The Family

By: S. E. Green

Narrated by: Susan Marlowe

Nothing’s more important than family....

Leah
When Leah’s daughter, Nyla, unexpectedly appears at her cabin in the Appalachian Mountains, it’s a dream come true. For five years, Leah hasn’t seen or heard from her daughter—ever since Nyla stormed out of the house, determined to go live with her idealized father.

Now she’s back. But there’s something different about Nyla. Something…off. And it’s deeper than her unsettling appearance. As Leah struggles to reconnect with Nyla, she has more questions than answers. Where has she been? What happened to her? And more importantly, what is she hiding?

Nyla
Ever since her parents’ divorce, Nyla longed to live with her charismatic father, Paul, who’s the opposite of her frivolous and overbearing mother. So, at eighteen, after yet another argument with her mom, Nyla relocates to her dad’s place in rural Tennessee.

She immediately falls in love with the slightly run-down, self-sustaining farmhouse that her father shares with a mixed collective of likeminded individuals. Secluded from society and self-contained, it’s the simple life she’s always wanted. Before long, she’s encompassed in “the family,” where everything is shared and everyone does their part. It’s perfect.

Until Paul begins to govern with an ever-expanding list of rules...and punishments.

©2023 S. E. Green (P)2025 S. E. Green

I did not care for the narrator, no emotional inflection. Strange pronunciation.

Poorly developed story. Minimal description. Could’ve done a lot more with character development. I’m guessing this is a new author.

Enjoyable

A short read that kept you wanting to turn the page and not out it down.

Short but very good

This book was pretty short but the story was great. I couldn’t stop listening because I had to find out what happened. Narration was well done and I the two main characters were well developed. Stating the book was short is not a complaint because the author was able to fully develop the story and didn’t add a bunch of needless filler to make the story longer.

Excellent weekend read!

I truly enjoyed this fast-paced psychological thriller. The intertwining storylines and timelines were expertly constructed to flow and engage the reader until the final revelations.
Very good performance by the narrator.

Best story ever!

That was a story that can not be put down, I literally could not stop listening to this. It was so well told, the characters were so developed, and the reader had you fully under her spell!

Cults

A mother cautiously welcomes her adult daughter home. The bald, emaciated young woman who ran away to live with her father as a teen barely resembles the mother’s once rebellious daughter.

THE FAMILY is the story of a young woman’s escape from a cult run by her father. Told from the mother’s present POV and the daughter’s past POV readers are kept wondering what really happened.

While I enjoyed THE FAMILY, it wasn’t memorable. I finished the book 30 minutes ago, can’t remember the characters’ names and don’t care enough to look them up.

Horror

I listened to this book knowing it would be a quick listen but had no idea how much could be packed into such a short story. It makes me even more aware that cults and families can be dangerous things. Love plays such a large part in what makes these things work, whether it is for the good or the bad as Nyla's book of herbs was titled.