Clara’s Verdict
Daniel Hurst is prolific, and in the psychological thriller space, prolific can be a warning sign. It needn’t be here. I Want Your Family is the first book in The Hunt Family series, and it does what the best domestic thrillers do: it takes a situation of apparent suburban normality and introduces a threat so focused, so implacable, and so utterly convinced of its own righteousness that the effect is deeply unsettling. Luna, the delivery driver who has decided that Sadie Hunt does not deserve her life, is written with the internal logic of the truly dangerous obsessive. Helen Keeley gives her a voice that is terrifyingly reasonable. An excellent opening to what promises to be a compelling series.
About the Audiobook
Published by Bookouture, I Want Your Family unfolds from the perspective of Luna: a woman who has been watching the Hunt household for long enough to have formed very firm opinions about who deserves to be in it. Sadie Hunt is failing, in Luna’s assessment – too cold, too distracted, not grateful enough for the husband, the house, the children. Reid Hunt, by contrast, is everything a man should be. Luna’s conviction that she belongs in Sadie’s place, and her increasing willingness to act on it, drives the novel through 8 hours and 5 minutes of mounting dread. Hurst structures the book around the classic thriller technique of dramatic irony – we know what Sadie does not – and the tension this generates is considerable. The series is designed to continue, and readers have already noted that the first volume does not resolve everything.
The Narration
Helen Keeley narrates, and she is extremely effective at what is a genuinely difficult task: giving voice to an unreliable narrator whose self-deception is total. Luna is convinced she is the victim; Keeley conveys both that conviction and the horror beneath it, never tipping into pantomime villainy. The result is a narrator you can hear reasoning, rationalising, and convincing herself at every step – which is far more chilling than a narrator who simply sounds menacing.
What Readers Say
Reader response has been enthusiastic across all UK reviews. Mags Cooper declared: “Such suspense from start to finish. What a first-class psycho Luna is. Very well thought out story – can’t wait for Book 2.” Ms. D. Sookia found it “finally, something that is unputdownable – I like how the story unfolds.” Teresa Jarvis was emphatic: “Another really good story by Daniel Hurst. Can’t wait for the next instalment – and if Daniel doesn’t sort her out, I might!” One reader noted mild frustration that the book ends without resolution, which is worth flagging: this is a series, and the first volume is designed to pull you into the next.
Who Should Listen?
This is for fans of domestic psychological thrillers in the tradition of Shari Lapena and Lisa Jewell – books where the danger comes not from the darkness outside but from the very ordinary envy and obsession of the person standing on your doorstep. If you’ve enjoyed Hurst’s previous work, this is immediately familiar territory; if you’re new to him, this is a solid entry point into his style. Listen to I Want Your Family on Audible UK and start Book 1 of the Hunt Family series – just make sure you have Book 2 queued up before you finish.
