Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

“On the first day of Christmas my in-laws gave to me, a body in the snow and a motive or three…”

GOD did I need this book! I’ve been holding off reading the Christmas books for as long as possible because I always fear I’m too early, but as soon as I grabbed this from Netgalley and saw it on BookBeat, I knew it was time. And I loved it!! I laughed, I gasped, I shuddered, and I felt the need to keep looking over my shoulder… I’m so happy to be sharing my review for 12 Ways to Kill Your Family at Christmas 😈

About the book

All Olivia wanted was one last miserable Christmas with her husband’s awful family before moving to Australia. She didn’t expect a murder.

Now the snow has cut them off and she’s stuck in a stately country house, with her increasingly deranged relatives and the rising suspicion that someone is picking them off one by one.

As the bodies pile up and the festive façade starts to crack, Olivia must survive the season, or, at the very least, get through lunch without anyone else choking on a sprout.

The beginning

As soon as I heard, “sticking Tristan’s netherrod in a chappy chopper” I knew this was exactly what I needed to read. Oh my god how I laughed at that. The humour was instantly so bloody good and I found myself walking down the street giggling to myself while listening to this! Even though this book is hilarious, it’s a murder mystery, so let’s compose ourselves. There we go. Serious face on. Good. Olivia is heading to her in-laws to spend two whole weeks of torture/Christmas celebrations with her husband, Miles and two teenage children. Two weeks, that’s all they had to endure. Then they were off to start a new life in Australia, where they would never have to see this chaotic, deranged family ever again. Once inside Jeannie and George’s stately country house, we meet so many colourful characters who stood out for all the wrong reasons. This family was quite something. The author has nailed this large family dynamic, the inappropriateness, the desire to be above everyone, the snobbishness. But all these qualities made for very entertaining moments… until someone is found dead.

“But it wasn’t that that killed him – no, what finally put an end to his miserable life was when I gave the ladder a good kick from under him and he went crashing down onto the patio.”

As the title of this book suggests, different members of this retched family keep getting killed in the most horrific, yet very Christmassy ways. From falling from a ladder tangled in Christmas lights to getting chopped up by a Christmas tree chopper (grim), one by one, they meet their demise. It was too much of a coincidence for these deaths to be innocent; someone must be very subtly picking their moment to intervene in their lives, to strike at a very precise moment. I was already analysing every character, to try and work out which one of them would be capable of killing their own. And to be honest, I wouldn’t put it past most of them! I really enjoyed trying to work out ‘whodunnit’. I also enjoyed how some chapters start with snippets from the person who is doing the killing. This just made me even more curious about who was behind it all! The author does a great job of making us hate every single member of this family, aside from Olivia, Miles and their children, of course. It was quite weirdly exciting to see how the next family member would die…

The middle

The drama, bloody hell. It all gets worse when there’s talks of inheritance, the battle of who gets what, so much hostility and hatred buzzing in the air and I could feel it all. I loved how Olivia sees everything and everyone, her perspective just peak comedy at times. The author’s balance of British humour with classic murder mystery vibes (+ Christmas) was just spot on and so consistent. Despite the murder, it was such a fun read! Well, even the murders were fun to some extent, each one getting more horrific, more ridiculously Christmassy as time went on. Even though there is such a large cast of characters, I loved how each one gets just enough attention that you can really visualise them and their personalities. All the characters were brought to life so brilliantly through the narration, especially Uncle Fergus! God, the amount of times I laughed at the things he said. From getting snowed in Weiss Manor to more strange deaths as this family dwindles in numbers, Olivia get the strong urge to grab her family and take off. But things were only going to get worse.

“I lay in wait in front of a pillar. As the train came in, her feet strayed over the yellow line. All it took was a brisk walk past her and a nudge. I bet she still tried to land on her best side.”

The book gets surprisingly dark at times, and when the police are called and the realisation hits about just how many deaths have occurred here in such a short space of time, the suspicion starts. And Olivia seems to be at the front of it all. I could feel her frustration at not only being questioned by detectives, but at being in this house in general. At wanting to protect her family when she just physically couldn’t. The more I read this book, the more unrealistic it felt, but I just didn’t care 😂 You would be completely hysterical, unable to function entirely if the people around you were suddenly dying one by one, yet here they were holding gingerbread house building competitions and having parties. Tension gradually built with each chapter from here and it worked so well. Every person I suspected seemed to end up dead, which was strangely satisfying. It seemed the author could just read my mind and threw me off the scent at every possible turn. I was so desperate to know who was doing all the killing and exactly why they wanted to terrorise everyone in such a way.

The end

The time comes where Olivia and her family face unthinkable danger head on which was terrifying. Up until this point they’d escaped everything, every sinister murder right under their noses. But it seemed whoever it was was still targeting the remainder of this family. Who the bloody hell was behind all this? I was so engaged right up to this point and throughout the ending, racing through the pages like I could somehow catch this murderer in the act, or that I would be able to spot something I’d missed before. Obviously, I didn’t, but by this point I had settled on who I thought the culprit was. And I was pretty confident at this stage… everything just seemed to fit. I was thinking about every murder even when I wasn’t listening! Everything was so tense and I was completely living inside this world with these characters – I even increased my audiobook speed so I could get more of it in my ears! I loved how even when the danger was at its peak, it ramps up once again which was so incredibly satisfying. But then WOAH. HOLD UP. What is THIS?

“I found her taking a leisurely morning swim. A pool is not the place you want to be when there’s a psychopath lurking in your midst.”

The twist to top all twists. I was not ready! But I loved it so much! Not only was it a twist I was not prepared to witness, but it was made all the more gripping with a change in narrator for a brand new perspective. It was utterly perfect! I was so genuinely floored by how good it was, and it was so incredibly satisfying. I found myself thinking back to each murder, each of those short moments where the killer went over how they’d planned and carried out each murder. It all made sense and was so brilliantly executed. The ending pages were some of the most memorable! I’d love this author to write more murder mystery style books, as I believe she’s a fantasy author too! But my god, more funny mysteries please! I know I have a few more of these kinda books to read over the festive season, so my first Christmas book of the year has just made me want to read loads more. If you love a festive mystery that is also a laugh a minute, you will adore this one! If you have any recs similar to this one, let me know and I will try and cram them in before the big day 🎅

Overall thoughts

12 Ways to Kill Your Family at Christmas was the festive whodunnit I needed in my life, sprinkled with a dark humour I just couldn’t get enough of! Olivia is spending one last unbearable Christmas with her husband’s awful family, before she, Miles and their two children make the move to Australia. But this is far from the family get together she’d imagined… The Weiss family members are found dead, one by one, in the most horrific (and very Christmassy) circumstances, and I was completely sucked in by the mystery, the fabulously flawed and intolerable characters and fun, light-hearted spin this author has perfected from start to finish. I loved the humour just as much as I loved the darker moments, I loved being constantly thrown off the scent as I tried my bloody hardest to pinpoint who the killer in this family was. And there is a final twist that I still can’t stop thinking about! The ending was so incredibly satisfying that I might actually go back and read the final few chapters again. Clever, twisty and oh so Christmassy…

Huge thanks to the author Natasha Bache, One More Chapter and Netgalley for my early copy! You can grab your copy of 12 Ways to Kill Your Family at Christmas right now on Amazon or wherever you buy your books. Make sure you’re following the author over on Instagram for more updates!

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