Thriller Thursday Reviews: Dear Hanna & The Family Experiment

Hi, Sharon here with another Thriller Thursday post. I am so excited to share my thoughts on Zoje Stage’s Dear Hanna and also John Marrs’ The Family Experiment. I love both of these authors and always look forward to reading their newest releases.

Author: Zoje Stage

Publication Date: August 13, 2024

Publisher: Thomas & Mercer

Zoje Stage’s Dear Hanna was one of my most anticipated books of 2024. I loved Baby Teeth and was so excited when I saw that Stage was writing a sequel. I couldn’t wait to find out what became of Hanna in her adult life, and I am happy to report that Zoje Stage did not disappoint with Dear Hanna.

When Hanna was seven years old, she tried multiple times to kill her mother. Hanna was a very disturbed child, but after therapy she has been able to curb her dark thoughts, well for the most part. Hanna is now twenty-four and works as a phlebotomist, which is perfect for her for when she feels the need to inflict harm in people, she just gives them extra jabs while trying to find a vein. LOL! It is at work that Hanna met widower, Jacob and his teenage daughter, Joelle. Hanna and Jacob hit it off and within a few months they were married. Everything is going great for a few years, but then Joelle comes to Jacob and Hanna with some news, and the perfect world that Hanna has built starts to slip out of her control. Hanna’s dark thoughts come back with a vengeance as she tries to find a way to get her perfect family back under her control.

I loved grown up Hanna. She really is damaged and in this book I could not help but have sympathy for her. Sure, she is plotting to take people out and some of her ideas were bizarre, but I think if she had the love and support of her parents and kept up with the therapy she needed, she would have been okay. I loved how Stage was able to make Hanna a protagonist that was such a sociopath, but also a protagonist that I was rooting for.

The first half of the book was a slow burn and we got normal Hanna. But then halfway through the book, after Joelle breaks her news, the paced really picked up and we got psycho Hanna.

As much as I loved getting to know Hanna again, I also loved the letters between Hanna and her younger brother Goose. Goose is the only one that loved Hanna for who she was. In the letters, Hanna and Goose would bounce ideas around on the best way to get rid of someone without getting caught.

There was a reveal at the end that though it didn’t take me by surprise (I kind of figured that was where it would go), it still made me gasp and brought tears to my eyes.

While Dear Hanna is considered a stand-alone sequel to Baby Teeth, and Zoje Stage does a great job of giving enough back story on Hanna, I would still recommend reading Baby Teeth first. I think getting to know Hanna as a seven-year-old and then getting to know her as an adult is the way to go.  Dear Hanna was everything I was hoping for and if Zoje Stage wants to write another sequel (hint hint), I would not be opposed to getting more Hanna.  4 ½ stars

Author: John Marrs

Publication Date: July 9, 2024

Publisher: Hanover Square Press

John Marrs’ newest book, The Family Experiment, is set in the same world as, The One, The Marriage Act and The Passengers. In a world where most people can no longer afford to start a family or raise one in, one company, Awakening Entertainment, has developed software where couples can access the metaverse and create and raise a virtual child. To launch this new technology, Awakening Entertainment has created a reality TV show called, The Family Experiment. The show will follow five couples and one single dad who will raise a virtual child, from birth to eighteen years old, condensed into a nine-month period. Viewers will pick their favorite and at the end of the nine months, the winner will be able to keep their virtual child or have them deleted and take the prize money to start a real family of their own. What could go wrong?

When the story opens, we are introduced to all the contestants: Rufus and Kitty, Selena and Jade, Cadman and Gabriel, Woody and Tina, Dimitri and Zoe, and single dad Hudson. Rufus and Kitty are eliminated right away, when there was an accident with their virtual child. All the other contestants have secrets that they do not want anyone to find out. And what juicy secrets they are.

I loved getting to know each contestant and watching them interact with their virtual child. Hudson was my favorite. He is twenty-two and his virtual child is Alice. Hudson is not in the contest to win the prize, he wants to expose something, which we don’t find out until the end of the book what it is. But I loved watching him with Alice. For someone who was not in this for the child or money, he was a great dad.

Cadman and Gabriel were my least favorite couple, well Cadman mostly. Cadman is a social media influencer, and he is in this contest for the money. He makes some very questionable decisions, and I just hated him.

Dimitri and Zoe had a son years ago but lost him. This contest is their only chance to be parents again. They seem like a nice couple, but behind closed doors they are anything but.  Someone knows their secret and has been sending them threatening letters.

Woody and Tina are another couple that seem nice, but they are hiding a dark secret in their basement.

Rounding out the contestants are Jaden and Selena. Selena is not very motherly and does not connect with her virtual child as much as Jaden does. Jaden has a stalker, that is about to explode their world.

I really cannot say much about what happens in the book, but I will say that as I was reading, I kept thinking “I could never go on a show like this, knowing that if I lose, the child I was raising and loved would be deleted right before my eyes.”

As usual, John Marrs has created an intense futuristic story that kept me glued from beginning to end. And one that also made me think “Yup, I could see virtual families unfortunately becoming a thing one day.”   I definitely recommend The Family Experiment.  4 ½ stars