
A New York Times and USA Today bestseller
From #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Perfect Marriage and You Shouldn’t Have Come Here comes a chilling family thriller about the (sometimes literal) skeletons in the closet.
After their mother passes, three estranged siblings reunite to sort out her estate. Beth, the oldest, never left home. She stayed with her mom, caring for her until the very end. Nicole, the middle child, has been kept at arm’s length due to her ongoing battle with a serious drug addiction. Michael, the youngest, lives out of state and hasn’t been back to their small Wisconsin town since their father ran out on them seven years before.
While going through their parents’ belongings, the siblings stumble upon a collection of home videos and decide to revisit those happier memories. However, the nostalgia is cut short when one of the VHS tapes reveals a night back in 1999 that none of them have any recollection of. On screen, their father appears covered in blood. What follows is a dead body and a pact between their parents to get rid of it, before the video abruptly ends.
Beth, Nicole, and Michael must now decide whether to leave the past in the past or uncover the dark secret their mother took to her grave.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
In this riveting thriller, a woman must sift through the darkness of her family’s past sins. For Beth, it all begins when her dying mother’s last words seem to imply that there was more to her father’s disappearance seven years earlier than she realized. Soon, Beth is joined by her brother Michael (who’s hugely successful in tech) and sister Nicole (who’s struggling with drug addiction), so the three can piece together the horrifying truth. With POVs that hop from sibling to sibling, author Jeneva Rose takes the family through shocking twists as they navigate their shared mystery. And through it all, she explores clever themes about just how the desire to protect our loved ones can drive some to justify the unthinkable. A full cast takes on the narration, making the family dynamics feel lived-in and real. As both a family drama and a nail-biting thriller, this story will chill you to the bone.
Customer Reviews
Great twists
Hard in the beginning but once it picks up…
Good book!
I enjoyed listening to this! I liked the different character POV’s, and the ending was really good.
1 Star
Home Is Where the Bodies Are by Jeneva Rose was a huge letdown. The premise sounds promising, but the execution is painfully slow and, honestly, boring. Very little actually happens for long stretches of the book, and when something finally does, it’s rarely surprising.
The pacing drags hard, chapters feel repetitive, and the tension never really builds. What should have been a suspenseful family thriller turns into endless inner monologues and recycled secrets. The characters are flat and unlikable without being interesting, and their motivations feel thin and convenient rather than believable.
The twists are predictable if you’ve read even a handful of domestic thrillers, and the payoff doesn’t justify the slog to get there. By the end, it felt less like a shocking mystery and more like a chore I was determined to finish out of spite.
If you like very slow burns with minimal suspense, this might work for you, but if you’re looking for a gripping, page, turning thriller, this one misses the mark.