Clara’s Verdict
Daniel Hurst has built a reliable and apparently inexhaustible cottage industry around domestic psychological fiction, and his signature move – an antagonist of operatic wrongheadedness pursuing a domestic fantasy with terrifying conviction – has never been better deployed than in the Hunt Family series. I Stole Your Family is the second instalment, and the reader consensus is that it improves on an already strong first book. The character development is more layered, the psychological texture is richer, and Luna – one of contemporary thriller fiction’s more compelling unhinged antagonists – is operating at a level of deluded self-conviction that is genuinely unsettling. Clare Corbett’s narration adds considerable menace to the production. If you like your psychological thrillers to feel airless, queasy, and propulsive, Hurst delivers.
About the Audiobook
The premise picks up a year after the events of I Want Your Family, the series opener. Luna – formerly a parcel delivery driver who became obsessed with the Hunt family during her rounds – has achieved what looked impossible: she has installed herself in Sadie Hunt’s old life, charmed her way into Reid Hunter’s affections and home, and is now raising children who are not hers as if she were born to it. Her dream life, the one she constructed through a combination of planning, manipulation, and willingness to cross lines most people would never approach, is apparently intact.
The complication is that Sadie has not disappeared, and the children have not been won over as thoroughly as Luna believes. There are cracks, and they are beginning to show beneath the surface of the perfect domestic tableau Luna has so carefully constructed. What follows operates on multiple points of view – Luna’s triumphant, terrifyingly self-justifying perspective; the perspectives of those she has deceived – and the gaps between these viewpoints produce the genuine creepiness that carries the narrative. Hurst is particularly skilled at making Luna both repellent and readable: she is not presented as simply mad, but as calculating, self-justifying, and possessed of a moral logic that is internally coherent even as it leads to increasingly extreme decisions.
The novel’s twist ending has attracted consistent praise from readers who felt the first book set up a promise and this one fulfilled it properly. The pacing is tight throughout – at just under seven hours, there is no room for the plot to stall, and Hurst takes full advantage of the constraint.
The Narration
Clare Corbett is an experienced thriller narrator who handles multiple points of view with real assurance. Her Luna is particularly well-judged: there is a surface brightness to the character that Corbett captures before allowing the cracks to show with controlled precision, so that each revelation lands with appropriate weight. She voices the other perspectives clearly, giving each a distinct register that helps listeners navigate the shifting sympathies the novel requires. The production quality throughout is clean and professional, and Corbett’s pacing suits Hurst’s prose – both push forward with urgency while leaving room for the psychological moments to register.
What Readers Say
Verified UK readers have given the book a 4.6 rating across 26 reviews, with strong praise running through almost all of them. Several specifically noted that the character development is “more fleshed out and rounded than the first book,” describing it as “an edge-of-your-seat thriller.” One reader called Luna “unhinged and deluded with a touch of a fantasist personality,” noting that “she went to extreme lengths to cover herself up, including murder.” Another described her as “smug, calculating, and completely unhinged – the kind of character who will stop at absolutely nothing.” A detailed review warned newcomers emphatically against starting with this volume: “Do NOT read this review if you haven’t read the first book in the series.” The warning is well-founded, and the fact that multiple reviewers issued it unprompted suggests the series rewards reading in sequence rather than treating each book as a standalone.
Who Should Listen?
Essential for fans of the first book, and accessible as a standalone for listeners who are comfortable with implied backstory. Ideal for anyone who enjoys T.M. Logan’s domestic thrillers, John Marrs’s high-concept narrative twists, or Freida McFadden’s unreliable narrator work. The Hunt Family series occupies a productive space in contemporary psychological fiction: compulsive, slightly heightened, entirely aware of what it’s doing, and extremely good at doing it. If you’ve ever found yourself muttering at a fictional character for their spectacularly poor life choices, Luna will give you ample opportunity.
The audiobook format suits this kind of thriller particularly well – the propulsive pacing, the tight chapters, and Clare Corbett’s committed narration make it difficult to stop at a natural pause point, which is exactly the experience Hurst is aiming for. Whether you listen in one long session or across several short ones, the tension accumulates rather than dissipating between sittings. Strongly recommended for thriller audiobook listeners who haven’t yet encountered the series, and equally for Hurst readers coming to him through his standalone titles who want to experience what he can do with a recurring cast.
Listen on Audible UK: Get I Stole Your Family on Audible UK. Also available on Kobo, Scribd, and Storytel.
